Nepal and the Asia Pacific Summit
It’s a mammoth undertaking. Around 1,500 delegates from 45 countries are taking part in the ‘Asia-Pacific Summit 2018’ being held in Kathmandu from Nov 30-Dec 3. Among the notable dignitaries will be Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Myanmar State Counsellor and Minister of Foreign Affairs Aung San Suu Kyi, senior BJP leader Vijay Jolly from India, and other Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim and Christian religious leaders. The event is being hosted by the Nepal chapter of the Universal Peace Federation (UPF), a New York-based INGO of South Korean origin. The UPF has five stated guiding principles: one, everyone belongs to one human family created by God; two, the highest qualities of human beings are spiritual and moral; three, the family is the school of love and peace; four, each person is created to live for others; and five, peace entails cooperation beyond ethnic, religious and national boundaries. With national chapters in nearly every country in the world, the UPA runs on voluntary donations. Impressive. But why is such a gigantic summit being held in Nepal, and by an organization most Nepalis had not even heard of? And what is the Nepal government’s role in it?
Why is such a gigantic summit being held in Nepal ?
The choice of the venue is not coincidental. There are few other countries in Asia-Pacific where an oft-controversial INGO can so easily rope in vital government officials, who have long grown accustomed to free all-expenses-paid foreign trips, often sponsored by INGOs like the UPF. That the UPF has friends in high places in Nepal is evident from the inclusion of senior ruling party leader Madhav Kumar Nepal as among the ‘welcoming party’ for the Kathmandu summit. This despite the suspicion that the UPF has been involved in evangelical activities in Nepal, something the communist government promises to tamp down.
Opposition parties have berated the government for its association with an organization with a questionable history in country, and have vowed to break the odd-even rule for vehicles imposed in lieu of the summit. There was another curious coincidence though. On the day the odd-even rule came into effect, yet another NGO-hosted international symposium, on Mahatma Gandhi, was being held in the Nepali capital. BJP heavyweights like ex-Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha and actor-turned federal MP Shatrughan Sinha were in attendance. With the government in a mood to tighten alcohol regulation, Nepal may not be able to lure in the targeted 20 million tourists come 2020. Its prospects as a host of high-profile international jamborees appears brighter.
The interminable wait of conflict victims
If there was ever a case of travesty of justice in Nepal, it has to apply to the victims of the decade-long Maoist insurgency. Fully 12 years after the signing of the landmark Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) on Nov 21, 2006, they continue on what increasingly appears like a futile quest for justice. On Nov 21 this year they came together to demand radical reforms in the two transitional justice bodies so that the actual victims, and not political leaders, are at the center of the transitional justice process. They were against extending the mandates of the two bodies: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP), both of whose extended tenures expire after three months. Again, their argument is that the laws governing these commissions were formed without their consent. If the government still refuses to heed their call, they have threatned to pursue an ‘alternative course of justice’. Having exhausted their legal options at home, they could seek justice at international forums. That will undoubtedly besmirch Nepal’s image abroad. It will also greatly complicate foreign travels of those linked to conflict-era rights abuses, including of some top political leaders.
Transitional justice is by no means easy, but nor were the two earlier legs
The conflict victims have a point. And some of their demands are reasonable and very implementable too. For instance they want formal apology for conflict-time rights violations from the side of the state, the Maoist leadership at the time of war as well as the leaders of major parties. Another demand is that the state take care of the children orphaned due to the war. It is clear that after years of fighting an uphill battle, the conflict victims are tiring, and they are desperately in search of some kind of closure, even if they have to make some unpalatable concessions in the process.
It is a tragedy that after showing the world how to successfully end a bloody conflict, and after promulgating the new constitution that institutionalizes the gains of the 2006 political movement, the political actors are dragging their feet on the third vital leg of the peace process: transitional justice. It is by no means easy, but nor were the two earlier legs. Tired they may be, but the hope of the political class that the conflict victims will in due course forget the injustice done to them is misplaced. So long as their voices are ignored another such conflict cannot be ruled out.
