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June 10, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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How free is the Press in
Nepal? Nepal Royals asked to keep
quiet Dipendra was a poet, patriot |
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‘China may redeploy missiles on Indian border’ Blair names Straw
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Benazir gets
3-year jail term
WINDOW ON
AFRICA Probation for US President’s daughter
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How free is the Press in
Nepal? Kathmandu, June 9 The arrest of of the Editor, Yubaraj Ghimire, the Managing Director, Kailash Sirghiya, and the Director Binod Gyawali, has been condemned by the Amnesty International, the USA, the Nepal Human Rights Commision, the Nepal Bar Association, the Federation of Nepalese Journalists, besides the main opposition party, Communist Party of Nepal, (United Marxist-Leninist), the Nepali Congress and the Rashtriya Prajatantra Party. The Samyukta Janmorcha Nepal organised a rally on Friday to protest against the detention of the mediapersons. The arrests were sparked off by an article by Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai expressing the view that King Gyanendra could not be trusted and there was a wider international conspiracy behind the massacare at the Narayanhiti palace last week. While the Amnesty International has called for the immediate and unconditional release of the “prisoner of conscience”, the Charge d’Affaires of American Embassy, Mr Larry Dinger, has said his embassy was taking the incident seriously. He has also conveyed the US Government’s belief that freedom of Press is an indispensable part of democracy. The CPN-UML has termed the arrest as the government’s attempt to curtail Press freedom, “which is a direct attack on democracy and human rights.” Former Prime Minister and Nepali Congress leader Krishna Prasad Bhattarai has requested the government to release the three and tender a proper apology. Mr Bhattarai has described the arrest as “a very crude, outdated and unworthy action of the government to curtail Press freedom and stop the voice of a very popular daily in the country.” He said the act would defame the present democratically elected government of the Nepali Congress. Meanwhile, the Nepali Congress spokesperson, Narihar Acharya told TNS today that the 31-member central working committee of the party was likely to hold an emergency meeting tomorrow to review the situation and discuss the arrest of the editor, managing director and director of Kantipur publications. “The accused persons should be produced before a court at the earliest. I feel that the hearing must be scheduled on Monday. This is the first time that such an incident has occurred since the restoration of democracy in 1990. It now seems that the existing legal provisions are not adequate for speedy justice,” he said. Questions are being raised whether the government will order the release of the journalists by yielding to the seemingly unmanageable pressure. Worthy of notice is the fact that the law of the land does not allow the holding of special courts to try special cases. There is no provision of trying the accused persons on holidays. Courts in Kathmandu remain closed on Saturday and Sunday and do not have a concept of duty chief district officer. So, there is no way an accused can be produced before Monday. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a functionary in the Ministry of Law, Justice and Company Affairs told TNS, “We don’t have the provision of a duty chief district officer for speedy justice. We produce accused persons only on working days. Our constitution prohibits establishment of special court for special cases and we have a special court to try only cases of trafficking in women and children, drugs and foreign exchange violations. The accused will therefore be tried in an ordinary court,” he explained. Nepal Bar Association president Sindhunath Pyakurel said the three persons had been arrested under the State Offences Act and would have to face six months’ imprisonment, if convicted. While agreeing that the detention of the mediapersons is against principles of natural justice, Mr Pyakurel said, “If a person is arrested, he has to be produced within 24 hours of his detention. But, if the court is closed on Saturday and Sunday, there is no alternative. We cannot go against the law of the land,” he said. |
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Nepal Royals asked to keep quiet Kathmandu, June 9 Witnesses have said Crown Prince Dipendra killed the King and Queen and seven other relatives in a drunken rage, before turning one of the weapons on himself. Officials said they wanted witnesses to speak only to the investigators looking into the massacre to prevent a repeat of the riots that broke out as people struggled to come to terms with an official explanation that the killings were an accident. The Kathmandu Post said the witnesses had been asked to “maintain silence” over the killings which claimed almost the entire Royal family. Mr Mohan Pandey, Press Secretary to King Gyanendra, said he could not confirm the newspaper report but other officials linked to the investigation panel, now in its second day, have criticised public versions of the killings. In particular, their ire is directed against witness Capt Rajiv Shahi, who is married to one of the daughters of the late King Birendra’s youngest brother, who spoke at a hastily organised news conference on Thursday. “It was the Crown Prince Dipendra who murdered the King. Anybody who touches the King is no more what he used to be. He is just a murderer,” Shahi had said. Officials have said Shahi could be reprimanded by the army for going public rather than waiting to tell the investigation panel, which is expected to report tomorrow. The officials did not elaborate. Captain Shahi’s startling version of events, which were being whispered in Kathmandu since the killings, has deeply divided the shocked nation, where the Royal family has traditionally been revered. Mr Lila Mani Pokhrel, an Opposition member of Parliament and general secretary of the leftist United People’s Front, told a mass gathering that the government was trying to cover up information. “I don’t believe the Crown Prince is the murderer despite what the media has been saying. There is a conspiracy at work,” he said. A university professor, who declined to be identified, said it was hard to believe that Dipendra had shot his family. “There is obviously something missing in the sequence of events. Why was his body cremated under curfew? what are they trying to hide?’’
