The talk of the town this past week has been the flying visit to Lumbini by the Sri Lankan president Raja Paksa. It is interesting that even though his name means "pro-king", Raja Paksa also gave the Bi-Paksa anti-king leader of the opposition a blow-by-blow account of how he destroyed the Tamil Tigers back home in Serendib.
Needless to say, the Awesome wasn't amused. But El Commandante got the message because he's been getting cold feet about his andolan. In the past few days he has called off the asinine airport bund, dashed off for a Girja tea party and then carried on to a dinner party with the other parties at KP's (Oli, not Bhattarai). Strange that while his cadre are staging war dances in front of municipality buildings nationwide their chieftain is whining and dining with the enemy.
Anyway, to get back to Raja Paksa, our fly on the wall tells us that the Sri Lankans warned our officials not to trust the Scandies and the UN, reminding them how he threw the Norwegians out of his peace process because they turned into Tiger conservationists. There were knowing nods all around the room from senior advisers who now suspect Moon and Kathmandu-based Europinkos of being Baddie-sympathisers.
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Let's clarify this once and for all so UNMIN doesn't get all hepped up about its importance here. The ambassadors who looked into the containers last month all saw rusty old 303s and SLRs, and everyone knows that we know that they know the high-powered assault rifles are all stashed away somewhere else. In fact, Baddie leaders openly admitted as much this week. Even after the minors were disqualified, the cantonments don't contain guerrillas, the real fighters are now called YCL and they are providing security for the andolan. Somewhere along the way, the Maoist slipped the D-word into their YCL acronym. As democratic as the DPRK, which is why Uncle Ban, of all people, should know what this is all about.
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As far as the Ass is concerned, the first sign that this country has "civilian supremacy" will be when the Maiti Ghar Mandala to Tundikhel shortcut is re-opened as the public thoroughfare that it once was. The army occupied the road during the Gyanendra reign, citing security reasons much in the same way that it has militarised most of Tundikhel. If the Baddies had any brains, they'd not have polluted the streets outside Bir Hospital with asphalt soot from their rankay julus on Sunday and given half the capital an asthma attack: they'd have taken the torch rally straight from the Mandala to Bhadrakali and reclaimed the shortcut for the people.
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Looks like all prime minister aspirants are rolling up their sleeves. By now, they've heard that Makunay became prime minister because he donated a she-buffalo to a Brahmin on a full moon day. So, there is a bit of a stampede to give "bhaisi dan" these days. Not being the superstitious type, and being such a darling of the internationals, BRB doesn't need to give away buffalos. But it is precisely because his candidacy now seems so likely that PKD is getting antsy.
In fact, it would be safe to say Fearsome would much prefer Makunay stay on as PM than agree to Laldhoj getting PMship. And then there is Naran ("Mr Xerox") Kaji Kamred who thinks the epic clash between BRB and PKD will cancel out both, and he has a good shot at being in Baluwatar once the current andolan plays itself out. The wild card in all this is Comrade Cloudy, who seems to be lying in wait to ambush the post for himself.
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The Winner in this week's Most Useless Debate Category goes to the Bureau of Mines and Geology which has raised a hue and cry over Makunay giving away a rock from the sumit of Mt Everest to President Obama in September to draw attention to climate change. BOMG says the prime minister should have first asked for permission before taking the rock off the mountain.
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