Madhesi parties set to mount a stiff challenge
Nepali politics tends to heat up after over a month-long festive season that starts with Dashain and ends with Chhath. This year it is the two largest Madhes-based parties that could cause the biggest ruction, and mount perhaps the first serious challenge to the mighty government of KP Sharma Oli. Numerically weak, they may not as yet be able to unseat Oli but they could make things rather dicey for him.PM Oli has time and again assured the Federal Socialist Forum Nepal (FSFN)—a part of the federal government Oli leads—and the Rastriya Janashakti Party Nepal (RJPN)—that supports the federal government but is not a part of it—that the constitution ‘should and will’ be amended as per their demands. He better do so, the two parties say, as only reason they supported his government was because of a credible assurance on amendment.
But seven-and-a-half months into Oli’s prime ministership there has been no headway on that front. Chief among the Madhesi parties’ demands are revision of provincial borders, amendment in citizenship clauses, proportional representation of Madhesis in state organs, and release of Madhesi cadres arrested during various protests. They also want RJPN’s Resham Chaudhary—who was elected to the federal lower house from Kailali district, but was barred from taking office after being accused of masterminding the killings of eight police officers during protests in 2015—sworn-in as a lawmaker.
None of these demands will be easy to meet. The constitution makes redrawing provincial boundaries a herculean endeavor; most in the ruling NCP party deem even current citizenship provisions for Madhesis lax; on proportional representation, NCP is under tremendous pressure not to ‘dilute’ the rights of the Pahades in the name of empowering Madhesis; and the entire police apparatus will resist swearing-in Chaudhary.
With the growing appeal of secessionist forces in Madhes, especially among its youth, token concessions from the NCP-led government will not cut ice. The two mainstream Madhesi parties fear irrelevance if they cannot wring out substantive constitutional changes from the federal government. But if the stalemate persists even after Chhath, it is not farfetched to imagine the two parties making common cause with extremists like CK Raut. In fact, there have been plenty of hints that they are contemplating this course.
As Oli strives to keep his own wrangling party in order he will have his task cut out managing the growing challenge from Tarai-Madhesh as well.
Challengers smell blood as Deuba looks to hang on
Electoral outcome and party leadership are closely tied in mature parliamentary democracies. If the party does well, the credit goes largely to the leader. If it does not, the leader assumes full responsibility and resigns. Perhaps there could be no better example of this than the case of the otherwise powerful British Prime Minister David Cameron resigning as the leader of the ruling Conservative Party after the Britons voted to leave the European Union (Cameron had made a strong pitch for staying.) In fact tradition dictates that among the two main British parties, the leader of the one that fares poorly in vital elections resigns. Not so in Nepal. It is hard to think of a single instance whereby the leader of Nepali Congress or the erstwhile CPN-UML, the country’s two main parties until recently, resigned after an electoral debacle. Most recently, Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba refused to accept responsibility for his party’s poor showing in the three tiers of elections in 2017, and sought to hang on through means fair and foul. This, coupled with the party’s failure as the main opposition and Deuba’s rule-by-fiat, has bolstered those in the party clamoring for change.
Those in the party calling on Deuba to make amends have gained a new voice ahead of the crucial meeting of NC Mahasamiti—the party’s second-most important decision-making body after the national convention—slated for the end of November. President Deuba is said to have repeatedly postponed the meeting as he feared his rivals would use the body to ‘gang up’ against him. He seems to have relented only after immense pressure from the party rank and file.
Deuba does not want to relinquish the top post. But at the next national convention in 2020 he is likely to get a tough competition from one of the scions of the powerful Koirala family, which has controlled the party for most of past 70 years. Also in the fray for party leadership will be veteran leaders like Ram Chandra Poudel and Krishna Prasad Sitaula. As much as Deuba hates having to step down—ever—the day of reckoning seems to be getting closer. In the meantime, at the upcoming Mahasamiti meet, he will try to tweak the party statute to further centralize decision-making. The goal is to amass enough pork to pass around for his future bid for another term as party president o
