Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Protests













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Moriarty Going The Bloomfield Route


US Ambassador Moriarty has for the longest time given the king the benefit of doubt. I admire the Americans for their caution on the extreme elements among the Maoists. And I have always liked it that Moriarty has tried to forge personal relationships with members of the regime. That is one of the things you do when you mean business. You don't shun your opponents, you engage them. You look for signs of progress, you offer face saving opportunities.

The UK Ambassador Bloomfield (Keith Bloomfield) on the other hand has been much more vocal to the chagrin of the regime. He has been in their face. Good for him.

But now looks like the regime has been testing even Moriarty's patience. That is a good omen for the democratic movement. After all, Moriarty is a personal emissary of a President Of The United States - POTUS - who made it absolutely clear in his State Of The Union address that he is for a major spread of democracy in the world. Noone can expect Moriarty to veer from that fundamental goal. He is a professional who intends to do his job and I have at no point understood him to be otherwise.

"How can the government say it is imposing fiscal discipline when two of its ministers are loan defaulters? How can the government say it is serious about fighting corruption when it willfully ignores the Asian Development Bank's own report regarding the alleged corruption by former Prime Minister (Sher Bahadur) Deuba? How can the government say it is operating with good governance under the rule of law when the extra judicial RCCC's (Royal Commission for Corruption Control) recent verdict looks more like a political vendetta than a serious exercise of judicial authority and when people who exercise their constitutional right to freedom of expression are imprisoned for sedition?"

The movement for democracy in Nepal needs every friend it can get, and it seems to have the greatest powers on the planet in the ranks. That should be a major morale booster. The work should go on.

I think the good news for the democratic powers of the world is that Nepal is in many ways the perfect laboratory for democracy as it might be spread in the rest of the world. A little less than half of humanity still does not have it.

Unlike Moriarty I am no diplomat. Frankly I am looking next door. I am thinking China. The War On Terror as we know it today got ignited because the Arab world is not a democracy. And that fire will be doused fully only after the entire Arab world becomes a democracy: plain and simple. Say that happens, then what next? I think the next big challenge, if it is not simultaneous as is, will be China. The political monopoly of the Chinese Communist Party will have to be brought to an end for the good of the Chinese people, as for the good of the world. Democracies do not go to war with each other.

I am emotionally involved with the Tibetans as a Buddhist, I find the prospect of democracy in China intellectually fascinating, and it is also about being a good neighbor.

The world would be better off not seeking a hot war with China that it has found itself engulfed in in the case of the Arab world. And Nepal offers that opportunity. Nepal should become a democracy. And then it should export that democracy, starting with the not-China countries in South Asia.

Chinese democracy should be a Chinese effort. That might be the best way. But external help makes all the difference. Ask the Nepali autocrats. The goal is as to how best to extend that help. How to make it the utmost sophisticated? How to take it to a war footing? It is war with communications technology. It is to be a peaceful transformation to which the Chinese authorities will find it impossible to find a foreign power scapegoat. Or two or three.

That will take care of their saber rattling idiocy on the Taiwan question. You threaten to squash an island that is your prime source of Foreign Direct Investment? How smart is that? A democracy would never even dream of such a thing. In an era of a clear momentum towards economic integrations sovereignty and territory take whole new meanings.

There is another, perhaps more accurate explanation. These Chinese communist leaders are underemployed. If they don't rally around the Taiwan question on a regular basis, they don't have much else to do. Taiwan might or might not become part of China, but Taiwan sure unifies the Chinese authority figures.

Talk about Chinese economic success. Taiwan is a bigger one. Democracy in Taiwan is the reason why. You can not be a market if you are not also a democracy and democracy is a simple concept: it is one person one vote. Either you have it or you don't.

