Koirala: Speaking out

Siliguri, April 27: The news of former Nepal Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba?s arrest late last night in Kathmandu did not come as a surprise. What did was the ?very disturbing news? that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had assured King Gyanendra that arms supplies to the kingdom would resume.

?We were extremely shocked,? said Shekhar Koirala, a senior Nepali Congress member and political activist who was in Siliguri today on his way back to Delhi from Guwahati.

He, and a few other members of the United Front, the joint platform of Nepali political parties created after the king dissolved Parliament and imposed emergency, has been based in Delhi since February in a bid to persuade the government and the international community to take measures for the restoration of democracy in Nepal.

?The development in Jakarta on April 24 seemed to us like a misinterpretation of the meaning of democracy by the leader of the largest democracy in the world. On February 1, India took the right step by announcing the stoppage of arms supplies. Then came the news after Mr Singh?s meeting with the king, who has throttled democracy and murdered the constitution of Nepal.?

Koirala, a former vice-chancellor of the B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, an autonomous university under the government, said the United Front members had all along feared that the king and his Royal Commission would re-arrest the leaders placed under house arrest after the royal coup in January.

?At that time, it was incompetence and the failure to broach peace with the Maoist rebels. After international pressure, the king was compelled to release them. And now, he is again arresting these leaders on charges of corruption and putting them behind bars. I won?t be surprised if my uncle, G.P. Koirala, and other political leaders share the same fate.?

Koirala too would have been arrested following the coup in January had it not been for the advice from his wife Poonam. ?You have to do a lot for the country which you cannot if you are in custody,? she had told him. ?So, a week after we protested the king?s move, I left Biratnagar and crossed the border into India on February 8. Luckily the royal army personnel did not recognise me.? Over the next few days, several leaders were arrested in Biratnagar.

Koirala said the United Front has a clear-cut agenda. ?After the latest developments, we will become more pro-active. We will meet Indian leaders in Delhi, now that Parliament is in session, and increase our lobbying in the international arena.?

?We must also create all-round pressure so that the King withdraws emergency, releases all political prisoners and lifts censorship. Then, the previous parliament will have to be restored and a national government comprising all parties in the House formed. The specific mandate would then be to have a dialogue with the Maoists.?

In the talks, they would be urged to agree on the forming of a constituent Assembly and the restructuring of the state, either on provincial, federal any other basis. The next step would be the decommissioning of Maoist arms, followed by a review of the king?s role.

?All this would mean rewriting the constitution. I am confident this will take place,? he said.