Blundering from Every Direction

Nepal Political Analyst

This week represented a watershed in political stupidity. An optimist might find a cause to celebrate this brief period where all forces involved with Nepal were united under the banner of nearsighted incompetence. Blogdai can only tremble with disgust and weep for the future.

In the space of 7 days we've seen or heard:

The RNA show it's lack of control and discipline in the senseless shooting at Nagarkot.

The Palace instigate a fury of words and threats from all parties through (again) Tulsi Giri's remarks that the King will not reciprocate the ceasefire. It may be true and the right move, but you don't pour gasoline on a smoldering flame, Tulsi, by provoking your adversaries this way.

The Maoists threaten an active disruption of municipal polls. Also, memo to the Maoists: Mentioning that participating candidates will get "special action" is a chilling reminder of past practices and shows the world that you haven't learned a thing. Plus, you just killed 2 civilians and took 400 people hostage. Ceasefire? What ceasefire? You guys were looking for something, anything , as a pretext to start your campaign of brutality; but picking the remarks of an old fool like Tulsi Giri as your new rallying point shows how desperate you've become.

That, while The Parties show their divisiveness by the headlong charge of the NC-D splinter group into Delhi to meet with a bunch of Maoist second-tier losers and with the NSU openly demonstrating against old Girija, Koirala insists that nothing can stop him from removing the King. Instead of planning a real strategy, the parties plan more protests. The rudderless 7-party alliance, never short of undemocratic quotes, summed up their week with this doozy from Ram Chandra Poudel: " If the autocratic regime attempts to supress our protests, we won't spare those doing so. " Thanks, Ram Chandra Stalin.

That, India still doesn't get it. They are just now, acknowledging that there may be a problem with Nepal's new alliance with China. Too little, too late Mr. Mukherjee.

The U.N. seeking to find some relevance, openly celebrates what they call the Maoists acceptance of the U.N. Basic Operating Guidelines. This is supposed to mean that governments and NGO's can now operate without problems in Nepal. This is a big diplomatic "zero" as far as blogdai is concerned. The Maoists will still extort money from foreign NGO's and there will still be the same brutal Maoist business as usual. In a big blow-off statement from Prachanda, all we hear is that his cadres "have been asked" to comply with the U.N. guidelines, so put away the champaign, Kofi.