In The News
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Monday, August 08, 2005

Project Take Over Tundikhel: Draft 1









  1. Set up a PayPal account and display a Make A Donation button at the Alliance homepage.
  2. Have a first stage goal of getting 250 Life Members who pay in $125 each. That is $31,250. That is seed money with which to seek $100,000 and above from the National Endowment For Democracy and/or do more fund raising the Alliance way itself. How about getting 1000 Life Members! 2000?
  3. Keep all book keeping transparent and online in near real time.
  4. The proposal is that all expenses to do with a decisive protest movement in Nepal will be funded from this end.
  5. The idea is to take over Tundikhel in Kathmandu as a first step on a 24/7 basis. The second step would be to replicate the same in all 58 municipalities. The protests end only with the establishment of an interim government with the sole responsibility to hold elections to a Constituent Assembly.
  6. The protest organizations in smaller towns might not be 7 deep. They might only be 6 deep. Or 5 deep. To be decided locally. The Tundikhel version itself might start out 6 deep and that would be just fine.
  7. Possible expenses could be as follows.
  8. Three meals a day for all Leaders cooked right there on the grounds. Simple, basic, cheap, clean, healthy. Leaders are those doing minimum 12 hour shifts and having teams minimum 7 strong each at any one time of the day, and having replacements for themselves for those 12 hours or less when they are not on the premises. Volunteers are members of such teams doing 4 hour shifts or less but always having a substitute for when they are not around, or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 in succession. The leader of 7 such Leaders is a Senior Leader, and eats and sleeps at the premises. On premise tent lodging for all Senior Leaders and above. Makeshift mobile toilet facilities on the grounds. Plentiful supply of drinking water. Parked tankers on the premises or nearby. 7 Senior Leaders report to a Field Commander. 7 Field Commanders report to a Commander. All Commanders have on site tent offices, small ones, perhaps shared. 7 Commanders report to a Marshall. 7 Marshalls report to a Central Committee Member.
  9. Pyramid of 7. Open elections are held bottom up through consensus. No votes cast.
  10. 7 Volunteers * 7 Leaders * 7 Senior Leaders * 7 Field Commanders * 7 Commanders * 7 Marshalls * 7 Central Committee Members = 8,23,543. The central committee is presided over by a different member each day.
  11. 8,23,543 people converge onto Tundikhel at once. So the structure will have to be built beforehand. The takeover should not last more than two weeks if done well and if a resolution is reached within that time frame, it might be a possible to go into a Constituent Assembly that guarantees a ceremonial monarchy. But we should be ready to hold for two months. If it goes into two months, a place for the monarchy is an open question for the Constituent Assembly. If it has to last longer than two months, the movement turns into a revolution. It spills over from Tundikhel into the streets. At that point there is no more room for the monarchy in any shape or form. The Constituent Assembly only decides on the shape and form of a republican democracy.
  12. If the movement has to spillover into a revolution, the central committee unilaterally announces an interim government and seeks its recognition from all foreign powers as the only legitimate government in the country and starts issuing orders to the state apparatus, the police and the army included, as soon as the recognition is forthcoming from the key powers. Ambassadors are replaced as a first step.
  13. Other expenses. About 50 on site digital cameras uploading at least 100 photos each per day. Taking at least 2 pictures during any one hour period during daytime and 1 per hour at night time when awake. At least 2 of the leaders at any one level must be awake at any one point in time. So there will be those who sleep during day time and stay awake at night. From midnight to six in the morning is the no activity time. Each camera equipped with two memory cards, such that only memory cards leave the premises for uploading purposes. Marshalls and above have a camera each. They also have a prepaid mobile phone each. Some online options for photo hosting, by no means exclusive: Yahoo, Flickr, Blogger. To be individually decided, but linked to from one central site.
  14. Activities will have to be staged on premises to keep people involved in creative ways. Like skits, songs and dances. Speeches. Small group political meetings. Small group trainings. Press conferences.
  15. A tent exclusively for use by the media people.
  16. This is draft 1. I seek feedback.
  17. The Alliance transfers money to the Central Committee. That committee takes care of all expenses on the ground. And furnishes book keeping in a transparent way in near real time online.
  18. The central committee decides on the date and time when the takeover starts and springs a surprise if possible.
  19. The safety of peaceful demonstrators - and all protests are to be kept non-violent at all times - is top priority. Law enforcements agencies are to be warned. Making sure there is no violence is one thing. But if peaceful demonstrators are to be subjected to brutal and retaliatory acts, the interim government will investigate and punish all such acts. All such acts are to be documented as they might happen.
  20. The central committee is to come up with a cheaper, bare bones version of the above as a backup plan.
eDemocracy, 4S Campaign, 24/7 Vigil For Democracy: Take Over Tundikhel (March 19)
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