On the Road again...

Europe, 6:30, cold windy, DARK morning. The taxi driver says "You're lucky to leave for South". East actually I reflect as he heaves my certainly overweight suitcase into the trunk of the spotless Mercedes.

The sheikhs are shaken...

Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia says
Zionism is behind terrorist actions in the kingdom.
Do these guys have DENIAL SYNDROM? You bet! They killed and driven out all jews 50 years ago (the few left after 1400 years of pogroms), forbid their entry upon pain of beheading to 'The Kingdom of the Two Msoques' (Mordor?), and when homegrown murderers start kiling at home (when they kill abroad - it's another TUNE!), when they threaten the rotten house of Fahd, well - "It's the Jew, stupid!"
And the UK-ambass. of 'KOTM' starts another tack - he calls the terrs 'cult'! And bet you will hear more of that - the well-paid US and EU PR-giants are AT THIS VERY moment spreading the message: "It's cult, stupid!

Theater of the Absurd

To write about politics in Nepal right now is DEPRESSING: After the 'smell' of success of the original 5 "rioting" parties ("well the Police didn't shoot anybody ... yet, let's try some more demos and riots...") and the feeling that a change of governement is NEAR, even the party of the current PM, the (nominally) pro-Palace RPP joined the 'Andolan' (movement). This is more absurd than the trying by splinter NC-D, led by fromer (dsimissed-by-the-King) PM Deuba! In his case it wasn't ABSURD but INFANTILE - like a kid who's locked out of his favourite kindergarten ("Mummy - the kids don't want to play with me!"), he carped on and on about 'PRAJATANTRA' (DEMOCRACY) and how unjust the King was. But this is understandable... the guy just wants what he think is his - his toy-tractor, his toy-plane and toy-spade... - actually Ministry of Water Resources, and Tourism and Civil Aviation and and...
But Pahupati Shumsher Rana, and his gang - if you could see me while typing, you would see my head moving from left-to-right-and-back - this is UNBELIEVABLE - as if at the height of Vietnam War Henry Kissinger or Gen. Haig started their own Peace Marches aginst Nixon. ABSURD!!! Only one thing more absurd would be if these 'pukkah' country gentlemen went to a disco in Thamel and tried to pick-up some unwashed israeli or aussie trekkie-girls...

Dancing, dancing in the streets...

... more likely danse macabre! Same old faces, same bamboo lathis and shoving people like cattle onto trucks. Today we saw strange scene: at least 50 "prisoners" being carted away standing-up in the truck, shouting waving red falgs, and heavy downpour... with hailstones! The fatalistic nepalis learnt weeks time ago not to come closer than 100 m around Ratna Park and few nearby campuses after 2 in the afternoon. The taxi drivers take it into stride as just another closed road. It's hard to make revolution in a country which is so fatalistic... unexcitable! And the media - the hammering the poor King gets, and no ONE speaks for him, much less against this hectoring! Like ALL Nepalis are for Republic, it's done thing, cooked goose. I might know the proverbial SILENT MAJORITY, or at least few of it's prominet, articulate members, out here, 10 miles from Ratna-madness: nobody thinks ANY good will come from this obstinate, day-after-day demonstrations!
And the media, interviewing only the same old, tainted leaders... Is there really no one else, who could speak for the Palace? Seems the untiring Kamal Thapa, who filled with great panache this role - is being kept very BUSY (in his function as Minster of Interior)by the endless afternoon street battles!
One way or the other, by street tactics, bad press and endless gyrations, the Palace is being worn down... to the great pity for the future of Nepal. So the gyrations are getting more RPMs as the Ali Baba GP and his 40 robbers smell the blood and the see the plum minister-posts, travel abroad and jobs for relatives...

3 weeks of ... public masturbation!

So these "street-fights" - or rather ritualized form thereof - been on for three weeks now. The stubborn old man GP running his bald head into the wall, day after day. What a pity this "querulant" didn't use this formidable energy while he was Prime Minister... Or rather he USED it, but not for profit, prosperity and happiness of Nepal - rather for himself and the wider Koirala gang. It's a pity the discipline in the Congress Party is of the indian-feudal variety - deeply ingrained in centuries of social conditioning. Reminds me of the South Korean airliner crash in Taiwan where the Captain flew on a perfectly clear night into a mountain, last words heard were polite Copilot's "Sir, maybe..." The sad thing, Koirala doesn't even have a Copilot, just some grease-monkeys and luggage handlers... Who's gonna tell him it's a New Century, New Year?

