Is Nepal's King Just Settling Old Scores?

by Suman Pradhan

(IPS) KATHMANDU -- In the wee hours of April 27, several jeep-loads of heavily armed policemen arrived at the residence of former Nepalese prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. He was packed into one of the vehicles and driven away -- arrested on charges of corruption.

As the police jeeps drove away, it became clear just how polarized Nepal has become over the issue of corruption, especially after King Gyanendra dismissed the Deuba government on Feb. 1 and seized power. Corruption was once the biggest problem worrying Nepalis. But today it has become a political issue -- thanks to the machinations of the new autocratic regime.

In its zeal to only charge democratic politicians for corruption and abuse of authority, the regime has ironically managed to create the impression that it is settling old scores -- all the while dealing with a surging Maoist insurgency that is using cronyism as a rallying cry for the poor peasants who fill its army's ranks.

'People today have a lot of sympathy for these politicians even if they are corrupt because the government has mishandled the issue,' said Ram Sharma, a political analyst with a donor agency in Kathmandu. 'The royal regime has shown a remarkable lack of political acumen while pursuing these cases.'

No one doubts that Nepal's politicians deserve the attention of anti-corruption agencies. No one, not even politicians, denies that the freewheeling democratic years from 1990 to 2002 were characterized by massive corruption in government.

Leaders who were voted into office because of their honest and simple lifestyles were soon driving expensive Pajero jeeps. Leftover cash was invested in major private businesses away from the eyes of the public.

A poll funded by the U.S.-based quasi-governmental National Democratic Institute late last year found that most Nepalis were deeply concerned by corruption and wanted political parties to deal with it effectively. But the parties dithered, afraid that tackling corrupt leaders would fracture the whole multi-party process.

But after he seized power, King Gyanendra had no such concerns.

Announcing corruption as one of the major scourges, he formed a Royal Corruption Control Commission (RCCC) in February, just after seizing power. The all-powerful RCCC has the mandate to probe, prosecute and sentence offenders -- a power so great that it turns natural justice on its head, legal experts allege.

In a remarkable show of hubris, the king packed the commission with old royal hands who had served in an era of absolute monarchy started by Gyanendra's father -- King Mahendra -- in 1960. That era was dismantled by a popular movement in 1990, when pro-democracy demonstrators forced Gyanendra's brother -- King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah -- to relegate his authority to that of a constitutional monarch.

Nonetheless, all the gains made in 1990 were dismantled by the royal coup on Feb. 1.

One of the RCCC's first task was to probe financial improprieties in the last Deuba government. Several ministers were summoned, questioned and released on bail for disbursing public funds to political activists last year during the holy Dasain festival, which falls in autumn. Allegedly, all the former ministers who gave out the money happened to belong to democratic political parties.

Then the RCCC put its hands in a controversial drinking water project -- the 464 million U.S. dollar Melamchi drinking water project -- financed, among others, by the Asian Development Bank (AsDB).

Early this month, it summoned Prakash Man Singh, a former minister for physical planning and leader of Deuba's Nepali Congress (Democratic), to answer why he had cancelled an old contract to build a 23-kilometre road leading to the project site and given it to a Chinese-Nepali joint venture instead. Singh refused to appear before the RCCC.

'This is a political witch hunt,' Singh said early last week. 'The decision was made in accordance with the law and there is no corruption involved. Besides, I refuse to appear before a commission which is unconstitutional.'

That got him into jail. Late last week, after the deadline for him to appear before the RCCC expired, police swiftly bundled Singh into a van from his house and threw him in a lockup. The RCCC has extended his detention by seven more days to finish its investigation.

Deuba's arrest will be at a huge political cost to the RCCC. That is because of the public's perception that the royal commission is being used as political tool to settle old scores.

'No one says our politicians are clean. But so is the case with the king's supporters. They did more corruption during the 30-year rule under absolute monarchy than these guys. Why does not the RCCC go after them?' asks Bikram Lama, a taxi driver in Kathmandu.

The Asian Development Bank itself has further bolstered the politicians' case. 'The Kathmandu Post' newspaper reported Tuesday that AsDB officials had themselves approved of the contractor change in the Melamchi drinking water project.

'The approval was undertaken according to AsDB procedures,' the newspaper reported a bank official as saying. The previous contract was cancelled, the official was quoted as saying, 'due to gross under-performance.' The RCCC has yet to react to the AsDB's claims, but the damage has been done.

Also, it does not help that the RCCC is openly encroaching into a jurisdictional area of the constitutionally empowered Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA). Officials there privately lament the RCCC's role and say the royal body is giving a bad name to the anti-corruption investigations.

'Even in those cases we're looking after, the RCCC has interfered in. But what can we do? It is the king's commission and he is all-powerful,' decries a CIAA investigating officer.

But the RCCC has given every indication that it doesn't give a damn.

On Apr. 21, it issued fresh orders to Nepal's banks to furnish the financial records of over 100 selected politicians and bureaucrats. None of those names belongs to loyal royals.