Bharat Rakshak

Rye wrote:It is not surprising that the maosis do not like the pageant, but the problem is if they turn around and allow the chinese to run such pageants -- Prachanda needs to suffer personally if he tries such cr@p on India -- living off India's largesse and generosity -- while working with the chinese to screw over India.

I am not sure any treaty should be rewritten until Nepal gets a new constitution -- NOTHING should be renegotiated until Prachanda and the rest of the Nepalis create their constitution. Allowing Prachanda to withdraw from the 1950 treaty without settling the Nepali constitution issue is fraught with peril. It is openly creating a vaccum for the chinese to fill -- Prachanda needs to be told that his visit to china first gave India all the signal it needed.

The new U.S. embassy in Kathmandu occupies the grounds of a former CIA safe house and operations center in the Nepali capital. The embassy, in the Maharajgunj district of Kathmandu, is a one-block long fortress-like structure and the subject of derision among the Nepali people. The embassy is built along Stalinesque architectural standards now common with new U.S. embassies around the world: stark, rectangular structures that convey the notion that the United States is an impenetrable fortress that is closed to the outside world.

A drive-by of the embassy did not afford the opportunity to take a photograph of the monolithic building because the embassy frontage is well protected by Nepali contract security personnel.

WMR has spoken to a number of informed Nepali and foreign sources who confirmed that espionage has been and is the number one priority of the American diplomatic mission in Nepal’s capital. The current U.S. ambassador is Nancy Powell, who one Nepali official described as “weird.” Powell has done nothing to convince the Bush administration to drop its designation of the Maoist Communist Party that now governs Nepal in a coalition with two other Communist parties, as a “terrorist organization.”

There is widespread belief among the intelligence community that the Bush administration may try to carry out another massacre like the one its helped to plan and carry out against the royal family in 2001. This time, former Maoist People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of Nepal is being disarmed with a plan to integrate it with the Nepali Army and Police. In the meantime, the PLA have been directed to containment camps supervised by the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), which is now trying to slow the military integration process, as well as delaying the process of writing a new constitution for Nepal. The stalling action by the UN and UNMIN head Ian Martin, against the backdrop of the U.S.-Indian nuclear deal, may be a prelude for another coup in Nepal, one designed by the United States to destabilize a country that sits between China and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). In the event of a coup, the disarmed PLA ranks would be sitting ducks for a massacre similar to the bloody anti-Communist purge in Indonesia in the 1960s, carried out by the Indonesian government with the support of the CIA.

The new U.S. embassy was built without Nepali contractor assistance. Instead, the State Department contracted to have construction personnel brought in from Turkey, Kazakhstan, and Egypt, driving up labor costs because the foreign workers were housed in some of Kathmandu’s most expensive hotels.

The embassy is built on the grounds of the Brahma Cottage, a center for the operations of the CIA’s and State Department’s joint Surveillance Device Unit. The CIA contracted with Nepali contractors to carry out surveillance of the palace of the then-Prince Gyenendra and Nepal Police Headquarters. Gyanendra became King after the June 1, 2001, regicidal coup d’etat against the royal family, which saw Gyanendra accede to the throne. The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and its coalition partners later deposed Gyanendra and declared a new Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal.

The Brahma Cottage CIA center, which was next door to Gyanendra’s palace, was also used by the CIA to plan the regicide and coup d’etat with the assistance of former Nepali police officers and the cooperation of India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). The old U.S. embassy was across the street from Brahma Cottage.

In September 2002, this editor wrote, “In the months leading up to the Nepali coup, the CIA established an office in the Maharajgunj District of Kathmandu, next door to the residence of Prince Gyanendra. Witnesses reoprtedly saw streams of Nepali police and military officials streaming into the offices. Other U.S. ‘civilians,’ said to be with private military contractor CIA fronts like MPRI, were also seen arriving at the offices. In the spring, a U.S. Special Operations Forces team arrived in Kathmandu on a secret exercise code-named Bailey Nightingale I. The cover for the exercise was said to be earthquake disaster training. But it now appears it had another disaster in mind. The military team was composed of U.S. psychological operations (PSYOPs) personnel adept at coming up with tales like the one about the Crown Prince murdering his family.”

