Nepal’s abiding faith in SAARC
No foreign policy expert from either India or Nepal that this correspondent talked to believed India and Pakistan would go to a full-blown war, even as tensions have considerably risen following the terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir last week. “No doubt things are going to escalate. We do not know how India will retaliate,” says Brookings India’s Constantino Xavier (See interview this week). But “I do not see a possibility of war.”
Nepali analysts like Nishchalnath Pandey of the Center for South Asian Studies in Kathmandu, a private think-tank, and Indra Adhikari of the Institute of Foreign Affairs, a government one, also doubt there will be a large-scale war. What is interesting though is that all three analysts believe recent developments will further weaken SAARC, an organization that was already stuck in limbo after India refused to take part in the 2016 summit slated for Islamabad.
In Xavier’s reckoning, the mounting Indo-Pak tensions will naturally make India pursue alternative regional connectivity projects like BIMSTEC and BBIN that do not include Pakistan and downplay the utility of an organization like SAARC, which includes Pakistan, as “Pakistan has consistently blocked the way” to regional cooperation via SAARC. Xavier believes SAARC is not the only game in town.
Pandey has a slightly different take. “Yes, SAARC is already dysfunctional,” he says. “However, it has at least provided a platform for leaders of member countries to meet and have free and frank discussion.” Not just that. As Nepal is the current chair of SAARC, “it’s our responsibility to ensure that even at a time like this regional cooperation endeavors aren’t left in the doldrums”.
Adhikari of the IFA also rules out an all-out war. But she says pressure could mount on Nepal to pick sides. “Forced to make a choice, the sentiment will naturally be in favor of India,” she adds. “Nepal and India are treaty allies, our soldiers serve in the Indian army and we depend on India for so much.”
Yet she is confident that even in the event of a war, Nepal won’t be coerced to choose sides. “India never consulted us during its previous wars with Pakistan. There is no reason things should be different this time,” Adhikari says.
Unlike in India, there is still a huge constituency in Nepal that believes SAARC is still the best platform to deal with regional issues. As its current chair as well as the permanent host of its secretariat, Nepal will continue to fly the SAARC flag.
One year of the Oli government
It’s been a torrid one year for the KP Oli government. Having cemented the merger of the country’s two biggest communist outfits, and commanding over a two-thirds majority in the federal parliament, the government has created a semblance of stability in a notoriously turbulent polity. In theory, this should have helped attract the much-needed FDI and goaded our own businesses and industries to invest in job- and capital-creation. But with the federal government blasé about its woeful capital spending, despite the prime minister’s repeated assurance of swift and adequate infrastructure spending, the economy appears wobbly: there is a severe liquidity crunch in the BFIs, the trade deficit continues to tick up steadily, and economic growth has stalled. There has been no meaningful progress in big-ticket projects that PM Oli likes to talk about endlessly—rail-links with both India and China, water-link with India. The government has asked for patience as most of PM Oli’s first year in office was spent “laying the ground”. As proof, the prime minister on Feb 13 unveiled an unemployment allowance scheme and a day later, a ‘people’s hydroelectricity’ scheme. Yet there is no clear modality for either. Meanwhile, corruption has ballooned and the rule of law deteriorated. Press freedom is under threat. Transitional justice has been shelved, to potentially dangerous consequences.
Oli has tried to diversify Nepal’s foreign relations away from the two giant neighbors
On foreign policy, the government may claim success. Relations with India have been ‘normalized’ following the blockade-time low. The Oli government also seems to be in China’s good books. Further, it has tried to diversify Nepal’s foreign relations away from the two giant neighbors. As a part of this process, Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali made a landmark visit to the US, even though NCP co-chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s mistimed comments on the US intervention in Venezuela severely dented the US outreach.
To give it the benefit of the doubt, it was the first government formed under the new constitution and it has had to spend most of the past year formulating laws to make the federal formula work. Yet even on law-making, progress has been slow and there has been little consultation with the stakeholders. As it enters Year Two, the government will make another round of big promises to make up for lost time. Promising big things has always been a strong suit of PM Oli. It is in follow-through that he falters.
