King Gyanendra to make Royal Announcement (Kantipuronline)


KOL Report

KATHMANDU, Feb 1 - King Gyanendra is to address the nation later this (Tuesday) morning. An official notice by the Press Secretariat of the Royal Palace said the King will issue a "Royal Announcement" at 10 a.m.(4:15 UT) Tuesday morning.
It is not clear what the announcement will deal with. However, it comes at a time when there is intense speculation over holding of elections.

On Monday evening, King Gyanendra met Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba followed by separate meetings with heads of different security wings .

Detail of that meeting is not clear. (rk)

http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=30549

I don't wnat to have my civil liberties at these un-speaking, under-priviliged people= I don't wnat to have my civil liberties at the cost of thesese un-speaking, under-priviliged people

I don't think it will be too long that people start to realize what they have been deprived of..the real freedom. How many more countries have King's anyways? And among them how many act like gyanendra?
Doesn't look like Paras will ever be king. So ridiculous that people in 21st century can let some person lead a country just because he is born in a certain family. How long will people tolerate this?
The Magma inside the volcano is heating. Soon the volcano is gonna erupt.
God Bless Nepal

... IF,how is 3 years of Thought Police short? you would tolerate that? and you think that anyone will let the power go now that they have it. It is just your wishful thinking that the autocracy will end in three years- that to by king's and his son's own will. i posted the link on some other thread but i will post it again.

- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1467551,00.html

mG.

ISO,

I am still wondering how/where would you fit Hong Kong's prosperity in your theory of tyrannies' success in the 4 Little Dragons? (Or is it the 4 Asian Tigers? You've gotten me confused now! :D) So, I still believe STRATEGICAL GEOGRAPHIC ADVANTAGE contributed tremendously more than anything else in the success of Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea. I have always wanted to read something on Singapore's Lee Kuan Yu, and I am now more inspired to look into ordering a book on him and Singapore. Any suggestions? Until I read that, I must admit I am incapable of indulging in discussions about specifics in that country's history, politics and economic success.

Now, more on Nepal...

You say, first good education. First of all, ISO, allow me to ask you this: How would you rate Panchayat's success in educating the Nepali people? For me, I see it as an utter failure. Mind you, as I have hinted time and again, good education entails much, much more than just being able to read and write -- educated people must also be able to take part responsibly and healthily in a civil society. Since I have utmost distrust of anything remotely resembling the Panchayat era, and this takeover by KING G is, I am afraid, looking more and more like a return to Panchayat, I must say the prospects of Nepalis being given proper education in his current reign is very dim.

Furthermore, I think it is very dangerous to put undue importance on peace and security. Yes, of course, almost every Nepali must be extremely frustrated with the violence, and their deep yearning for peace is completely understandable. But on a leadership level, if they fall into the trap of "security first and foremost, at any cost," I am apprehensive about the fact that they might neglect other very critical social issues that they need to address. We need education, food, shelter, and, MOST OF ALL, we need to totally dismantle and annihilate the hierarchical (caste) system, as badly as we need security. I am not at disagreement with you when you say we need security before we can get any of the above, but those issues need not get sidelined either, NOT EVEN for the moment, while we wait for peace to prevail. KingG's choice of cabinet members clearly suggests that he is still surrounded by -- at least at the advisory level -- people who have primitive ideas about governance, by those who still believe in FORCE and LOYALTY in their method of ruling. Therefore, in this environment, I am afraid the new government will only exhaust all their energy and resources in the military, while mostly neglecting other critical social issues, that some people's dream of this King now finally raising the literacy level, alleviating poverty, etc., of Nepal will collapse like the house of cards. Of course, all this is only speculation on my part, and we have yet to see the actual results. Nevertheless, I am allowed to make speculations based on well-calculated observations on my part, I hope.

Finally, ISO, in a nutshell, here's why I believe this new government under the direct rule fo KingG is going to fail Nepal:

1. Tyrannies never succeed in meeting the actual needs of the people. Every tyrant's genuine concern will be on how to consolidate his own power, which will sideline the people's interests. I am not in a position to question his genuine desire to help the people -- he may have perfectly fine intentions. However, tyrannies by definition, AND by their reason-d'etre -- by the mere fact that they will have to be consumed with consolidation of their own power -- that they are bound to neglect the actual needs of the people.

2. Panchayat was clearly an abject failure, and anything remotely resembling that system is bound to go down the same path.

3. KingG's government's focus will mostly be on DEMANDING LOYALTY (as reflected by his order to ban press freedom and curtail other civil liberties) and THE USE OF FORCE to gain that loyalty, which will mean this government's ideology will only reflect the notion of "for the military, by the military, with the military." This means their policies will inevitably turn blind eyes and deaf ears to the real needs of ordinary Nepalis.