Crown Prince Dipendra was reported to have shot his entire family in a pique of rage over a his choice of a bride. The BBC report of the incident exemplified the psyop used to spread the word about the Crown Prince killing his family: “The King and Queen of Nepal have been shot dead after the heir to the throne went on the rampage with a gun before turning it on himself. Eleven people died in the incident which started when Crown Prince Dipendra allegedly had a dispute with his mother over his choice of bride. King Birendra, Queen Aishwarya and Prince Niranjan were among the victims of the tragedy at the royal palace in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu. The other victims included three of the King’s children, his two sisters and one more member of the family by marriage.” The report by the BBC, which increasingly acts as an echo chamber for British intelligence, was false.

However, a senior Nepali intelligence officer told WMR that Dipendra did not kill himself but was shot to death by a royal guard. There is reason to believe that Dipendra was the first person shot in the royal massacre.

The CIA’s involvement in Nepal’s covert operations is nothing new. From 1956 to 1962, the CIA ran a Tibetan exile Khampa guerrilla army that launched attacks within Tibet from bases in the small kingdom of Mustang, a principality in Nepal on the northern border with Tibet. After India lost its two wars with China in the early 1960s, the CIA reactivated its Tibetan guerrilla army to open a front against China, which was militarily supporting North Vietnam and the Vietcong, in Operation Shadow Circus.

In August 1974, the CIA ordered the liquidation of its last Tibetan guerrilla army leader Wangdu Gyatotsang and his men after Secretary of State Henry Kissinger began opening up to China and, in a Ribbentropian policy, began cutting loose U.S. allies in Southeast Asia and gave approval to India’s swallowing up of the Kingdom of Sikkim. According to intelligence sources, the CIA received the approval of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India in using other Tibetan contractors to eliminate the last Tibetan guerrilla army. The CIA was more concerned about its secret operations in Mustang becoming public than in protecting its own guerrilla forces.

In 1987, the CIA’s station in Kathmandu oversaw the burglary of the German Democratic Republic’s embassy in Kathmandu. According to a Nepali intelligence official, among the items taken from the embassy were code books, encryption machines, and classified documents. The operation was carried out with the assistance of the First Secretary of the East German embassy and a Nepali police inspector. Both were spirited out of Nepal and given political asylum in the United States.

Documentarian Yoichi Shimatsu, in his film “Prayer Flags,” points out that the CIA continued to use Nepal as a base for its covert operations throughout the 1990s when it used the guise of installing seismographic and geological monitoring systems to place surveillance systems and sensors at high elevations in the Himalayas.

The new Maoist-led government of Nepal has told Mustang’s powerless and nominal king, Jigme Parwat Bista, that his small principality was being abolished, along with the other three small kingdoms of Salyan, Jajarkot, and Bajhang. However, Bista was not a supporter of the last king, Gyanendra, according to informed sources in Kathmandu. His kingdom’s past support for the CIA’s operations against China has resulted in “blowback” in his kingdom being abolished by Nepal’s Maoist government.

The CIA’s old Nepal proprietary airline, Fishtail Air, founded by a veteran of Camp Walker in Seoul, South Korea, still flies around Nepal.

Nepal also served as a terror nexus between individuals connected to the CIA in Kathmandu and the Dawood Ibrahim criminal syndicate that carried out the March 12, 1993 bombings of the Bombay Stock Exchange, Bombay hotels, cinemas, and shopping centers that killed over 300 people. The bombings were a reprisal for the destruction of the Babri Mosque at Ayodhya by Hindu extremists. Over two thousands Muslims, including women and children, were massacred by rampaging Hindus after the mosque’s destruction. Ibrahim is now believed to be hiding in Pakistan.

Currently, the U.S. embassy in Kathmandu continues to conduct covert operations against China, mostly through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and Trace Foundation, a Tibetan support group run by Andrea Soros Colombel, and funded by her father, George Soros. The recent outbreak of violence in Tibet by pro-independence Tibetans was an attempt at fomenting yet another “colored themed” revolution by Soros, a one-time Hungarian Jewish Nazi and not the first Nazi to have an interest in the Himalayan region where swastika religious symbol is ubiquitous.

The Trace Foundation is working with one of the Buddhist Tantric sects that has the aim of revealing the Kalachakra prophecy, which predicts a final global war between the forces of good versus a future Islamic Mahdi. A Buddha-type figure is foreseen as returning as a new Messiah. This construct is similar to the neocon “Clash of Civilizations” that sees a final showdown between the West and Islam. The Trace Foundation is trying to co-opt the old messianic Buddhist tradition to unify major world religions to install a global government, according to a specialist who has followed Soros’ activities in Tibet and Nepal.

