Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has returned from his fund-raising trip to the United States and Britain with promises of help in cash and kind to fight anti-government outfits back home. (Let's see if we can get through this editorial without using the word "Maoist", as proposed by Chinese ambassador Wu Congyong.)
Deuba's visits can be termed successful because he got what he set out to get-even bagging $38 million for a Marshall Plan type job-creation and rehabilitation package, which is $18 million more than originally requested.
All this is well and good. But is it going to solve the problem? Nepal's international supporters keep telling us that resources are not the issue: they will give us as much money as we need. The number flying around is $100 million in budgetary support. They are more worried about our capacity to spend it properly, and whether we can make an immediate and dramatic difference in the lives of Nepalis. However, with the present sense of debilitating paralysis, there isn't much hope of the government getting its act together.
The oft-repeated excuse for inaction is that there can be no development without peace. This is a cop out. In fact, there has never been a greater need for a dramatic result-oriented campaign to restore health, education and employment even if it is in a few token areas to begin with. The Nepali people desperately need some signs of awareness that there is still a government out there in Kathmandu.
Deuba's interlocutors in Washington and London sympathised with his anger at the rebels for having broken the truce and forced the country to go back to war. They opened their wallets. But they also chided him less than diplomatically about governance. We don't know whether the message hit home. Even if it did, it is unlikely that Deuba's bloated and smug government has the vision and statesmanship to announce a radical new political and development crusade to take the wind out of the insurgents' sails. In complacent and self-satisfied Kathmandu, there is little sign still that the seriousness of the country's crisis has sunk in.
Meanwhile on the western front the security forces soldier on. The sight last week of the weary survivors of Gam: bedraggled, unshaven and wearing flip-flops shows that the army and police desperately need better logistics, more reliable arms and equipment. The rebels are feeling the heat, and that could be one of the reasons they are putting all they've got into raiding soft targets and vulnerable garrisons. They desperately need another truce to be able to re-consolidate. They also need to re-evaluate the revolution in the light of growing international isolation, as well as internal dissension over strategy and tactics.
The rebel leaders must realise by now that if they need a soft landing, the onus is on them to convince the government of their bonafide intentions. After their breach of trust in November, it is they who need to make a gesture that reflects a genuine new determination for true dialogue. The favourite threat of the Maoist cadre ("war ki par?") may now have a whole new meaning. There isn't much time left: the revolution has begun to devour its own children.
