Foreign Intervention or Cooperation

Siddhi B. Ranjitkar

Nepalese political leaders have been telling the people that foreign intervention in the Nepalese politics has been intensified and political leaders bowing down to the foreign masters’ instructions have been allowing foreign intervention in the national politics. However, our politicians either do not understand or pretend not to understand that the political interference in other countries has been global phenomena.

The most recent event is the outcry of some world leaders against jailing the democratic leader of Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi by the Maynmar junta. Human rights Activists have been urging India and China to put pressure on the Maynmar junta for reversing its decision on jailing Aung San Suu Kyi indicting her of allowing the intruder to her home. It has been the failure of security of the junta but the junta instead of punishing the security personnel punished the democratic leader. The junta could ignore the world opinions, as it does not economically dependent on those countries whereas the countries it depends on do not want to put pressure on the junta.

American President Barack Obama has made a stimulus plan on stopping and even reversing the economic depression in the United States of America. The President in his stimulus plan included one condition for any organization or company getting the money from the ‘stimulus plan’ needs to use the American-made goods. All trade partners such as Japan, China, and European Countries of America opposed this condition in one voice stating it goes against the free trade principles. The President has to water down the condition.

Once Iranian President has said that he wants to erase the map of Israel from the world map. This has been the intervention of the highest rate by any foreign power in the Middle East politics. He would have done it if Israel were not strong enough to defend itself.

Major political powers and human rights organizations have been telling the lack of human rights in China, and the suppression of Tibetans’ uprising against the Chinese rule in Tibet. However, China in turn has been protesting these opinions of major political powers and human rights organizations as the intervention in its internal affairs.

China under Mao Zedung had launched a crusade against the world capitalism and imperialism. As a result, even today, we hear some Maoists’ revolution going on in many countries including in our own and neighboring country.

The then Soviet Union sent its army to Czechoslovakia to suppress the democratization process there and removed the then Prime Minister engaged in the democratization process in 1968. The world leaders denounced it as an intervention in the internal affairs of an independent country. However, the then Soviet Union ignored the opinions of the international community, and must have thought that it was their rights to intervene in the business of their satellite countries.

After 70 years, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics collapsed in 1990, and broke away all the republics from the union forcibly held together by the then Soviets. Some so-called communists blamed the capitalists and imperialists for the demise of the Soviet Union. If the capitalists could they would have stopped the Russian Communists from succeeding in their revolution and coming to power even in 1917 and thereafter they would have destroyed the Soviets at any opportune moment.

The Soviet army went to Afghanistan and set up a communist regime. The communists welcomed the Soviets and said that it was the cooperation they received from the Soviets whereas others said that it was a direct intervention of the Soviets in the political affairs of the Afghans.

Then, with the support of Pakistan and the western countries, Taliban came to power in Afghanistan defeating the communist regime. Pakistan openly let the breeding of Taliban and assisted them in all possible ways in defeating the communist regime in Afghanistan. That was the cooperation Taliban received from the Pakistanis in the past.

In 2001, the terrorists based in Afghanistan destroyed the twin towers in New York, America. The world leaders were on the side of America to defeat the terrorists sheltered in Afghanistan. The then President of America George W. Bush even said that the world leaders would be either with ‘us or against us’. So, the then President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf had no choice but to cooperate with the Americans on destroying the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2002. Taliban again went back to Pakistan.

Now, the Pakistani Army is fighting against the Taliban. Taliban have succeeded in capturing the Swat Valley making the possibility of Taliban overwhelming the current Pakistan regime. Pakistan has to face the same Taliban once it has nurtured.

Americans went to Iraq to finish off the notorious regime of Sadam Hussein in 2003. It did not take long for the Americans to catch the President of Iraq Sadam Hussein and hang him. However, this has been the intervention of the Americans in the Iraqi politics for some people but cooperation on removing Sadam for others.

In 1857 the then Prime Minster of Nepal Jung Bahadur went to India with the Nepalese army to suppress the uprising of the patriotic Indians against the then British administration in India. It was a great help to the British Indian Administration but the British would have said it was the intervention in the affairs of the British government if Jung Bahadur had gone to help the patriotic Indians.

In November 1964, the then Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri sent Shriman Narayan to Nepal to convince the then King Mahendra of Nepal the need for keeping away the Chinese technical staff from the Nepalese territory bordering India. The Government of India built 400 km of the East West Highway the Chinese were supposed to build for avoiding the Chinese presence in the areas bordering India.

In 1990 some Indian leaders came to Nepal to give the moral support to the joint movement of the Nepali Congress and United Communist Front for regaining democracy. It was cooperation for the political leaders engaged in the people’s movement for democracy but for the then rulers it was intervention in the internal affairs.

In 2006, some Indian leaders came to Nepal to openly support the People’s Movement for democracy. Our leaders have accepted them as the cooperation on removing the then dictatorial monarch. However, the supporters of the monarchy later on said that the Indians betrayed them.

Currently, the Madheshi People’s Rights Forum (MPRF) leaders have been saying that they have been under heavy pressure of the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu for supporting the to-be-formed joint government of Nepali Congress (NC) and Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist and Leninist (CPN-UML). The MPRF leaders have said that the Indian Embassy has been using a carrot and stick policy on putting pressure on the MPRF leaders for supporting the NC and CPN-UML to form a new government. The Indian embassy has offered Rs 3 million to each parliamentarian for supporting the NC and CPN-UML for forming a new joint government. Thus, the Indian Embassy has set the price of the Nepalese parliamentarians.

The Indian Embassy has not even denied the news reports repeatedly published by the state-run Nepalese newspaper ‘Gorkhapatra’ stating the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu has been putting pressure on the leaders of the MPRF and even offering a large sum of money to them for giving the support for the NC and CPN-UML for forming a new government. The Indian Embassy has no problem of offering money to the leaders of the MPRF, as Indians have already set firmly a tradition of buying and selling of members of parliaments in India; it has been a political culture there.

Recently, Caretaker Prime Minister Prachanda has said that he has asked the Indian leader to come to Nepal for resolving the issue of the Chief of Army Staff. However, he has been repeatedly charging other leaders of they have been under the remote control of foreign masters. However, he never has bothered to disclose who are the foreign masters.

The Caretaker Prime Minster never tired of criticizing the capitalists, imperialists and feudalists has never thought of such criticism has been intervention in the business of others.

Intervention or cooperation whatever you may like to call it has been there since time immemorial. So, it is there today and it will be tomorrow no matter whether you like it or not. However, it is not one-way intervention or cooperation; it goes both ways.

May 21, 2009