Note No. 478
4-Nov-2008

NEPAL: PLA Integration Continues to be a Contentious Issue: Update No. 175

By Dr. S. Chandrasekharan.

The most critical factor confronting Prachanda’s government is the issue of integration/rehabilitation of PLA personnel. On this there are not only differences within the coalition partners, but also within the Maoist party itself. The opinion varies from total mass integration with the Nepalese Army, to selective integration and absorption in other para military units already existing or to be created for the specific purpose or total rehabilitation of all the personnel outside the army.

The mandate of UNMIN will also be over by the end of the year and before it leaves some decision has to be taken on the disposal of arms deposited by the PLA in the camps under the joint supervision of the UN and the PLA. The UN Secretary General who visited Kathmandu last week indicated that he would have no objection in extending the term if need be.

There are 32,250 Maoist cadres registered in 28 cantonments. Of these only 19,692 are eligible to be treated as combatants. The rest continue to be in the camps without any payment being made to them. In the final analysis, the government will also have to take the responsibility of these people also.

It is also known that quite a number of deserters of the Nepalese Army (estimated to be over 12,000) are also in the cantonments. The Army leadership has not talked about this and no body knows as to how many deserters are in the camps, but some decision will have to be taken on these people too.

With the increase in allowances by Rs 2000 to all the eligible personnel in the camps the economic condition of the PLA personnel has improved. Living conditions in the camps are also better now.

But the personnel in the camps with no work to do and with their future uncertain, cannot be allowed to languish indefinitely. Some quick decision will have to be taken on their rehabilitation and integration. The cantonments will also have to be dismantled sooner than later.

After much delay and internal wrangling, Prachanda’s government established a high powered five member special committee to work on the integration and rehabilitation of the PLA. Bam Dev Gautam, the Home Minister belonging to UML has been made the chairman, with one member each from the MJF and the Nepali Congress as members. The CPN (M) is being represented by two of its stalwarts- the Defence Minister Badal and Janardhan Sharma, the latter as the coordinator. Prachanda was said to be very keen to get Sharma alias Prabakar as the coordinator in the committee.

The Nepali Congress has declined so far to nominate a member from the party for the committee on the ground that the party was not consulted in the formation of the committee or in the terms of reference given to the committee. It is learnt that even Madhav Nepal is upset over the formation of the committee which he feels has been unilaterally done by the Maoists.

The MJF has nominated Prof. Mohammed Habibullah as its representative.

The terms of reference given to the committee are that it should prepare a report for "rehabilitation and integration of all Maoist PLA personnel in the Nepalese Army and suggesting alternative solutions."

It means that the committee can choose alternative avenues for the PLA personnel and not necessarily the PLA. This is not only a realistic approach but a doable one. Prachanda in one of his statements more or less agreed with this approach, but he is being vehemently opposed by his other colleagues including the Defence Minister Badal.

Badal’s statement should be cause for concern. At one point he said that new ‘standards’ should be applied in the matter of integration of PLA into the National Army. On 31st August he declared that a new national army will be formed after army integration. He connected this to the peace process itself and said that the integration will be done on the basis of a new national policy.

Other senior Maoist leaders whose opinions matter have opposed selective integration.

Kiran alias Mohan Baidya perhaps the senior most member of the party after Prachanda ( we ignore for the present the internal differences within the party over the rise of Baburam Bhattarai) is opposed to individual integration. In an interview he said that PLA integration is a critical issue and that the party is in no mood to budge "even an inch" from its insistence of bulk integration though it does not mind smaller sections being adjusted.

Similar views were expressed by another senior member C.P. Gajural. He said that all verified combatants should be integrated with the Nepalese Army. He also added that the seniors in the PLA who have proved their worth in the battles with the Nepalese army and who hold high positions in the PLA should be given similar positions in the Nepalese Army. If there is reluctance of the Nepal Army to take them in higher position for their lack of skills and training, they seem to be planning to seek help from China. The Government is said to be sending Pasang the present PLA Commander to China for training at the National Defence Institute- the institution meant for training of PLA ( Chinese) officers of the Brigadier General level.