Rantin' Rantissi rocketed...

Though not Nepali stuff, the News this morning is GREAT! The sworn enemy of Israel, Jews, "Crusaders" and the whole Civilization was granted his wish! Just 2 weeks ago he was ranting, undoubtedly feeling the end is near, that "Everybody has to go - some in bed, some hit by Apache". The "sons of pigs and monkeys", as he "nobly" called his adversaries, kindly obliged him! Next: Arafat! Can't wait for Assad and the irani mullahs. You want "paradise"? We deliver!

There may be moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam.

First foreigners arrested in demo's

... from among other India, the Philipines and Malaysia... And to hell with them! Make a bloody Revolution home, not here!
Last month, a french-canadian "doctor" was arrested and subesquently deported from Dang (the cradle of the Maobadi movement, 300 km W from here...). This "Medicines sans frontier"-member effectively run communication and internet services for the maoists! HMG should take a leaf from Peru, where a US woman is serving 20 years for simmilar offences. At least I hope the cops kicked the shit out him and got some useful intel out of this "Humanist"!
These "fellow travellers" and "useful idiots" should be make to pay the same price as Nepalis, and MORE: if you come here to fan flames of discontent, failed ideologies a-la marxism or islam, don't be surprised you get burned! And if you participate in riot where property is destroyed you should be held till full restitution is given. And screw the Emabssies' sissies talking about "Violation of Human Rights" - you cross 'Police Line' in NYC, Moscow, Paris, Copenhagen, and see what happens! You throw bricks, you might get shot. Get real!

Koirala ... where he belongs: in jail

GP Koirala, the octogenarian 'Brahmin from Hell',
"logically" had to follow the trajectory he embarked
upon 7 months ago: with ALL MEANS AVAILABLE get himself and
pal Nepal from CNP-UML back into driving seat.:

Police foil parties' mass meeting,
hundreds arrested

Arresting hundreds of leaders
and protesters including Nepali Congress President Girija Prasad
Koirala Thursday afternoon, police foiled the parties' mass meeting
slated for today. Agitating parties had announced a mass meeting at
the Ratnapark intersection despite prohibitory orders issued by the
government. Today is the 8th day of the prohibitory orders announced
by the government and the 15th day of party protests. Leaders of the
agitating parties such as Ramchandra Poudel ,Govinda Raj Joshi, Lila
Koirala, Nona Koirala, Arjun Narsingh KC, Ram Krishna Tamrakar,
Baldev Sharma Majgaiya, Bal Bahadur Rai ,Ishwor Pokhrel, Amrit
Bohora, Shankar Pokhrel, Keshav Badal, Bhim Rawal, Krishna Gopal
Shrestha, Lilamni Pokharel and Anandadevi among others, were arrested
in course of the protests. Most of the arrested leaders are reported
to have been taken to the Armed Police Force headquarters, Halchowk.
When Nepalnews called NC headquarters, we were told NC President
Girija Prasad Koirala has been taken to his residence at Maharajgunj.
The party cadres, however, foiled the security force's attempt to
arrest UML's Madhav Kumar Nepal, People's Front Nepal's Amik sherchan
and Nepal Peasants' and Farmers' Party's Narayan Man Bijukuchhe. They
have been taken to different hotels in Bagbazaar, our Nepalnews
correspondent at the scene reported. As earlier, students and police
are still (at 4:45 pm) pelting stones at each other. Skirmishes
between the police and the protesters are ongoing at Bag Bazaar. NC
leader, Ram Sharan Mahat, speaking to the protesters urged them not
to be afraid as, "They (the protesters) had already defeated
regression." Mahat further suggested the King not go against the
tide and the streets and the country would remain unstable "until
the King corrects regression." Party cadres took Mahat into a
hotel in Bagbazaar. Meanwhile, the police also arrested some 100
professors in Kathmandu. They were expressing their solidarity to the
ongoing agitation. The police is also reported to have detained over
20 human right activists from a sit-in protest organized by Human
Rights and Peace Society in the capital on Thursday. In the meantime,
the government Wednesday evening released three student leaders who
had been handed warrants for violating the Public Security Act
earlier this week.