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Dipendra was a poet, patriot Kathmandu, June 9 One poem, titled “Soldier,” published in a book to mark his mother the late Queen Aishwariya’s 50th birthday last year, speaks of a soldier, marching into battle, torn between his love for his country and that of the woman he has left behind. “He was a very unassuming and a very military-minded man,” Neer Bikram Shah, brother of one of the slain royal family members, said. “All the time, something would be brewing in his mind. Nobody could tell what he was thinking. I found him both a very easy and a very difficult man.” Initial reports about last Friday’s massacre at the palace indicated that Dipendra, 29, slew the entire royal family after a heated argument over his girlfriend Devyani Rana, whom he wanted to marry but who was disliked by his mother. However, a survivor of the massacre, the late King’s son-in-law, Capt Rajiv Shahi, said in his testimony on Thursday that Dipendra was roaring drunk when he came to the dining room armed and opened fire. He also said there had been no discussion that night about Devyani, who was reported to have fled Kathmandu to India within hours of the shooting and was now believed to be in London or Moscow. According to Neer Shah, the people of Nepal, who have shown an outpouring of love and respect for Dipendra and who refuse to buy the theory that he was the murderer, “did not know the real man.” His motto, according to a bio in a book of his poems was: “Respect truth, honour perseverance.”
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‘China may redeploy missiles on Indian border’ Washington, June 9 Written by a leading Chinese-American scholar, Dr Nan Li, the study says that China feels “highly vulnerable” only in its relationship with India in the region and not so any more with either Russia or the Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam and North Korea. “This vulnerability may be exacerbated by several major developments, including India’s alleged control of large chunks of territory that China claims; the disruption of recent bilateral efforts to alleviate border tension and resolve territorial disputes; by India’s recent testing of nuclear weapons, which has created another obstacle in improving their relationship; the operation from India of an active Tibetan independence movement, which is quite successful in internationalising the Tibet issue and enhancing an independence consciousness within Tibet; and a relatively low level of bilateral investment and trade,” says the study. Li opines that China is most likely to take a defensive position that focuses on conserving what is in its possession, rather than an offensive posture that places an emphasis on acquiring what it claims. It predicts that “such a defensive position may entail stockpiling material and improving communications and road linkages at forward positions along the borders and developing infrastructure that links these positions with the rear so that reinforcements may be more swiftly deployed in the event of a conflict.” Meanwhile, a Washington Times report has said Pakistan’s 140 million people have more weapons per capita than the civilian population of the USA. The report said these weapons include hundreds of thousands of automatic weapons, heavy and light machine-guns, bazookas, rocket-propelled grenades and even shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. Highlighting Pakistan’s crackdown on illicit weapons, the report said previous governments had attempted similar gun confiscation campaigns, always with meagre results. Gen Pervez Musharraf is the first Pakistani leader to have established a correlation between weapons and religious extremism, it said. The report further said the enforcement methods were left in the hands of the governors of the country’s four provinces. Fearing Islamist demonstrations, General Musharraf has advised provincial governors against house-to-house searches. The report says the best that can be expected this time is that religious and ethnic militia will refrain from carrying AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifles as they swagger around cities in pickup trucks. In a March interview, General Musharraf conceded that 1 per cent of the population — or 1.5 million people — was in the extremist camp “holding the other 99 per cent hostage.”
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Blair names Straw as Foreign Secy London, June 9 Mr Cook, the most europhile member of Mr Blair’s team, will move to become the minister in charge of Parliament and parliamentary business, Mr Blair’s official spokesman told reporters here yesterday. Foreign exchange markets have pushed the pound to 15-year lows against the dollar, betting that Mr Blair’s second landslide election win in four years on Friday would force him off the euro fence to lead a campaign to join the European currency club. Mr Straw, formerly Interior Minister, is thought to be more sceptical about the benefits of joining Europe’s single currency than Mr Cook, although sources say he will follow the Prime Minister’s lead. There was never any question of Mr Brown moving from his Treasury post, where he controls the whole sweep of domestic policy. Mr Blair described him as “quite brilliant”. Mr David Blunkett moves from Education to take Mr Straw’s former post. Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott loses his huge Environment, Transport and Regions Department, but retains his title as Mr Blair’s number two. Labour veteran Margaret Beckett heads up a new Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Department while former Trade Secretary Steve Byers takes the rump of Mr Prescott’s empire — Transport, Local Government and the Regions. Casualties include Culture Minister Chris Smith, who presided over the ill-fated Millennium Dome and a fiasco over the redevelopment of London’s Wembley Stadium. He is replaced by the up-and-coming Tessa Jowell. Agriculture Minister Nick Brown’s job disappears, swallowed by Ms Beckett’s new empire, but he shifts to become Minister of State for Work. Defence Minister Geoff Hoon, Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid and International Development Minister Clare Short all stay put. Reuters |
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Benazir gets 3-year jail term Islamabad, June 9 They said the court cited special anti-corruption laws of the military-led government of General Pervez Musharraf for convicting Bhutto, who lives in a self-imposed exile alternating between Dubai and London. “By
avoiding and evading service on herself of the process issued by this
court, the accused is clearly guilty of the offence....Consequently,
she is convicted under Section 31 (a) of the NAB ordinance and is
sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for three years,” said the ruling
of Judge Rustam Ali who heads the Accountability Court in Rawalpindi
city, near Islamabad. The NAB (National Accountability Bureau) ordinance is a special law of the government against white collar crime and has often been criticised by human rights groups for being too harsh. Under
Section 31 of the NAB ordinance, any person who fails to appear before
the court or avoids accepting any warrants is punishable by three
years’ imprisonment. The same court last month also issued warrants for her immediate arrest if she returned to Pakistan after she failed to appear in a case investigating her accumulation of assets that allegedly could not be explained. Pakistan's
Supreme Court in April quashed 1999 corruption convictions — that
handed Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari five-year jail terms,
$8.6 million in fines and bans from holding public office — and
ordered a retrial, saying the verdict was biased.