The Chinese interest in Badal is also noticed elsewhere. Badal during his visit to Beijing on 26th September was offered military assistance of Rs 100 million to Nepal by their Defence Minister Liang Guanglie. The Chinese offer to Badal by the Defence Minister is very intriguing. The amount is small and is perhaps symbolic. But then why should the offer be made to the Defence Minister directly? To me it looks that the Chinese have a mischievous intent.

More intriguing is his overnight visit to Khasa along with another minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara and two other central committee members during puja holidays. The military attache of the Chinese embassy is also said to have accompanied the party to TAR.

The opposition particularly the Nepali Congress claims that the nation cannot afford to have ideologically brain washed people in the regular army. They further allege that the aim of the Maoists is to have political and ideological control over the military and a decisive say in the command structure.

Major opposition on bulk integration has come from the Nepalese Army. Surprisingly they have not been consulted on this issue or represented in the high-power Special Committee. They contend that any solution to the integration should be within the 12 point agreement, Interim Constitution and Comprehensive Peace Accord of November 26, 2006. The last one talks generally of setting up of a special cabinet committee for oversight, integration and rehabilitation.

The Nepalese Army is not willing to accept that it is a defeated Army. This is true also and the major problem is that the PLA of the Maoists thinks that it is a victorious army! The Army contends that induction of politically indoctrinated combatants into an apolitical national army will weaken it and is not in the interest of Nepali democracy.

Gen. Katuwal, the Army Chief has suggested four options for the combatants- 1. Send them for foreign employment 2. Send them to school or college 3. Engage them in national building tasks and 4. Employ them in Nepal Police, Armed Police Force and in the Nepalese Army.

He is not against taking some in the Army so long as the combatants have the requisite skills and come up to the criteria laid down for various ranks.

Prachanda is in a difficult situation as the opposition for "dispersed induction" comes both from other coalition partners like the MJF and UML as also from Nepali Congress, but also from his own seniors who wield considerable clout within the party!

It is still possible to work out a mutually acceptable solution so long as those opposed to his plan are not too rigid.

Four senior Maoists, including three Ministers, made a secret overnight overland visit to the Chinese border escorted by the Military Attaché of the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu for discussions with Chinese PLA and wrote it off as going for a picnic during Tihar festival. Scholars from Chinese think-tanks have been telling their Nepali counterparts that they fear India would try to do a Sikkim in Nepal. A number of Chinese study Centres are coming up in the Terai and the mid hills just as the ISI in earlier times helped in the construction of mosques and madarsas. The Chinese are taking over trekking companies in the Pokhara valley which will give them unrestricted access to sensitive Indian Army Gorkha recruiting areas. The Chinese have sent feelers about recruiting Nepalis into the PLA just as they join the Indian and British Armies.

Emboldened by the Maoist rise to political power, the current commander of Maoist combatants, Mr Nand Kishore Pun Pasang, has staked his claim to the post of the Army Chief. All the right noises are being made by the Maoists on integration. An Army Integration Special Committee, backed by a technical committee, has been established to evolve in four months a suitable plan for integration and rehabilitation in accordance with a 20-point terms of reference which the Nepali Congress says is at variance with the earlier Seven-Point Agreement of the Seven-Party Alliance. It has threatened to block proceedings in the Constituent Assembly unless the anomalies of the AISC are rectified.

Sitaula predicts grave risk if govt goes ahead with army integration

Continuing with his party's official line, Nepali congress leader Krishna Prasad Sitaula on Wednesday said that Maoist combatants shouldn't be integrated into Nepal Army (NA) under any circumstances, warning that the country may face grave risk if something like that is done
Speaking at a 'tea-party' organised by NC's youth wing Tarun Dal in Kalaiya of Bara district, the former home minister who was one of the peace negotiators during the NC-led interim government, talked against attempts to induct the politically indoctrinated army of a party into NA.
He also blamed the government of increasingly growing irresponsible towards its duties, and cited example to its apathy towards it main task of establishing sustainable peace and drafting a new constitution.
Sitaula is in a whirl-wind visit of Terai districts on "National Awareness Campaign for Peace, Democracy and Formation of new constitution" organized by his party.