US treading on Maoist sensitivities
Both the sides are trying to dial it down. The Oli government has asked the US to differentiate between the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) and the coalition government the party leads. By calling on Prime Minister KP Oli on Feb 5, the US Ambassador to Nepal Randy Berry also gave a clear signal: while his country is still mightily displeased with the turn of events in Nepal around Venezuela, it is not in a mood to let this single issue spoil overall bilateral relations either. The ‘centrality’ of Nepal in the Indo-Pacific Strategy adds to the urgency of a quick dispute resolution.NCP co-chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s strong statement on the unfolding crisis in Venezuela came only a day after the UN and nine foreign embassies in Kathmandu came out with a strong statement of their own on transitional justice. In their Jan 24 statement the international community had called on Nepal’s government to ensure that conflict victims get timely justice, in line with the Supreme Court verdict. Four years ago, the apex court had ruled out a transitional justice mechanism that provided near ‘blanket amnesty’ in conflict-era rights violations.
Dahal and top leaders of the former Maoist party have always suspected what they see as the ‘needless intervention’ of western powers in Nepal’s transitional justice process. Perhaps their biggest fear is that they could be apprehended and jailed abroad under international jurisdiction. Dahal has already had to cancel some of his foreign engagements in fear of arrest. Interestingly, neither India nor China had signed the joint statement on transitional justice. With these two missing, the former Maoist leaders felt the initiative had to come from the US, the third most important foreign actor in Nepal.
On what many top Maoist leaders see a life-and-death issue, PM Oli is also in no position to backtrack from Dahal’s statement issued on the NCP letter-pad. This is also why Dahal has refused to back down either. As noted in this space last week, there were other reasons behind the communist government’s strong stand in favor of Venezuela, chiefly China (a big investor in Venezuela), Nepal’s perceived ‘centrality’ in the Indo-Pacific Strategy, and Oli’s yearning to assert himself on the global stage.
The whole episode was also a potent reminder of the risks of lingering on transitional justice, the third vital leg of the peace process after the management of the Maoist arms and army and constitution-writing.
The unfolding drama over Venezuela
The storm Nepal Communist Party Co-chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal kicked up by commenting on the internal politics of Venezuela refuses to die down. On Jan 23, the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself acting president of his country claiming that the incumbent President Nicolas Maduro had lost public faith. On the same day, US President Donald Trump recognized Guaidó as Venezuela’s president. Following this, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said time had come “for every other nation to pick a side… Either you stand with the forces of freedom or you’re in league with Maduro and his mayhem.”
On Jan 25, speaking on behalf of his party—when Prime Minister and NCP co-chairman KP Sharma Oli was in Davos—Dahal issued a strong statement on Venezuela. He termed Guaidó’s elevation as president and the prompt US recognition as “the grand design against the legitimately elected President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro and the Venezuelan people.” The statement also accused the US of “trying to create chaos and violence” in Venezuela, urging it instead to respect the UN principles of “non-interference, national sovereignty and peaceful coexistence”.
American officials in Kathmandu were nonplused. Was this the position of the NCP-led government of Nepal, the US Embassy wanted to know? Following this reaction, and endless speculations in popular media, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Jan 29 issued an ‘official statement’ saying “Nepal believes that internal political problems of a country need to be resolved within its constitutional parameters in a democratic manner, free from external interferences”. In other words, the government position is not much different to Dahal’s statement; the underlying message being that the ‘external interference’ of the US in Venezuela is unacceptable.
There are a few explanations for this. One, following the withering criticism of the Oli government for ‘agreeing’ to be a part of the US-led (and arguably anti-China) Indo-Pacific Strategy, the communist government felt the need to assert its independent status. Two, Nepal being pulled into the US strategic grouping would not have gone down well in Beijing, and the Oli government wanted to show it is far from an ‘American stooge’. It is also not a coincidence that Beijing is lending support to Maduro. The Chinese depend on him to protect their investments (now upward of $82 billion) in the Bolivarian republic.
Many have labelled Nepal government’s handling of the whole affair ‘immature’. ‘Calculated’ may be a better word.
