A bloody trail

A bloody trail
REPUBLICA

"PM pledges end to impunity," reported Republica on September 3, 2011. Meeting human rights activists the day before, Dr Baburam Bhattarai had said, "A decision was made to acquit only those implicated by the state on fake charges during the Peoples’ War, and Madhes, Tharuhat and other movements." Bhattarai also promised to give final touches to bills on the Truth/Reconciliation and Disappearance commissions soon.

That "soon" hasn’t yet arrived. Instead of the Disappearance Commission, we’ve had our PM disappearing to the US, India, and the Maldives. His love for foreign junkets matches that of our former PM Madhav Kumar Nepal. Our peace process is limping ahead and we don’t yet have a constitution. How much respect does the PM of such a country command abroad?

Internally, Bhattarai, despite his September 2 declaration, has become a champion of impunity. A recent cartoon has him wishing that the SAARC conference in Male will continue longer so that the Nepali people will forget his presidential pardon request for the Maoist “murderer” Balkrishna Dhungel. His popularity has plummeted.

Why?

SILENCE ON MAOIST VIOLENCE

After the Mustang jeep hype, lionizing of Bhattarai reached the summit when during his visit to the United Nations he took time off to meet his aged school-teachers. I received emails which had links to video clips that showed Bhattarai with past gurus of the mission school in Gorkha. One aged lady presented him a bouquet of flowers. I was disgusted. I didn’t watch the rest of the clip. Obviously, Bhattarai, responsible for the unnecessary death of 16,000 Nepalis, didn’t imbibe the ethics his teachers tried to instil in him.

While Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has vocally defended Maoist murders in the past, Bhattarai, his deputy, has maintained a stony silence. Bhattarai didn’t utter a word when the Maoists bombed a bus in Madi, killing 38 people and seriously injuring 72 others (2005). He remained mum when Agni Sapkota’s subordinates "disappeared" Arjun Lama (2005). He kept quiet when his cadres butchered journalist Birendra Sah (2007) and the businessman Ramhari Shrestha (2008). When Bhattarai didn’t head a government, he conveniently maintained his silence. As the PM, he had to speak out on two Maoists murderers—Prabhu Sah and Balkrishna Dhungel.

BHATTARAI’S TRUE COLOURS

Bhattarai chose Prabhu Sah as the minister of Land Reforms and Management even though the latter had ordered the shooting of the Hindu Yuba Sangh leader Kashi Tiwari on June 27, 2010. That May, Tiwari had organized an anti-banda protest against the Maoist-called indefinite strike. The police intervened to restore order but hurt Prabhu Sah and 64 others in the process. A month later, the Maoists shot Tiwari. UML and NC parliamentarians stalled the House for four days before Sah quit. After shielding him for so long and promoting impunity, Bhattarai had no choice but to sack Sah. When Dahal met Sah later in Birganj, the Maoist chairman treated him like a hero.
Dahal tried to disgrace the president by asking him to sack the then Commander-in-Chief Rookmangud Katawal; Bhattarai is now following suit by requesting a presidential pardon for Dhungel.
The killing of Ujjan Kumar Shrestha by Balkrishna Dhungel (1998) has received much press coverage but failed to soften Bhattarai. The Maoists signed the 12-point peace deal only during late 2005, and came above-ground in 2006. Though Ujjan Shrestha received the fatal bullet from Balkrishna Dhungel during the war years, the victim didn’t die in combat. Dhungel killed Ujjan because the latter had married a Brahmin woman, Renuka Poudel, for love.

The Okhaldhunga District Court found Dhungel guilty of murder, slapped him with life imprisonment and confiscation of his properties. By then, Dhungel had joined the Maoists after which he killed Ganesh Kumar Shrestha, Ujjan’s brother, for reporting him to the police. The Maoist clout helped Dhungel get a clean chit from the Rajbiraj Appellate Court and now allows him to walk free even though the Supreme Court has upheld the guilty verdict. Bhattarai, who pledged to fight impunity tooth and nail, has now made his puppet cabinet approach the president for Dhungel’s pardon.

MANY MORE PUPPETS

Bhattarai’s ministers in the cabinet obviously do what he tells them to but as moral human beings they too are conscientious beings. We can understand that Maoist ministers choose to keep mum but why have their Madeshi counterparts taken a vow of silence as well? How can Subash Nembang, the speaker, allow a convicted murderer like Dhungel access into the parliament?

Point 2 of the agreement signed by the UCPN (M) and United Democratic Madeshi Front on August 28, 2011 says, "The process will begin to scrap or annul the court cases brought during the Maoist insurgency, Madhes, Janajati, Tharuhut, Dalit and Marginalised movements and other movements for social justice." Did Dhungel shoot to bring about social justice? If anything, his murder of Ujjan Shrestha has led to two other deaths, widowhood for two women, and partial orphaning of their children.

WEAKENING PRESIDENT, PARLIAMENT, SC

UCPN (M) so far hasn’t expressed faith in the parliamentary system. In the past, Dahal and Bhattarai declared that the Maoists merely used the House to further their political aim of state capture. Now, on the face of severe challenges from the Mohan Baidya faction, the two haven’t spoken in a similar vein, but neither have they taken back their past utterances. Dahal tried to disgrace the president by asking him to sack the then Commander-in-Chief Rookmangud Katawal; Bhattarai is now following Dahal by requesting a presidential pardon for Dhungel.

Whatever decision the president takes (he shouldn’t pardon Dhungel—he too has a conscience) will surely bring him into controversy, much like the Katawal affair did. Bhattarai would have every right to ask for presidential mercy if Dhungel had acted with conscience after Shrestha’s murder. The Maoists’ claim that Dhungel won the election and so the people have forgiven him doesn’t hold.

The draft constitution that Bhattarai prepared brings the judiciary under the legislature (part 10, 155:1). By acting as if a Maoist cadre can supersede the Supreme Court’s order, Bhattarai puts his party above the law. Why have the judiciary at all if Maoist kangaroo courts can readily provide the decisions that favour their cadres?

FIGS DON’T GROW ON THISTLES

People behave as they believe. Bhattarai, like Dahal, regards the greatest mass-murderer in history, the killer of 80 million Chinese, Mao Tse-tung, as an idol. If he didn’t, he could suggest changing the name of the UCPN (M), for instance into a Nepal Socialist Democratic Party. Maoist philosophy makes Bhattarai act the way he does. Mao never regarded human life as valuable.

Neither did he lead a simple life—he had palaces (some rarely used but still maintained, with the swimming pools heated daily at exorbitant costs for his sudden arrival) all over China. Mao treated women as playthings. Though he had four wives, he died in the arms of Red Guard concubines. Mao denied medical treatment to his rivals in the hope that they may perish soon.

Bhattarai shouldn’t repeat his Chinese idol’s mistakes. Only the adoption of a democratic philosophy can transform Bhattarai. He should change if he expects a political future. Let him value human life, not merely Maoist lives, and resist from promoting impunity, as he’s doing now.


Published on 2011-11-13 01:10:50

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