Army integration as per peace pact: Minister Bhattarai

In what appears to be a remark made to take parties opposed to army integration process into confidence, Finance Minister Dr Babu Ram Bhattarai on Wednesday said that the merger of Maoist PLA with Nepal Army will not take place in violation of the Comprehensive Peace Accord signed between the seven-party alliance and the Maoists.

Speaking to reporters at Biratnagar Airport, Minister Bhattarai, who is considered no.2 leader inside the Maoist party, said that nobody has the right to talk against the peace pact, including those from inside his own party.

“Action would be taken against those from inside our own party who are found speaking against the peace pact,” he said, indirectly hinting at the inflammatory remarks made by some senior Maoist leaders against the peace accord and with whom he is going through a deep power tussle.

Prachanda’s daughter battles cancer in India
November 13th, 2008 - 3:37 pm ICT by IANS -
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/wor ... 18546.html
Kathmandu, Nov 13 (IANS) Even as Nepal’s Maoist Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda attends the second BIMSTEC Summit in New Delhi, few know that his eldest child is fighting cancer in India.Gyanu KC, the eldest of four siblings, is receiving treatment for breast cancer in Mumbai’s Tata Memorial Hospital and Cancer Research Institute.

Married as a teen in 1993, three years before her father unleashed the People’s War against the state, Gyanu accompanied her husband, Arjun KC, to Jalandhar in Punjab.

Teen marriages have been the norm rather than exception in Prachanda’s family. He himself was married when only 15. “His mother was ill and we needed someone to cook and look after the family,” Prachanda’s father Muktiram Dahal told IANS.

Later, however, Prachanda’s wife Sita Poudel rose to become an advisor to the Maoist party.

Gyanu and her husband, who have two daughters, Shrishti and Drishti, live in India where both of them work full time for the Maoist party that laid down arms and joined mainstream politics two years ago.

Arjun KC is also a member of Nepali Janadhikar Suraksha Samiti, an NGO that works to protect the rights of Nepali migrants in India.

Around October, when Nepal celebrated its biggest festival Dashain, Gyanu had visited her parents in Kathmandu, her younger sister Renu, currently a lawmaker in Nepal’s interim parliament, told IANS.

“Her condition is better,” Renu said.

While the 10-year communist insurgency is now well documented, little was known about the personal life of the man who led it and lived underground with a price on his head for almost two decades.

The first personal biography of Prachanda written by Indian journalist Anirban Roy and published this year, highlights the former revolutionary’s close personal links to India.

One of Prachanda’s sons-in-law is Indian.

Prachanda’s third daughter Ganga, who now lives in Kathmandu and was recently described by a Nepali magazine as a member of her father’s kitchen cabinet, is married to Narayan Vikram Pradhan, son of Badri Narayan Pradhan, veteran leader of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and a former Rajya Sabha MP.

A year after the armed revolt started in Nepal, Prachanda, worrying for the safety of the three younger children who were living underground with their parents - daughters Renu and Ganga and son Prakash - decided to marry off the two teenaged daughters at the same time.

In February 1997, the two daughters were married at Hotel Lila in downtown Lucknow in India’s Uttar Pradesh state in a simple ceremony.

After the marriage, Renu and her husband Arjun Pathak went to live in Jalandhar while Ganga and her groom went to Siliguri.

Now, however, only Gyanu and her family live in India.

Prachanda’s family has a history of cancer. His mother Bhawani Pathak died of cancer

Nepal rejects India’s plea for sky marshals

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/stor ... IsSU=&SEO=

Manan Kumar
First Published : 14 Nov 2008 06:00:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 14 Nov 2008 09:53:44 AM IST

NEW DELHI: Fearing a repeat of Kandahar kind of hijack, India has made a strong plea to the Nepal government for deployment of sky marshals on all Kathmandu bound flights.

It has also offered Nepal to open a security counter manned by the elite Central Industrial Security Force for checking and screening of baggage at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport.

However, Nepal, wary of the bad publicity the move can bring about internationally and hit its tourism industry, has politely turned down the offer.

Their refrain was that this would create unnecessary alarm about Nepal and affect their tourism industry that has already taken a hit because of a Maoist led government, said sources.

Instead, it has offered Delhi all the help needed to weed out terrorists from its soil and increase vigil and security check at the airport.

The silver lining for Indian security agencies is that Nepal has promised to look into the possibilities of installing and using equipment supplied by India for screening and checking passengers and baggage.

