Monday, December 05, 2005

Slightly Unexpected


The royal snub is proving too unbearable for Messrs Girija Prasad Koirala and Madhav Kumar Nepal. They probably can empathize more with Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai now.
Remember how the Maoist top guns crowed over how, by announcing a three-month unilateral truce, they checkmated King Gyanendra from internationalizing Nepal’s war on terror at the United Nations General Assembly?
With no official announcement ever having been made by the Nepalese Foreign Ministry, we never got around to knowing whether the monarch actually planned to attend the 60th anniversary of the U.N.
(If he had, then palace speechwriters probably just had to rework the text the King would have used in New York in time for the SAARC summit in Dhaka. The message got across.)
The Maoists waited in vain for the government to reciprocate. Maybe they should have paid more attention to what the king had said about peace weeks earlier during a trip to western Nepal. The adjective he used was “durable”. Translation: “Talk to me when you thing you’re really ready folks. I’m not gonna be conned a third time”
The Munis and Mehtas mentoring the Maoists from across the southern border had Plan B ready. The first draft of the mainstream-Maoist accord was probably finalized while Girija Koirala was undergoing his first series of medical tests in New Delhi.
Once the pace of China’s march on South Asia became clearer, the agreement had to be made public.
After proclaiming their joint resolve to relegate the crown to the history books, the parties and Maoists waited for the king to return from his three-week foreign tour. So much for the “irrelevance” of the “remnants of feudalism” amid today’s “ground realities.”
Five days after the monarch’s return home, the parties are still waiting. (Actually, the king did obliquely applaud their initiative, saying it contributed to creating a propitious climate for elections.)
By the way, when have the Delhi doctors scheduled the next round of medical tests?