The winds of change
Wang Wei

MORE than three months after it became a republic, Nepal will hopefully have a new government soon, with the election for prime minister slated for August 15. The Constituent Assembly declared Nepal to be a “federal democratic republic” at its first meeting on May 28, ending the nearly 240-year-old Shah Dynasty as well as Nepal’s monarchy, which had ruled the Himalayan country on and off for more than 2,000 years. The new republic announced a three-day holiday, during which the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and other political parties staged celebrations. Most Nepalese people, however, spent the holiday at home with complex sentiments without feeling the joy of a “new birth.” Nepal began a new chapter in its history amid looming uncertainties. What led Nepal’s monarchy to its demise? What changes have taken place in the country? Why has it been plunged into a political deadlock? A review of the historic events in Nepal in the past three years provides a partial answer to these questions.
The fall of a dynasty
King Gyanendra dismissed the four-party coalition government and personally assumed state power on February 1, 2005. Nepalese kings have seized direct rule and expanded the powers of the royal family several times in Nepal’s history. King Gyanendra wanted to follow suit. Fed up with the corruption of government officials and the endless wrangling of political parties, the Nepalese gave their king a chance, as politicians and scholars debated the constitutionality of the move. But the king did not come up with any new initiatives. Instead, he marginalized the parties, ordered intensified military attacks against Maoist guerillas and failed to introduce major economic reforms.
One year later, Nepal’s economy and security showed no signs of improvement, leaving the Nepalese extremely disappointed. The cornered parties and Maoist guerillas formed an alliance in New Delhi to jointly lead a “people’s movement” against King Gyanendra’s rule. In April 2006, the king was forced to reinstate the parliament, bringing an end to his brief rule. The monarchy was deposed in May, as King Gyanendra was deprived of all his privileges. King Gyanendra was responsible for Nepal’s drastic social fluctuations. His unrealistic move to seize state power made it possible for the country’s two major political forces-the parties and Maoist guerillas-to become allies to dethrone the monarchy. The monarchy was doomed when the Constituent Assembly opened discussions on Nepal’s future political system. Not only did the Maoists stand firmly for abolishing the monarchy, the other parties also hoped to eliminate any chance for the king to restore monarchic rule. Some Nepalese observers believe that if a referendum were held, most Nepalese would choose to keep a ceremonial monarch as a symbol of national coherence and unity. Seeing their country’s longstanding monarchy consigned to history, the Nepalese are filled with mixed feelings. The monarchy, with its many eminent kings, contributed to Nepal’s national unity. Now that it has been scrapped, expectations for change are high among the Nepalese. They expect the republic to deliver real benefits. If it fails to do so, memories of the old monarchic days, which were certainly not good but still tolerable, could lead to calls for their return.
The rise of Maoists
The seven-party coalition and the Maoists established an interim government in April 2007. Its mission was to organize the election of the Constituent Assembly, which will draft a new constitution to determine Nepal’s future political system. The Constituent Assembly will also function as the interim parliament until the new constitution is adopted and a regular government installed. After being postponed in June and November last year, the Constituent Assembly election was held on April 10. Before the election, the Nepali Congress boosted its profile as it reunified with the Nepali Congress (Democratic). The Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) was confident about its influence among the Nepalese. It was so sure of a victory that it refused to enter into an alliance with the Maoists so as not to be tainted by their guerilla history. No analysts inside or outside Nepal were optimistic about the Maoists’ chances in the election.
To everybody’s surprise, the Maoists defeated most senior leaders of the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist). They won 220 out of the 575 elected seats in the Constituent Assembly, compared to 110 seats for the Nepali Congress and 103 seats for the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist). There is no doubt that the Maoists’ triumph should be attributed to their excellent preparations and publicity efforts and the efficient operations of the party’s grassroots organizations. But the most important reason is that it has abandoned its radical policies such as rejecting foreign investment and promoted the goals of improving people’s livelihoods and eradicating poverty, visions that are highly appealing to the war-torn, poverty-ridden Nepalese. Given the other major political parties’ poor performance during their terms in office, Nepalese voters decided to give the Maoists, who label themselves “a real nationalist party,” a chance to put their ideas into practice. Nevertheless, they had their reservations. While making the Maoists the single largest party in the Constituent Assembly, they did not give it the majority it needed to dominate Nepal’s politics. Political strife The parties soon found themselves embroiled in an increasingly fierce conflict over the presidential election and the formation of the new government. This, in addition to the intervention of external forces, resulted in a political stalemate from May 28 to July 19.
In the first stage, major political parties failed to reach a consensus on the nomination of presidential candidates. The Maoists maintained that they should hold both posts of president and prime minister. The Nepali Congress insisted that Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, the party’s president, should be the republic’s first president. The Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), however, recommended its former General Secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal. The three parties rejected all candidates from other parties. In the second stage, three Madhesi parties tabled a motion calling for the establishment of an autonomous region in south Nepal’s Terai Plains, which are populated by the Madhesi people of Indian origin. After the separatist motion was vetoed, Madhesi parliamentarians set about disrupting the meetings of the Constituent Assembly, rendering it unable to function for three weeks.
In the third stage, different parties carried out arduous negotiations over presidential candidates. The Maoists and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) reached an agreement on July 16 under which the Maoists would back Madhav Kumar Nepal for the presidency, while the latter would support the leader of the Maoists as prime minister of a new government to be formed by the two parties. As they jointly hold some 330 seats in the Constituent Assembly, the two left-wing parties, if united, could call the shots in Nepal’s political world. But their alliance failed to materialize because of intervention from their neighbor to the south, according to Nepalese media reports. On July 17, the Maoists announced that they would support Ramraja Prasad Singh, a Madhesi politician and leader of the Nepal Democratic Front, for president together with the three Madhesi parties. Several hours before the presidential election on July 19, however, the Nepali Congress, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) and the Madhesi People’s Rights Forum-which holds 54 seats in the Constituent Assembly and is the largest of the three Madhesi parties-decided to back Ram Baran Yadav, General Secretary of the Nepali Congress. The president was not elected that day because neither candidate won a clear majority. Two days later, Yadav was elected the first president of Nepal in the second round of the presidential election.
President Yadav’s primary task is to dissolve the interim government and oversee the establishment of a new government. There is reason to believe that the contention over the presidential election is a prelude to even fiercer political struggles in the future. While competing for the presidency, Nepal’s parties tended to change their positions and alliances based on their partisan interests, without showing political integrity. For example, before the presidential election, all major parties vied to court a party that was behind the Madhesi separatist motion several days earlier. Nepalese parties face an awkward situation as they try to form a new government. The Maoists not only lost the presidential election but have also seen their image as a nationalist, patriotic party erode. Despite its setback, the party that spent 10 years fighting to overthrow the monarchy will make every effort to regain the upper hand in the government forming process. Given the escalating power struggle at home and intervention by external forces, Nepal’s political prospects remain unpredictable.