“They have also promised to get back to us for training of their personnel to man the airport effectively.

If they agree, we would be more than happy to train their personnel on security aspects and anti-hijacking techniques," said a source.

The infamous Kandahar hijack of IC 814, a Delhi bound Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu, occurred on the eve of Christmas in 1999.

The flight was hijacked by five masked men who had managed to smuggle on board guns, knives and grenades and held all the 189 passengers and crew captive to get out of Indian air space.

The hijack drama finally ended after six days of agony on December 31 with India bartering three dreaded terrorists to free the hostages.

Sources in the government told to this website's newspaper that the Indian request was made to Nepal’s Home Secretary Gobinda Prasad Kusum during his recent parleys with Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta here.

“The request was made as the security threat assessment shows an increased presence of Pakistan’s ISI and anti-India terrorist outfits such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and HuJI in Nepal who are suspected of planning something big to bring back their agenda on the international platform,” said a source.

The differences between Prachanda and Maoist hardliners like Mohan Vaidya surfaced after the latter presented his political document on "People's Republic", claiming that Prachanda's views on the issue lacked clarity.

A crucial meeting of the Central Working Committee of the CPN-Maoist on the issue, which was briefly held at Bharatpur near in Kathmandu on Monday, was postponed till Wednesday.

"We have postponed the meeting till Wednesday as further time was required to study both documents (of Vaidya and Prachanda) to start formal discussions" on the issue, senior Maoist leader and chief of party's Foreign Department C P Gajurel, a confidant of Vaidya, said.

Party insiders said the central meeting was postponed in a bid to sort out differences between Prachanda and Vaidya, who were locked in a debate over whether to adopt North Korea like People's Republic immediately or to consolidate Democratic Republic established through Nepal's People's Movement II.

Political observers claimed that the hardliner Maoist leaders' move to immediately pursue People's Republic would help regressive forces and undermine democratic process.

The hardliners' move to establish a Communist Republic in the name of People's Republic would nourish regressive and anti-democratic forces, senior advocate Dinesh Tripathi said.

This would derail the whole peace process and also obstruct the Constitution drafting, he warned. "We need a Constitution based on liberal democratic values." Tripathi said international community and civil society should be watchful regarding the matter.

Rye wrote:So it looks like Prachanda is actually pro-India, but his ex-maoist comrades are heavily invested into supporting China -- they want to create a "Peopre's Lepubric" as soon as possible.

Soft spot for China caused my downfall: Gyanendra

Sudeshna Sarkar | Kathmandu

Almost five months after he surrendered his crown, left his ancestral palace and began to lead a low-profile life, Nepal’s deposed King Gyanendra is reported to have said that his China card brought his downfall, indicating that it was a move that angered India. Gyanendra, the last king of Nepal, whose failed coup in 2005 triggered an anti-monarchy wave and led to an election that axed the nation’s 239-year-old monarchy, was on Wednesday reported as saying that his proposal at the SAARC regional bloc to include China caused things to go against him.

“Everybody knows that China wanted to sit on the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) as an observer,” the ousted king reportedly told, the editor of Nepali weekly Rastriya Sanjal.

“I tabled that proposal (on Beijing’s behalf) at SAARC and since then, things started going against me.”

Without naming India, Nepal’s other giant neighbour, the last king indicated that the action angered New Delhi, which subsequently began opposing his Government and promoted the movement for the abolition of monarchy and establishing a republic in Nepal. The reported admission comes at a time when China has sent its Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi to Nepal to court the new Government headed by the former king’s arch enemy, the Maoists, who fought a 10-year war for the fall of the crown.

In March 2005, a month after the king’s ill-advised coup, China was one of the few foreign countries that decided to cultivate good relations with the royal regime. The then Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing visited Kathmandu and Beijing decided to supply arms to the Nepal army to battle the Maoists.

Nepali weekly Jana Aastha, which reported the conversation between the former king and a Nepali editor on Wednesday, also said that Gyanendra drew a parallel between the Maoist insurgency that had racked Nepal during his reign and the terror attacks in Mumbai that left 183 people dead.

“I had said that terrorism had no boundary but nobody listened to me,” said the former king, who had justified his coup on the ground that it was intended to fight Maoist terrorism and restore peace in Nepal. “That’s what happened in India,” Gyanendra reportedly said.