(Nepali News
2004-04-15)

Anything, and I mean anything:
while jungle-comrades murdered lower "cadres" of his "own"
'communist party', Nepal met the butchers in Lucknow! GP Koirala
tried to incite "students": first against regressive
governement, later against the "regression" (read: KING)
itself!!! Nothing worked, alas, just as you try to rub two pieces of
dry wood together to get FIRE! What this 'machiavellians' don't get
is that nepali people (a term they LOVE to use, ca 20 times an
hour!), yes the TRUE AND TRIED AND TRIBULATED NEPALI PEOPLE had
ENOUGH !!! Even people that oppressed, that much lied to, so
desinformed, they smelled RAT - isn't it just so: ALL THIS
HULLABALLO and ENDLESS FRUITLESS STREET FIGHTS - all just to keep the
Kleptos Anonymous, the "golden Pajero Boys,"
out of jail. Isn't it just so that the CIAA (anti-corruption
commissn.) is getting TOO CLOSE to CHEESE? The more I reflect
over the past 6-7 months of fruitless disturbances, bandhas, the
dragging-in of gullible "students' into these street-battles,
the promises "never to end our struggle" - all of it
designed just that GP, Nepal & al. get back into Singha Durbar
and first thing will be 'castration' of CIAA and moving the
troublesome invstigators to some Far-West Customs post with Tibet! So
somehow the 'people' DOESN'T come to these 'Andolan
Afternoons', try to aviod them, ignore them..., walk in wide circles
around the 'Epicentre' of Ratna Park and Bagh Bazaar... The body language, the (relatively) small attendance of the street protests, the sneer and indifference in the villages of the Valley say clearly: Mr. Koirala, Mr. Nepal, we had enough!

Happy New Year 2061 B.S.

Been with friends down at the Bhaktapur's famous Bisket Jatra. What a let-down! On one side the tourist money (now more than $10/per tourist!!!) paved the area, so gone is the DUST, on the other side the "lingo" (tree-to-be-raised) was tiny... I remember a huge trunk, with wild branches, as long as 10-15 m (30-40 feet). Also the pulling boys & men changed a lot in the past 12 years - jeans, baseball caps replaced kurta/surwals and topis...
But the frevor and zest remained, as ever. These Jyapus are so refreshingly conservative, the salt of the earth... So great was a commotion when the "lingo" crashed down from like 5-10 degrees on the sweating crowd! Great throng of people carried someone nearby, everyone shivered and quitened... death walked by. Old Jyapus told of 'bad harvest' and 'disasters'. Can it be worse in 2061?

Still, all my friends & readers I wish all the best in the New Year 2061 Bikram Sambat!

Koirala vs Koirala

Manisha, the Bollywood kitten, grand-daughter of nepali giant BP Koirala, had scant words for the on-going 'Andolan' (movement). "If the king promises election within a year, we should respect it".
The bald grand-uncle GP would have none of it. In his 82 years of age this morose and quarrelsome man is the obstacle on the road forward. What drives him, what posseses him? Not a gram of shame, not an ounce of reflection that he himself might be PRIMARILY responsible for the mess the Nepal is in!
Two leaders of Christian Easter service have been arrested from the Amphitheater in Thundikhel. Though the HMG guaranteed the 'Order prohib. assembly of more than 5 persons' doesn't apply to religious processions, they have been detained upon urging of the close-by agitating political leaders! So this are the democrats - not even yet at the trough and already acting like BIGOTS! Bad omens if these guys get to the levers of power again!
So much more refreshing the joviality of Interior Minister Kamal Thapa. Though hard to imagine under what stress he functions (his ancestral home in Hetauda was burned down, adding to the worries!), he manages to joke about the food - or the lack of it - to the detained demonstrators, and professing respect - and orders to the police prove it! - for the 'leaders'. This guy has my 100% sympathy!