Treason and Madness

The treasonous party-politicians are talking, shouting, as to convince each other the 'Republic' is a done thing! Can't help it, going back to my elephantine memory, but there was time in Nepal when such expressions (bah - foaming at the mouth sounds better!) were qualified as TREASON and Lese Majesty (from the Latin Laesa maiestatis, injury to the Majesty).

But since that Ratna Park Intifada, (the one-two thousand of old-faithful, obstructing traffic and burning effigies of what the press "tactfuly" called "regression"), both MK Nepal and his buddy the O3 talked each other into courage to see who can say more stupid, injurious thing about Monarchy! And I say Monarchy, not King, for that is the target, that is the one thing they in their stewardship of the country past 16 years (OK OK, they've been out of power for like 3 years, but they still bear respopnsibility for the stalemate!) didn't taint or destroy...

Now that the RNA has quadrupled it's strength, and the Maobadi are loath of another 10 years in the Siliguri's fine Guest Houses (oops! I mean jungle...) and getting their butts kicked by the villagers and their "fine" command structure disintegrates into dacoits bands:
So the 7 dwarfs in their last desperate, DISHONEST lounge for power ... they allied themselves with the DEVIL.
It seems they (MKN & O3) didn't study the history of United Fronts in Eastern Europe after the WWII ! In every case, from Czechoslovakia down to Bulgaria, the "real" communists went for the power and won in few months TOTAL POWER. For four decades!
And if the Maobadis, Shiva forbid!, succeed here, they will be among the first on scaffolds and in reeducation camps: No one was more persecuted by Lenin then the poor, misguided "ESSER's" [Social Revolutionaries] - a decade after the 1917 revolution hardly one of them was still alive! - that was Lenin/Stalin's gratitude towards the party who helped them to TOTAL POWER!
Yes, study history, comrades!
So back to my main question - why are these guys and the assorted "Human Rights activists" not charged wtih Lese Majesty.?
After the student uprising in Bangkok in 1991 I personally witnessed different respect for the Monarchy... and it cost around 400 dead and there was no foreign crying about Human Rights: No, you injure the King, you die!

Genocide? What genocide?

In eternal infamy, Walter Duranty, wites UKRAYINSKA PRAVDA:

"the veteran Moscow correspondent of The New York Times, whose admirers ranged from H.L. Mencken and Walter Lippmann to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, responded only two days later in the pages of his august publication. Far more than anything disgraced former Times reporter Jayson Blair wrote, it was arguably the most infamous piece of reporting or analysis ever to appear in that great paper.

Duranty, an 11-year veteran of Moscow who had won the Pulitzer Prize the previous year, disparaged Jones as having made a "somewhat hasty" judgment on the basis of "a 40-mile walk through villages near Kharkov" where he "had found conditions sad."

Having dismissed the conditions that in fact led to the deaths of 10 million men, women and children as merely "sad," Duranty went on to explained that "you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs." He explicitly stated "there is no famine."

Who is this Jones, the good guy in this story? He is now being accorded title: "Gareth Jones, hero of Ukraine".
Just like the local "hyenas" (a name aptly given to journalists by Czech President, Václav Klaus), the beating of some journalist by the RNA or some other "crime" is being equaled with REAL HORRORS, like some guys come to your house and behead your husband or rob your entire harvest or take your child to the mountains! Cultural Relativity my ass!

Now Yushchenko is coming with more:
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko calls on the world to recognise the 1930s Great Famine as Soviet genocide. Let's see what the Gray Lady has to say about this, if they find a place on page 17 - there is so many amerikkkan atrocities to report... like the underwear-party at Abu Ghraib, right?

The Kathmandu Syndrome

FP: Tell us how and why people under siege often end up internalizing the hatred against themselves and delude themselves about the malicious intentions of their enemies?