Reuters |
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WINDOW
ON AFRICA THE birth of the African Union (AU) took place on May 26 and alongside came the “demise” of the 38-year-old Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Perhaps demise is a strong word; it will be more correct to say that the OAU has been elevated and transformed into a new structure, the AU. Whatever be the case, it cannot be denied that this pan-African development is, indeed, historic. The African political horizon has vertically changed. Africa watchers will recall that on May 25, 1963, the heads of state and government of the then independent 32 African countries meeting in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) signed the charter of the OAU amidst loud applause. The then giants of Africa, Emperor Haile Sellasie of Ethiopia, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. Ben Bella of Algeria and others honoured the OAU charter with their signature. Haile Sellasie, who chaired the inaugural conference of the OAU, expressed the hope that this continental union will live “a thousand years”. But the 38th birth anniversary of the OAU will be its last. When African leaders hold their annual summit meeting in Lusaka (Zambia) from July 9 to 11, it will be the last summit of the OAU and the first summit of the AU. The late lamented OAU, which will always be remembered in African history, had many ups and downs and on several occasions, it came to a breaking point, but it has survived. It is often said, rather seriously, that the biggest achievement of the OAU is that it has survived for so many years. The process of transformation of the OAU into AU has taken nearly two years. The process took shape with the adoption at an extraordinary summit of the OAU at Sirte (Libya) of what has come to be known as Sirte Declaration of September 9, 1999. There is numerological charm of this date, which is referred to in OAU documents as September 9, 1999. The Sirte summit decided to establish an African Union in confirmity with the ultimate objective of the charter of “our continental organisation and the provision of the treaty establishing the African Economic Community”. the Sirte declaration said: “We deliberated extensively on the ways and means of strengthening our continental organisation to make it more effective so as to keep pace with the political, economic and social developments taking place within and outside our continent.” Africa analysts say that this is about the closest that the OAU has come to admitting that it has been less than successful during the 38 years of its existence. After the Sirte Declaration came the Constitutive Act of the African Union (CAAU) at the OAU Summit in Lome (Togo) in July last year, which effectively replaced the OAU charter. While the OAU charter was ratified within hours of its adoption in Addis Ababa, the CAAU has significantly a three-stage process of signing, ratifying and depositing the instruments of accession and is rather a prolonged affair. The Article 28 of the CAAU says the Act shall “enter into force” 30 days after at least 36 of the 53 member-states (the present strength of the OAU) complete the process. Nigeria was the last of 36 member-states that deposited the instruments of accession of April 26. Thus on May 26, 30 days after Nigeria’s accession, the Constitutive Act of African Union attained the legal requirement for entering into force. Among the basic objectives of the African Union as defined in the Constitutive Act shall be to achieve greater unity and solidarity between African countries and the peoples of Africa; defend the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of its member-states and accelerate the political and socio-economic integration of the continent. And much more. An important provision of the CAAU will be the establishment of financial institutions, such as the African Central Bank, the African Monetary Fund and African Investment Bank. Their usefulness for the economic well being of the continent is beyond doubt. Unlike the OAU whose principal included an inviolable commitment to non-interference in the internal affairs of member-states, the CAAU acknowledges “the right of the union to intervene in a member-state pursuant to a decision of the assembly in respect of grave circumstances, namely, war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity”.
IPA Service |
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Probation for US President’s daughter Austin, June 9 Barbara and twin sister, Jenna, were issued criminal citations in Austin last month — Jenna for allegedly using fake identification to buy a drink, and Barbara for illegal possession of alcohol. The legal age for consumption of alcoholic drinks in Texas is 21. Barbara, a student at Yale University in Connecticut, pleaded no contest to the charge, according to the court records obtained yesterday. She must attend an alcohol-awareness class and pay $ 100 in court fees. Meanwhile, Jenna, a student here at the University of Texas, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of misrepresenting her age while trying to buy a margarita with someone else’s identification. Her case is scheduled for July 31. Two weeks before the most recent incident, Jenna Bush pleaded no contest to underage drinking charges in another incident. She was ordered to have alcohol counselling and perform community service.
AFP |
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London, June 9