—The Daily Mail-Beijing Review Articles Exchange Item

Road to nuclear disarmament
Ban Ki-Moon

WEAPONS of mass destruction and disarmament form one of the gravest challenges facing the world. One of my priorities as United Nations Secretary-General is to promote global public goods and remedies to challenges that do not respect borders. A world free of nuclear weapons is a global public good of the highest order. ?My interest in this subject stems partly from personal experience. My homeland, South Korea, has suffered the ravages of conventional war and faced threats from nuclear weapons and other WMD. But, of course, such threats are not unique to Asia. ?Despite a longstanding taboo against using nuclear weapons, disarmament remains only an aspiration.
So, is a taboo merely on the use of such weapons sufficient? ?States make the key decisions where nuclear weapons are concerned. But the UN has important roles to play. We provide a central forum in which states can agree on norms to serve their common interests. We analyse, educate, and advocate in the pursuit of agreed goals. ?Most states have chosen to forgo nuclear weapons, and have complied with their commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Yet some states view such weapons as a status symbol, and some view them as offering the ultimate deterrent against nuclear attack, which largely accounts for the estimated 26,000 that still exist. ?Unfortunately, the doctrine of nuclear deterrence is contagious, making non-proliferation more difficult and raising new risks that nuclear weapons will be used. ?The world remains concerned about nuclear activities in North Korea and Iran, and there is widespread support for efforts to address these concerns by peaceful means. There are also concerns that a “nuclear renaissance” is looming, with nuclear energy seen as a clean energy alternative at a time of intensifying efforts to combat climate change.
The main worry is that this will lead to the production and use of more nuclear materials that must be protected against proliferation and terrorist threats. The obstacles to disarmament are formidable. But the costs and risks of its alternatives never get the attention they deserve. Consider the enormous opportunity cost of huge military budgets.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, global military expenditures last year exceeded $1.3 trillion.
Ten years ago, the Brookings Institution published a study that estimated the total costs of nuclear weapons in the United States alone to be over $5.8 trillion, including future cleanup costs. By any definition, this is a huge investment that could have had many other productive uses. ?Concerns over nuclear weapons’ costs and inherent dangers have led to a global outpouring of ideas to breathe new life into nuclear disarmament. We have seen the WMD Commission led by Hans Blix, the New Agenda Coalition, and Norway’s Seven Nation Initiative. Australia and Japan have launched the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. Civil society groups and nuclear-weapon states have also made proposals, such as the Hoover Plan, spearheaded by Henry Kissinger. ?I would like to offer my own five-point proposal.
First, I urge all NPT parties, in particular the nuclear-weapon states, to fulfil their obligation under the treaty to undertake negotiations on effective measures leading to nuclear disarmament. They could agree on a framework of separate, mutually reinforcing instruments.
Or they could consider negotiating a nuclear-weapons convention, backed by a strong verification system, as has long been proposed at the UN. I have circulated to all UN members a draft of such a convention, which offers a good point of departure.
The nuclear powers should actively engage with other states on this issue at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, the world’s single multilateral disarmament negotiating forum. The world would also welcome a resumption of bilateral negotiations between the US and Russia aimed at deep and verifiable reductions of their arsenals. ?Governments should also invest more in verification research and development.
The United Kingdom’s proposal to host a conference of nuclear-weapon states on verification is a concrete step in the right direction. ?Second, the Security Council’s permanent members should begin discussions on security issues in the nuclear disarmament process. They could unambiguously assure non-nuclear-weapon states that they will not be subject to the use or the threat of use of nuclear weapons.
The Council could also convene a summit on nuclear disarmament. Non-NPT states should freeze their own nuclear-weapon capabilities and make their own disarmament commitments. ?Third, unilateral moratoria on nuclear tests and the production of fissile materials can go only so far. We need new efforts to bring the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty into force, and for the Conference on Disarmament to begin negotiations on a fissile material treaty immediately, without preconditions. ?I support the creation of the Central Asian and African nuclear-weapon-free zones, and strongly support efforts to establish such a zone in the Middle East. And I urge all NPT parties to conclude their safeguards agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and voluntarily to adopt the strengthened safeguards under the Additional Protocol. ?Fourth, the nuclear-weapon states often circulate descriptions of what they are doing to pursue these goals. But these accounts seldom reach the public. I invite the nuclear-weapon states to send such material to the UN Secretariat, and to encourage its wider dissemination. The lack of an authoritative estimate of the total number of nuclear weapons attests to the need for greater transparency. ?Finally, a number of complementary measures are needed. These include eliminating other types of WMD; new efforts against WMD terrorism; limits on the production and trade in conventional arms; and new weapons bans, including of missiles and space weapons. ?If there is real, verified progress on disarmament, the ability to eliminate the nuclear threat will grow exponentially. As we progressively eliminate the world’s deadliest weapons and their components, we will make it harder to execute WMD terrorist attacks. ?These proposals offer a fresh start not only on disarmament, but also on strengthening our system of international peace and security.