Levin: They do so because they are eager to feel some control over a painful situation which is, in reality, out of their control. Chronically abused children - more specifically those subjected to parental abuse - typically blame themselves for their victimization because to do so supports a fantasy that if they reform, if they become "good," their parents will treat them differently. To look at their predicament more realistically would force them to accept their helplessness to change their terrible circumstances, and children, and adults as well, prefer to fend off acknowledging such bitter realities.
Similarly, within populations under chronic siege - whether minorities marginalized, demeaned and attacked by surrounding societies or small nations besieged by their neighbors - some will invariably seek either to avert their gaze from the severity of the threat or rationalize the threat and blame themselves or others within their community for the danger. Their doing so reflects wishful thinking that if only they would reform sufficiently the danger would be alleviated.

Sorry to drag you into this, kind-if highbrow stuff, but when I read it last night on FrontPage a kind of light popped-up: Eureka!
This is what I been thinking all these months, trying to find explenation to obviously suicidal behavior of the 7 dwarfs, sorry I mean the 7 parties, calling themselves "democratic"!
How on earth could you explain the meme going rounds in their brains that:

King is the enemy
Maobadi are to be prefered to King
Republic is better than Monarchy

... to be continued ... must go and wash and groom for Pam & Charles Turkey Eating Contest a.k.a. Thanksgiving 2005...

Fissures appearing...

The seven dwarfs are splitting-up. Some of the smaller parties are in true nepali-style politics, having second thoughts.
Teay balk not so much at the enormity of their treasonous behavior - rather they are afraid they will be swallowed by the NC/CPN-UML combine. Especially the CPN-M (M for Masal, another obscure faction of the doomed ideology...) is pulling its' chain!
As if it mattered! The pressure on the Palace is raising by the minute, and everybody waits for HM's return from the African safari.
Last with a commentary, though nobody asked him, came the father of corrupt Kujo, Daddy Kofi. Of course he greeted the München/Delhi Abkommen . Somehow nobody asked him whether he will TRY to help the poor bhutanese refugees... and if yew, then when, or wether he has any moral right to lecture a King of a country where armed insurgency against democratically elected governement 1996 killed 10.000+ innocent, sweet, poor nepalis!

The Black Book of Communism

Been thinkin' a long time about the need to translate and publish this monumental opus in Nepal, in Nepali.
Even during the Panchayat era in certain, slightly off-the-beat, bookstores and newsstands you could find China Reconstructs and (North) Korean propaganda mags, in English, with smiling peasants driving shiny tracotrs and burly truck-drivers on top of dams. I think these mags were one of the roots of the "rosy" perception of communism as a wave of the future.
For all the billions of $$ in the CIA budget, the US never gave these totalitarians any serious competion!
So if someone who has some "loose" funds thinks it's a worthy cause, or if someone has time to translate this book, contact me...
Also the NTV should contact the Czech TV, they made fantastic documentaries from Magadan about Gulag. And the Polish TV, and the Latvian TV, the list goes on...
A lot of, most of, Nepalese knew zilch, zero, nada about the horrors of communism: and sadly had to experience the commissars' "gentle" touch on their own back... and experience the ultimate horror of their children, by the thousands, being taken to "reeducation" camps...
Compare this suffering to the effete journos whining about some Indian-owned FM-station loosing illegal up-link equipement! Where is the sense of proportion?

Laloo Prasad Yadav Raj over!

Good news from south of the border, the dusty state of Bihar! The leading "povertarian"of India and his illiterate wife, Rabri Devi, are out of power. For 15 year this despicable, but clever politician held the poorest-of-the-poor state of India, the proverbial "anus mundi" in thrall...
Now it's over, and I hope the new governement will find enough papers to jail both of them for life. It's a good possibility because this buffoon of a man was clever only in dealing with other (corrupt) politicians, and thought himself "untouchable"...
As in "untouchable as Al Capone". not untouchable as low caste - actually the Yadavs are "high caste" and their arrogance and mistreatment of the lower castes and the wretched Muslims ironically brought this man to power. He painted himself as a "protector" of the Muslims and till now could count on their unwavering support. In no other state in the rather chaotic politics of India have some many murderers, convicted or just on years' long "bail" participated and regularly "won" elections!
It's another great testament to the power of Democracy that even these wretched, ignorant souls cast off the demagogy and saw through, at last...
For us, here uphill from the dusty plains, this could be a spell of hope. Once the lawless, goonda-conditions in Bihar are improoved, the plight of hapless Nepalis along the border, plagued by dacoit raids wil lighten too. The RNA unfortunately has other "fish to fry" and cannot patrol the border as much as it should.