As in every other incident in Nepal, we all of a sudden got a lot of people either supporting or opposing KG?s recent move. And, what surprises me is there are a certain block of people who support and celebrate whatever the incident is. In a sense we are lucky that we can celebrate on almost anything: we celebrated in 2046, 2036, 2017, 2007 and going as back as when there was a ?sindure jatra? for Ran Bahadur. Now the question is: Is it really a good move?
We have no doubt that these politicians have deceived us in every instance in the last few years. They hurt our feelings by changing their faces and colors on every opportunity. They made the mockery of the parliament and the democratic systems as a whole. Now, the people have slowly started to realize that their vote is indeed powerful thing that turned these struggling ?sadak chaps? from rags to riches. It was the power of our vote. Would they vote again for these corrupted and self-centered leaders? May be not with much excitement as they did earlier; or may be they are already ready to discard them altogether. What we as a public tend to forget is: we are the ones who put these guys there and we have to share the blame too. Looks like we public as well as palace have already mastered the blame theory: always find somebody else to blame when something goes wrong. And, when it comes beyond our comprehension, we just blame India. When do we actually start taking the responsibility and stop being on the defensive side?
What I never understood is: since when did we hand over the democracy to these leaders? I know we handed the mandate to run the government, these people are there for just governing purpose; I do not think we have handed our freedom and democracy as a whole. All this time I was thinking democracy was still in the hand of public, and a constitutional monarch could do nothing about it; it would be too soon to tell if it is still in our hand or not.
We know for sure this move has given a serious blow to the corrupted leaders, but did it do any damage to the Maoists at all? I do not see it. I do think it has added more people to their ideological belief of republic. The media is already in the government control now, so we should not be surprised if we hear the victory from Royal Nepalese Army side to contain Maoists and the incident like in Holleri may not even come to the news. We can see that Maoists problem is already solved for last couple days. We did not hear anybody killed in last couple days. Now let?s celebrate that government have been given charge of what news to deliver that way we get to hear only the pleasant ones and the progress we have made under the leadership of monarchy as we did in the last few hundred years which just stopped all of a sudden after 1990.
When a politician asks for a public vote, he creates a manifesto of his plans. If the politician does not perform as we wish, we can take him out of his office in the next election; basically that is our way of correcting something. Similarly, KG has his plan of making Nepal sound and smooth in next 3 years. I wish he be successful in doing that because that is good for all of us. What if he cannot do that? Do we have power to kick him out without bloodshed? Or, does that mean we should start gathering our muscles to come to the streets again if needed?


Anyways, let?s celebrate on the grand occasion on the killing of infant democracy by somebody whose family is in the power for last few hundred years and Nepal has not progressed anywhere and lets congratulate our leaders who ignited it by adding fuel to the flame. I am just trying to apply the blame theory myself here. If the democratic systems and the parties are to blame for all the mischief, is there anything at all that these royals have to be blamed for? If all these parties did the mockery of democratic systems by corruption and self-fulfillment, didn?t these royals did mockery of monarchy by suspicious massacre inside the royal palace? We are so used to listening and giving these stories a soothing to our liking that we won?t be surprised anymore if the next day Nepal Radio broadcasts that Madab Kumar Nepal kills Girija Prasad Koirala and commits a suicide after that. Believe me eyewitness will be produced; people in power can prove anything.

Hong Kong is a different case, as far as I see it. It developed under the British rule. So it benifited from the well established British free-trade system. That's how I see HongKong.

On Singapore, I have read only two books. Lee Kuan Yew's From Third World to First: The Singapore Story- 1967-2000 talks in lenth about Singapore from the time of its independence to 2000. It touches on almost everything- foreign, security and economic policies. Its a bit long.. 700+ but an easy read.

Another book not exclusively on S'pore but worth reading is Can Asians Think? by Kishore Mahubani, Singapore's ex- foreign minister.

I agree with the Tyrranny part. I don't think our King will be tyrranical. He can be a mild authritarian, who will hand back the power to the people when the time comes, maybe sooner than later. Let's not lump him with Stalin outright.

My point is, in a country like Nepal maybe a strong ruler might be able to clean up the mess. Sometimes the country needs a strong ruler to deliver. I see Lee, Mahathir, Chinag Kai Shek, Deng Xiaoping, Musharraf as those strong leaders. Maybe our King will go down on history as one of the strong and able leaders who was able to clean up the mess.

On Panchayat: ift failed on many aspects, but it succeeded in promoting Nationalism. Panchayat lasted for 30 eayrs. Democracy lasted for 15 years.. In 15 years time, the new system could have achieved a lot, or at least could have inititate dthe process that would have led us to liberal-ism ( democracy supplemented with the rule of law), it failed. I don't say its the fault of the system, it was the fault of the leaders. If we had good leaders, things probably would ahve been different.

la yetti ho bro.. our diagreements exist. I turned 27 an hour ago.. so, let me have a beer now and not think about politics for the rest of the night. :-)

Dictatorship is not a prerequite to development. No matter what the freaks tell you.

***MANY MANY HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DAY!!!***

On that merry note, ISO, I think I will let you have the last word on this issue in this thread. I mean, I have already said so much that I am afraid I'd only be repeating myself if I tried to say more. Repitition usually begets irritation and, who knows, then we might even begin to get into the nerves of one another! I respect you (and your views, even thought I may not agree with some of them) too much to let that happen. :D

Yes, we shall agree to disagree for now. Your points were well-taken, and we shall see in time which one of us would have been proven inaccurate.

Go and get drunk, you BIRTHDAY BOY!

And make sure you drink 27 extra bottles of beer for me too! ;)

********************

Bright eyes...No matter how much you disdain someone's point of view, I really don't see any need to get personal with the person. :)

Once again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I do agree with Swaati on looking at the bright side of this takeover. We can worry about giving throne to Paras later on. What my worry is: if king fails, is he going to give an outlet as easy? Is he just going to say: "Sorry folks, my plan did not go well. So take your country and democracy back. Thanks for the opportunity for letting me serve."? Or is it going to be another revolution? I wish him success for the betterment of Nepal, but I do not think he would be a modest loser though; surely he will find somebody to blame or play the media propaganda so good that it looks successful even when it is failing. I still remember those panchayat days songs of prosperity and progress acheived by all of us. :)

IF,
Nepal's royalty is not Lew Kuan Yew. We have more than 200 years of history with Royalty and here we are, I hope you know where rest of the world is, Singapore, Malaysia ....