—Khaleej Times

Afghan widows not America’s enemy
Susan Retik

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001. The United States is attacked by terrorists. In the blink of an eye, 3,000 Americans are killed; my husband and the father of our three young children is among them.Americans wanted retribution. I wanted retribution.
But from whom? We are just now coming to terms with the fact that this is not as simple a question as it once seemed. Our declared enemy is not a country, or even a group; it is a tactic: terror. We have the most powerful military in history and our instinct is to fight, to “hunt them down” and “root them out”. We have all heard the rhetoric but these words still beg the question: how do we fight “them” when “they” are spread out all over the world with no identifying uniforms? They have no singular leader, no legitimate representatives with whom we can negotiate, and seem to be bound mostly by their common hatred for us. Though none were Afghan, some of the terrorists who attacked the United States were trained in Afghanistan. Furthermore, the Taleban government made it no secret that they were harbouring Osama bin Laden. Thus, the United States struck them hard and decisively, embarking upon the so-called “war on terror”.
As our war in Afghanistan progressed and the American people began learning about the horrible conditions caused by decades of wars fought on Afghanistan’s soil, I became increasingly interested in the Afghan people and, specifically, in the widows there. What I learned was eye-opening. Afghan women – and widows in particular — are among the poorest and most disenfranchised people in the world. Under Taleban rule, women were forced to wear burqas (garments that fully cover a woman’s body and head) and were not allowed to work. Girls were not allowed to attend school. Even after the Taleban’s defeat, life for women in Afghanistan remains bleak at best. According to the United Nations, 85 per cent of all Afghan women are illiterate and women’s wages remain about one-third of men’s. Women, especially in rural areas, can’t go out in public without a male relative accompanying them. There are about 50,000 widows in Kabul alone.
When an Afghan woman’s husband dies, his property is passed not to her, but to his family. How is she to survive? How will she provide for her children? The brutal truth is, without a husband, an Afghan woman may be forced to send her children to the streets to beg for money. These women, I realised, are not our enemy. They are victims of the same cruel terrorists who attacked us. And in many ways, they are paying a far heavier price. The support I received from my friends, family, community and government after 9/11 was enormous and overwhelming. But who was willing to offer help to the widows in Afghanistan? Struck by this question, in the fall of 2003, I co-founded ‘Beyond the 11th’, a non-profit organisation dedicated to helping widows affected by war and terrorism in Afghanistan. We achieve our vision by making grants to international non-governmental organisations with programmes designed to teach widows a trade so that they might become self-sufficient.

—Khaleej Times