UPDATE 2005-11-23 17:07:
Indian Express brings some numbers to illustrate the ENORMITY of Laloo's legacy:

? A seventh of India?s population below the poverty line. Rural poverty is as high as 41%.

? 89% of BPL (below poverty line) families do not receive ration benefits

? 3.50% of households without food sufficiency (national figure: 2.3%)

? Lowest literacy level 48%?compared to national average of 65%.

? Primary enrollment rate for 2000: 52% compared to 77% nationally. Only state where primary enrollment fell in the 90s.

? Number of schools per million: 629 (national: 1,036).

? Indicators for women worse than men? 14% fewer enrollments for women and a literacy gap of 26%

? Only 10% children fully immunised.

? Maternal mortality rate: 707 per 100,000 women die within 6 months of giving birth. National average of 404.

? Only 7.9% of homes have latrines (national: 18%)

? Lowest utilization rate for Centrally funded programmes? it forfeited one-fifth of central plan assistance between1997 and 2000.

? Its spending on health, water and sanitation has actually come down in the last 3 yrs: from 6.5% to 5.49% of the total public expenditure.

? There is a link with poverty and slow economic growth? It has averaged to less than 4% by 2002. The first casualty is critical public services.


That this swindler and criminal could become Union Minister for Railways in Sonia Gandhi's/Man Mohan Singh's gvt. is absurd! Only in India... not even in Nepal!

The 12 "New Delhi/München" steps to hell

The 12-point understanding between the 7 dwarfs and jungle commissars:

1. Despotic monarchy is chief enemy of democracy as well as peace. So all sides will work to fight despotic monarchy and establish full-fledged democracy.
2. Continuing dialogue and consolidating movement for democracy.
3. For the lasting peace, ending autocratic monarchy, holding elections for Constituent Assembly, consigning arms to the UN or other reliable international supervision prior to the election to Constituent Assembly, holding the election in a free and fair manner and accepting the outcome of the election;
4. Maoists have expressed their commitment to competitive pluralistic governance, including human rights, rule of law and fundamental rights of people and have vowed to conduct their activities accordingly.
5. Maoists have expressed commitments to allow other political parties activities freely and to make arrangement so that displaced political leaders and party-workers could return to their places with dignity and their unduly confiscated properties handed back to them.
6. Maoists have made self evaluation and regretted for the mistakes committed in the past , and also vowed not to repeat similar mistakes in the future.
7. Seven-party alliance has also made similar self evaluation and regretted for the lapses and shortcomings that prevailed when they were in power or in parliament.
8. Respecting the norm and values of human rights and press freedom, and moving accordingly;
9. Opposing and boycotting the municipal as well as parliamentary polls offered [by the King?s government] to legitimize the unconstitutional government;
10. Commitment to nation, national integrity and democracy;
11. Appeal to general people for support;
12. In cases where parties have demanded probe and action in matters relating to their own wrong activities in the past, conducting probes, punishing the guilty and making such actions publicly noticeable.
The signatories include Girija Prasad Koirala, Madhav Kumar Nepal, Gopalman Shrestha, Amik Sherchan, Bharat Bimal Yadav, Krishnadas Shrestha and Prem Suwal.

