Breaking promises

Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, by the look of things, is not in any mood to relinquish the top post anytime soon. Koirala has broken nearly every promise he has made to the Nepali people who no longer believe anything he says. But isn’t this the same man who could barely stand at the inauguration of the Interim Legislature-Parliament not very long ago? As far as I see, his health appears to be satisfactory with the approach of the first meeting of Constituent

Assembly.

Needless to say, this kind of attitude has not gone down very well with the Maoists who have been eyeing the top executive post ever since their victory in the CA polls. Irrespective of his political contribution (or shortcomings), G P Koirala will go down in history as probably the most stubborn leader Nepal has ever had or is likely to have.

Pranav Bastola, Ratnapark

Out of hand

It is sad that the incident of killing of businessman Ramhari Shrestha has escalated into such a big crisis, “19 hurt in anti-Maoist demo” (THT, May 19). Though any person’s life is valuable,

this was a small incident by any measure. But due to the inept handling of those involved, it has assumed enormous proportions. The Maoists have admitted their mistake, and chairman Prachanda has made the public commitment to probe and make public the whole truth. Now he should fulfil his promise.

PM Girija Prasad Koirala has promised the aggrieved party that the government would form a probe panel. Such a committee should be formed at the earliest and the guilty found and

punished. The government needs to send a clear message that no matter how powerful, no one is above the law.

Suman Dahal, via e-mail

Two tales

The Chinese government has rightly suspended the Olympic torch relay in the wake of the devastating earthquake in Southwest China. This is in sharp contrast to Burmese junta hell-bent on conducting the meaningless referendum on drafting of a new constitution which

reportedly had “99% participation”.

This shows that the junta is interested in nothing more than holding onto power even at the cost of the invaluable lives of its citizens who have been left to die and rot even as the

government hampers external aid efforts.

Juna Shrestha, Tahachal

Tit for tat

Youth wings of both Nepali Congress and CPN-UML, the second and third largest parties in CA respectively, have been given carte blanche by their mother parties to resist the atrocities of YCL, with arms if need be. Both the parties have had enough of YCL vigilante justice against their cadres and common people. They had no option but to rise to the occasion and resist YCL atrocities with everything they had.

But this is a dangerous time for Nepal. If the youths who should be engaged in development and social activities at this critical juncture in the country’s history engage themselves only in

tit-for-tat against each other, the dream of building a New Nepal (do they even know what this means?) will remain just a dream.

Avash Karmacharya, Sinamangal