Now said to be engaged in writing his memoirs, the commoner-king said he surrendered power in April 2006 as the Nepali people did not like his rule. The same people, he added, would also not favour the ruling Maoist party’s attempt to turn the country into a communist republic.

PRC doing a Tibet on Nepal is not unthinkable anymore at this juncture, seems like.

Two days after Beijing's foreign minister ended his stay in Nepal, China dispatched a military mission to Kathmandu headed by the deputy chief of its army, Lieutenant General Ma Xiotian. At a meeting with Nepal's defense minister on Sunday, the Chinese official pledged to provide the Nepal army with some non-lethal equipment and training facilities. Earlier, the visiting foreign minister had separately agreed to make an aid offer that would involve carrying out developmental activities.

It is the porous, uncontrolled border between Nepal and India where security concerns of both India and China are focused. Beijing wants Nepal to effectively regulate the border so that Tibetan exiles in India cannot easily sneak into Nepal. India too complains that Pakistani agents frequently abuse the Nepal-India border, but surprisingly it opposes the idea of regulating it, saying that an open frontier is a symbol of the close and unique relations that New Delhi and Kathmandu enjoy. This contradictory Indian position has been the stumbling bloc for keeping Nepal's territory safe and secure, as it could help assure both neighbors that Nepali soil would not be allowed for misuse or abuse by any quarter.

"According to sources, during one Ram Navami celebration (in the past) renowned Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan's family offered a special worship at the shrine for four hours," the daily said.

"The chief (Indian) priest and Bachchan's family sat inside the temple for four hours while all four gates of the shrine remained shut. During that time, not a single Nepali devotee was allowed to go inside."

The daily added that "soon after that, Nepal's media reported that priceless gems at the temple were missing".

But Hindus in India aren't as patient. They have held demonstrations in front of the Nepal Embassy in New Delhi and elsewhere; television pictures have shown angry crowds burning effigies of Prachanda. The first high-profile Indian to return home without visiting the temple was Mulayam Singh Yadav, leader of the country's Samajwadi Party. He was in the capital this week as a personal guest of Nepal's president. {Huh, why is this character a personal guest of the Nepali prez? Whgatever's cooking here can't be good for India, I fear.}

Indian Hindu nationalist leader Lal Krishna Advani took up the issue publicly on Tuesday, saying how "deeply distressed" he was by the ongoing controversy. He also expressed unhappiness over the way incumbent Indian priests were being treated.

Earlier, his Bharatiya Janata Party had published a statement claiming that the controversial action had "hurt the sentiments of people in India". Official India, however, has remained quiet, which is understandable because of the country's constitutionally-secular status. Besides, Congress party president Sonia Gandhi, whose Italian origins enter public debate every now and then, may not have a particular interest in the temple, given she was barred from visiting on an earlier visit to Nepal with her husband, then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

The masses appear unwilling to accept Maoists as the trustees of the Hindu religion. Prachanda's refusal to take the oath of prime minister in the name of god is cited as an example of the party's atheist character. {Why isn't 'god' capitalized? Yindoos are children of lesser god onlee, I surmise, heh heh}The other relevant point members of the public often make is that since communists consider religion as opium, the Maoists' sudden concern and sympathy for Hindus is absurd and hollow. If the communists worship anything at all, it would be the portraits of Karl Marx, Mao Zedong, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.

What Maoists have done, as was admitted by an official of the temple trust, was to randomly choose priests from among their cadres. Credible media reports said the Indian priests did not quit on their own accord, but were compelled to resign.

To make matters worse, the priests the Maoists appointed did not know the precise manner of how the rituals, prescribed by the first shankaracharya (temple head), have to be carried out inside the temple. In his book on Pashupatinath, writer Govinda Tandon explained why the tradition of hiring priests from southern India was set in motion 300 years ago. {wow. Pashupatinath was visited by Adi shakanracharya? Thats news to me...That great soul long ago foretold the eternal borders of sanaatanam would lie between the 4 dhaams and IIRC Pashupatinath ain't one of the 4}

"Catholics go to the Vatican to see the pope; nobody bothers whether he is from, Germany or Poland,” Sharat Chandra Wasti, an associate professor of Sanskrit studies, told Asia Times Online. Similarly, Muslims go to Mecca, not to a political entity called Saudi Arabia, he added.