Not that I believe one second any of this will become reality. No, I post it here as a matter of record, so in a year's time, when they will be hanging Prachanda on Tundikhel with the Royal Nepal Army Band playing Last Waltz and those named above will be watching it live either from jail or from exile in Benares... then we all have a good laugh and sigh with relief that the nightmare is over!
This is a classic case of what marxist like to call "false consciousness" and these spent, corrupt, 'passé' politicians only delude themselves. Since they launched and "relaunched" their silly "andolan" (movement), confined to an are between New Road and Putali Sadak and few thousand hangers-on, Nepal and nepalese, millions of them, have moved on.
That they refuse participate in the upcoming municipal elections and will actively obstruct them show their contempt for Democrazy. The King is more attuned to the 'Zeitgest', having taken stock of the sucesfull excercises of electoral appeal in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the security sitation is much, order of magnitude, worse!

New München in New Delhi

The fools! I mean the 7 dwarfs and their foreign enablers, the aptly named US Ambassador Moriarty and soon-to-be-deported-recalled UK Mantriji Bloomfield!
A foul deed is being cooked-up in "an Indian government guest house"...
I can't help it, I'm like an elephant, a true child of the 20th, the bloodiest, century EVER: I think I've seen this photo before (I know I know, the pic is from the last week's SAARC meeiting in Dhaka) oh yes - President Beneš and Hitler in Berlin, or was it, again President/General Secretary Husák & General Secretary Brezhnev in Moscow..
The point I'm trying to make is: I have an instinct, by that I mean something I have no control over, some things just raise my hackles. Like this meetings taking place in New Delhi. Like that looser Dutch Colonel drinking slivovitz with Radko Mladiç in Srebrenica 10 years ago...
Let's see, a "friendly" neighbor harboring ruthless murderers, maybe even more, turning them ON and OFF as they please, in fact controlling them. When it seems the situation could calm down because the Monarchy didn't fold, the RNA continues to grow and expand control and kill the terrorists, and the people are fed-up with the Maoists' atrocities and intransigence and lies - and even take arms against them (Dailekh) -, and what is worst : HM is signaling he might turn North (oh Gods!) to China and change the whole board in this sorry game: then India in collusion with US (where is Michael Ledeen when we need him to rein in the State Dept.?), the South Block appeasers, the people who gave us 100.000 poor Bhutanese refugees (rotting in camps for 10 years!)swing into action.
They drag Prachanda and his band of Sorry Loosers from the jungles where they kept them on tap, get the O3 (Obstinate Octogenarian Ogre) GP Koirala out of respirator, get couple of airtickets to Madhab K. Nepal and his (mis-?)named Communists-UML and cook this deed.
They make a serious mistake, and by that I don't only mean that any deal with the Maobadis is not worth the paper they put their bload-soaked thumbs on, as history teaches us and the mountains of skulls from Magadan to Phnom Penh remind us of.
No - the biggest mistake is that they cook this outside of Nepal. The Nepalis are no fools and are as nationalist and proud as anybody, if not a notch more. They will not stand for this. The fate of Nepal will be decided in Nepal, you can bet on it.
Now I'm only waiting for the triumphant picture of that fox MK. Nepal on the steps of an Indian Airlines 737 in Kathmandu, holding a shabby jhola and beaming:

"Peace in our Time!"

Oldo breaks leg!

Sorry to inform you, my family & friends, that shortly after posting the 'Rice Harvest' story, on Tuesday evening, Nov. 1st, I misstep in my own house and broke both bones (tibia & fibula) above my left ankle! It happened quite simply as I walked down the four stone steps into living area, electtricity gone some minutes ago, but enough light from the myriad of Luxmi-puja lamps & candles my Indu lighted up, and in thought I forgot how many steps there were and planted my solid 105kg on the poor stretched left leg! It felt like a bolt of lightning, sound like when a 'khukri' shatters water-buffalo leg, first time I ever heard this horrible sound, and knew immediately I'm in deep dodo. Indu laughed as I writhed in pain on the carpet - she had 3 times missteped last year and stretched tendon and sore ankle... But I KNEW!
I just came from B&B Hospital in Patan, after 8 days and 2 operations, still in pain, will write more later...

Update: My nice guest, Steen from Silkeborg, the Lake City of Denmark, sent me my last photo as a walking man:



Note the drying rice... Nice harvest, ain't it?
The taxi's waiting, his holiday is over, my nightmare just 5 hours away...