Politics continues to play amidst national crisis!

December 26, 2001
3 MIN READ
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Kathmandu: The move for an all-party government is on. The Sher Bahadur Deuba government is on the defensive. Opponents Girija Prasad Koirala has touched a soft nerve in the UML both Madhav Nepal and Surya Bahadur Thapa as also Bamdev Gautam want a share of government resources in the manner of participation in the government. And so there is pressure on Deuba to take these parties into confidence. The mechanisms, of course, have yet to be formalized and the race between Deuba and Koirala is on. Of course, all the other parties would want a more amicable congress leadership as an option to Deuba and so thespian Krishna Prasad Bhattarai is weighing his chances once again. He has come out strongly in favor of Sher Bahadur Deuba and against Koirala proposal but has nevertheless sought limelight as the elderly statesman to whom the economic community turned to at these times of dire straits.

All these however, only dilute the political will necessary to do short shrift with the Maoists movement. The army which has successfully gone on the offensive in select Maoists areas must be finding it strange that civic society in shape of other political parties refuse to emerge there even after the Maoists political leadership have gone underground and their military leaders have been decimated in these areas. Amidst the nuances of emergency inspired military news, one can glean, differences in the choice of words released authoritatively from “‘cordon and search” we are now briefed that the action is at a “cordon and destroy” stage. Carefully placed news items yet to be contradicted suggest that the army is poised in division-strength for an offensive posture.

But none but the army are better aware that their military machine can only fight an insurgency if the political masters are clear in their mission in terms of objectives and challenges. A civilian authority which begins debating over the army returning to its barracks immediately after it unleashes the army on the population is hardly a source of confidence for the machine itself. The army perhaps is better aware at this stage that the Maoists problem is a political problem and its political masters have created a military problem in the exhaustion of their own political credibility. The population at large is very aware of the eroding credibility of this political sector. It is this widespread awareness that nurtures the mood of negativism among the masses regarding the new political postures. For the bulk these are merely ploys of political benefit. They hardly contribute to the success of the anti-insurgency moves.