Wasti, who has spent considerable time doing research on the temple, posed another challenging question to Maoists: can their government appoint clergies in Nepal's mosques and churches as well? No, they cannot. Clearly, Maoists are taking undue advantage of the high level of tolerance that exists among Hindus. Wasti even suspects that the Maoists have eaten pecuniary bait thrown by some non-Hindu groups aiming to secure mass conversions.

Kathmandu, March 30: Coming out with a new theory on the 2001 Palace Massacre, ex-Nepal king Gyanendra's son Paras has claimed that crown prince Dipendra was not drunk during the killing and a thwarted major arms deal from which he had hoped to gain a "windfall" may be the "real trigger".

In an interview to The New Paper of Singapore, the former crown prince, known for his flamboyant lifestyle and playboy character, said the royal family's opposition to Dipendra's affair with Devyani Rana was only one of the three reasons for the killing -- the other two being craze for money and power.

According to 37-year-old Paras, his cousin's advisors had been working on a multi-million dollar arms deal, which could have brought the crown prince a "windfall". It would have been Dipendra's golden parachute to freedom, he said.

"The Nepali Army was looking for a new weapon to replace the Belgian SLR. Dipendra liked the German Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifle, as opposed to the battle-tested Colt M16," said Paras. "But his father, His Majesty, did not agree. I know that they argued over it. Dipendra was frustrated. He wasn't happy. He told me."

"That, to me, was the real trigger (for the massacre)," Paras told the paper.

Maoists trying to establish totalitarian system: Koirala

Nepali Congress President Girija Prasad Koirala has charged the Maoist government of trying to implement their totalitarian policy in parliament, army force and judiciary.
Speaking at the face to face programme with journalists in Parsa Saturday morning, Koirala said the Maoists have interfered into the business of these three organs of the country in their mission to end democratic system.
He however called for political consensus to tackle the increasing instability and chaos, adding failure of the parties to combat the present turmoil jointly would lead to increased foreign intervention into international affairs.
In another context, Koirala claimed Reporters Club Nepal president Rishi Dhamala was trapped by a Maoist conspiracy and demanded for his immediate release. nepalnews.com ia Apr 04 09

http://www.nepalnews.com/archive/2009/a ... news06.php

Foster: PLA fate in people’s hand

KAILALI, April 2 - British Minister for International Development Mike Foster inspected the seventh division main camp of the Maoist People's Liberation Army (PLA) at Talbanda on Wednesday.

Speaking at a press meet in Nepalgunj earlier, Foster said Nepali people should decide the future of People's Liberation Army combatants.

Meanwhile, Foster, on Wednesday announced additional Rs. 460 million support under the World Food Programme.
http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?nid=187480

"All we are asking is that police escort us to the Indian border," said Sawant, who received head injuries. "We want to go back."

While Lahan police are doing their best to protect the visitors, they too are unable to provide safe passage to the border right now as the Terai plains have been paralysed by an indefinite shutdown called by an ethnic organisation, the Samyukta Tharuhat Sangharsh Samiti, since Wednesday.

The Siraha attack is not an isolated incident.

Since last week, Terai villages have seen an unprecedented series of attacks against outsiders, who are mostly beggars, ragpickers and mentally unbalanced people, on the suspicion they are child lifters.

The suspicion has been fuelled by a section of the media with allegations that Indian gangs had stepped up activities in Nepal's border towns to kidnap little children.

chetak wrote:A BJP self goal

http://www.dailypioneer.com/167776/BJP- ... -fire.html


BJP stoking Darjeeling fire

KATHMANDU: Nepal’s army chief Gen Rukmanga Katawal, who was sacked by the ruling Maoist Party on Sunday, has refused to accept the decision,
according to TV reports.

Times Now says that an emergency meeting is being held by the top brass of Nepal’s army at the residence of Katawal over the issue.

Earlier, ending days of speculation, Nepal's Maoists-led government on Sunday fired Gen Rukmanga Katawal, replacing him with loyalist Gen Kul Bahadur Khadka.

The announcement was made by prime minister Prachanda's press adviser Om Sharma despite domestic and international calls against such a move, including from India.

The 61-year-old Katawal, who received his marching orders just three months before he is due to retire, is expected to knock at Nepal's Supreme Court to stay the Maoists' hand, IANS reported.