This is what we, as a country, achieved as a result of the banda on Sunday: a torched ambulance in Kailali, several vandalised vehicles in various parts of the country, a vandalised pharmacy in Kathmandu, several injured policeman and 57 protesters in custody.
A meeting was definitely in order. After the protesters headed home and the police put away their riot shields, Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal and Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal met at the latter’s residence. From Republica:
During the meeting, the prime minister agreed to hold bilateral and trilateral meetings among the three largest political parties to find consensus to resolve the problems.
The top leaders may have reached an agreement but their subordinates were not done blaming each other for the clash in Kailali. The Himalayan Times quotes Home Minister Bhim Rawal:
“The Maoists are responsible for what happened in Kailali. They are using landless squatters to provoke the government to use force. The police used force because it was against the basic norms and values of CPA to illegally capture land.”
Maoist leaders weren’t too pleased. From Republica:
“You were blaming the Maoists for Dudhejhari incident, but why did you not take initiative to solve the problem through talks with us before the killing?” the Maoist leaders asked Rawal.
Differences just don't end there. They are also having an disagreement about identity of one of the person killed by the police in Kailali. Home Ministry claims the deceased, Narendra BK, was a Maoist combatants stationed in a UNMIN cantonment. Nagarik reports:
Coordinator of United National People’s Struggle Committee Baburam Bhattari challenged the government to prove People Liberation Army’s involvement in Kailali incident. “Let UNMIN investigate and prove this,” Bhattarai said. “The main issue is why the security forces fired upon the landless.”
The Home Ministry claims that a People Liberation Army’s identity card was recovered from BK’s body. UNMIN spokesperson Kosmos Bishwokarma said:
“UNMIN is still investigating. Preliminary report shows that there are several people of that name, but no one has the same registration number in UNMIN’s record on registration and verification of Maoists combatants.”
While UNMIN gets on with the investigation, the Maoists will get on with their protests. Schools have been forcibly shut downtThroughout the country on Monday by the Maoist teachers’ union. From Nepalnews:
The Unified CPN (Maoist) affiliated All Nepal Teachers Organisation (ANTO) has forcibly shut all schools in the country in line with the mother party’s policy to mobilise its sister organisations to make its third phase agitation a success.
In international news, Copenhagen carnival is in full swing and Nepali Congress President Girija Prasad Koirala issued a statement asking the government to protect the Himalaya, lest the Everest summit be forgotten amid all the political drama. From The Himalayan Times:
“We need to intensify efforts in the mountains to eradicate poverty and promote basic and primary health, education and economic development programmes, besides raising environmental awareness,” Koirala said.
Kantipur reports that more than 600 Nepali are headed to Copenhagen this week including members of the donor agencies, non-governmental organisations, media and the government. Hopefully, they can all take care of Koirala’s concerns.
(Posted by Indu Nepal)