Warning from Bharat to the world: keep off hindu Nepal !

[Guest guest]

HinduThought, Srinivasan Kalyanaraman

<kalyan97@g...> wrote:

This should be as much a message to USA and China as to the marxists

in Bharat who support Maoist rebels in Nepal. This also should lead to

a more proactive stand against the maoists (or naxalites) operating

within Bharat.

 

Bharat will be failing in its moral responsibility if full support is

not given to Nepal in this hour of need to eradicate the maoists from

Nepal. Bharat should also come up with a Hindu plan to develop the

entire region constituting akhanda bharat, starting with cooperation

agreements with Nepal and Bangladesh, to start with, in the area of

water management.

 

Kalyanaraman

 

Friday, September 10, 2004

We're with you in war against Maoists: Delhi to Kathmandu

 

NEPAL: Deuba asked to keep out 3rd party; new oil pipeline to ensure

uninterrupted supply to kingdom

 

JYOTI MALHOTRA, PRANAB DHAL SAMANTA

 

NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 9 India has given Nepal a blank cheque to deal

with the Maoist insurgency at home, a promise that includes military

hardware, training as well as the commitment to pursue ideologically

similar insurgents in India, and requested visiting Prime Minister

Sher Bahadur Deuba to keep the kingdom free from third party, foreign

influence.

 

Deuba's four-day visit to New Delhi began today with a series of

meetings with the Indian leadership, including Prime Minister Manmohan

Singh, and touched upon a wide gamut of issues, from dealing with the

Maoist insurgency to bilateral cooperation in water resources.

 

The Indian side also emphasised that it was doing everything within

its capacity to come down heavily on extreme Left-wing groups in India

like the PWG and were willing to also ''manage'' the very porous

border better.

 

A joint working group on the Pancheshwar project, which has been

hanging fire for a long time, as well as a joint venture on the Upper

Karnali river between India and Nepal were some of the issues to give

substance to a relationship that for some time now has been threatened

with the single-point Maoist insurgency issue.

 

This is the first visit by a Nepalese prime minister after the new

Congress government took over, and must also be seen in the context of

the more than good relations between the BJP and Nepal's King

Gyanendra who, at the insistence of the VHP, had allowed himself to be

crowned the ''world Hindu samrat or emperor'' in January.

 

Certainly, in its new pragmatic 'avatar,' New Delhi argues that it

will deal with anybody in power. And Deuba, reinstalled by the

powerful Palace as prime minister only a few days before External

Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh visited Kathmandu in June, has the

confidence of the King.

 

What India has promised Nepal

 

• Oil pipeline to run from Raxaul (Bihar) to Amlekhganj (Nepal) in

first phase, will be extended to Kathmandu later

• Prospect of increasing military assistance to Nepal

• Securing borders along Uttaranchal, UP and Bihar

• Improving trade relations

• MoU on weather forecasting signed, INSAT ground receiving facility

to come up in Nepal

 

Asked how he was going to deal with the Maoists, who had proclaimed

that they would only talk to the Palace, Deuba told a group of

journalists, ''Let them remember that this is His Majesty's government

in Nepal.'' The Nepalese side is said to have given a full list of

requirements of military hardware that they would like to have from

India. It is believed that New Delhi has agreed.

 

In the reinvented spirit of camaraderie, Kathmandu is likely to

consult the Indian government on all ''third party representatives''

who seek a role in the resolution of the Maoist crisis on behalf of

their governments.

 

The British government had created the post of a ''special envoy'' and

even the UN has a middle-ranking official who often travels to

Kathmandu. The US, which has played a key role in the supply of

military ammunition and hardware to Nepal and sometimes bypassed New

Delhi as it has done so, that is a major player in this region. As in

China, which has swamped Nepal with highly subsidised projects

especially in the Terai, a sore point with India.

 

Highly placed sources here said that Deuba had two main messages for

the Indian side : first, that New Delhi must put pressure on the

Maoists to shun violence, even as Kathmandu breaks the back of the

Maoist insurgency with military means. After the recent blockade of

the Kathmandu valley, when both the Deuba government and the Palace

lost face, the prime minister feels that any immediate peace talks

will only give the Maoists the victory feeling.

 

''Even during the last peace negotiations, the Maoists used the peace

to regroup and restrengthen,'' Deuba said, pointing out that could be

allowed to happen again. His other message to New Delhi was the

veteran Nepali Congress leader G P Koirala must be told ''not to

breathe down his neck,'' the sources said. Deuba, who split from the

Nepali Congress to form his own party, and Koirala have not been on

the best of terms, especially since he wanted to be prime minister

himself. An MoU signed today between Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and

the Nepal Oil Corportation (NOC) will have a joint venture company

building a 35 km pipeline from Raxaul in Bihar to Amlekhganj in the

first phase. The pipeline will be extended to Kathmandu in the next

phase.

 

Sixty per cent of Nepal's requirement of major petroleum products is

supplied by IOC from its Raxaul depot via Amlekhganj. With insurgents

threatening blockades, it was felt that a pipeline would ensure

uninterrupted supply.

 

Deuba also met External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh, Defence

Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Home Minister Shivraj Patil. The

prospect of increasing military assistance to Nepal, securing borders

along Uttaranchal, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar as well as improving trade

relations were discussed at length at these meetings.

 

India has so far provided the Royal Nepal Army with arms, ammunition,

helicopters besides increasing the scope of cooperation in

intelligence sharing and training of troops and officers. Further,

India and Nepal had delegation level talks today during which an MoU

on weather forecasting was signed. It provides for the setting up of

an INSAT ground receiving facility in Nepal under grant assistance

from India.

 

An agreement on cooperation in the fields of culture and sports was

also signed between Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran and his Nepali

counterpart Madhuraman Acharya.

 

URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=54832

--- End forwarded message ---