N.P. Upadhyaya, Kathmandu: Partly the US Ambassador to the Nepali Court Randy Berry is also at fault for all the diplomatic fracas that has apparently jolted the Nepal-America relations in these days more so after the private talks that took place in between Prachanda and the visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Needless to say, the US is one of the oldest “reliable-development” partner of Nepal. This is a proven fact.
But how could Ambassador Berry conclude that Nepal-US relations were not that strong? It is strong provided we both work hard to strengthen our ties from both the ends.
At times the US ignored its ties with Nepal, this is what observers feel.
Ambassador Berry is primarily at fault in that he in a haste took Comrade Prachanda in good faith prior to granting him GRATIS visa to travel to the US for the treatment of Madame Sita Dahal-the consort of Prachanda.
In fact Ambassador Berry must have talked to Ambassador James H. Moriarty as to what sort of political stuff Prachanda was? Moriarty knew Prachanda well at the fag end of his Nepal tenure, let’s guess so.
That Prachanda was a big farce the energetic US envoy must have been briefed by his “near and dear” friends. However, looking at the anxiety the Ambassador has been exhibiting in the recent week’s hint that he was kept in dark by his own friends in the town who pose to be close to him but they are not perhaps.
Or his intimacy is with the “men” of Father Shyam Saran with whom at a later stage Ambassador Moriarty developed close ties which is what encouraged the Maoists not only to capture the state and the climax of the fresh world shaking event of Speaker’s sex scandal?
In fact, had Moriarty stood firm to what he said 2006 February (21 or 22?) of the Maoists then Nepal would have been a different country at least such sad events, such as the one of the sex scandal and that of Gyanendra Shahi vandalism in Chitwan district would not have happened. Nepal may soon collapse if things were allowed to go the North Korean way.
Jungle law prevails in Nepal at the moment.
Ambassador Moriarty initially (as we have been speaking since the beginning of 2006) was against the Delhi drafted 12 point agreement which he believed the India’s structured agreement will not bring in the Delhi residing Nepal Maoists to the mainstream national politics of Nepal but instead will push the seven agitating political parties (SPA) to the fold of the Maoists’ violent politics.
This he had said at a hurriedly summoned press conference at the Annapurna Hotel in February 2006.
Ambassador Berry is thus advised to revisit the old files of 2006 press statement made by his senior colleague Moriarty then. (He will benefit if he reads those statements made by Moriarty in those days).
Ambassador Moriarty was clear in his stance that the 12 point agreement will be advantageous only to the Delhi’s trusted Maoists but not to the political parties who had been summoned by New Delhi to sign the said Shyam Saran drafted agreement.
However, what happened to Ambassador Moriarty later is simply puzzling in that he began “looking Nepal through the Indian lens”.
And this catapulted Nepali politics and the result is here for all to see. The fresh being the horrible sex scam. We feel sorry for the lady whose life is now almost close to a hell in this male dominated society. But she too to some extent is at fault for several visible and invisible reasons.
To come back to the point, a section of matured observers still believes that the US continues to view Nepal though the same Indian lens. The US has so far failed to convince Nepal that the US sees Nepal straight through its own eyes.
Now the Indian Minister Shankar (the blockade man) will never allow the US to see straight to Nepal. Take it for granted.
And what happened over these years after the Maoists almost captured the national politics perhaps Ambassador Berry too himself is in knowledge because it is his second inning in Nepal.
He is the witness as to what has been happening in Nepal and which leader is serving whom and how the country’s foreign policy is being twisted for one’s benefits.
Yes Ambassador Berry’s haste in granting Prachanda the visa for US travel after the fake Venezuelan drama too may have something to do with the anxiety that the US envoy is experiencing of late more so after he came to know as to how Prachanda viewed the Indo-Pacific strategy.
Prachanda in clear terms stated that he favored the Chinese belt and Road Initiative over the US brain Child the Indo-Pacific Strategy.
The US envoy should understand that the man who never remained true and sincere to his mother soil, how he could exhibit loyalty to the US?
Prachanda though is the son of mother Nepal has already cheated New Delhi wherein he took shelter for some good ten years then after completing his health mission of his wife in the US, why he should continue to pay respect to what he used to call the US as an “imperialist” country? The US is once again an imperialist country in his eyes because he has got his things already done.
The same should apply to China as well.
For a moment China has reasons to smile but the Prachanda whom we know him since some years will at an opportune moment surely dupe China much the same way as Ambassador Berry may have felt for him in the recent days and weeks.
Clearly speaking, Prachanda is neither of Nepal nor of India, China and that of the US. Rest assured.
So nothing to feel uneasy Mr. Ambassador.
Nepal-US ties are more than limited to the whims of the former Delhi man-Prachanda.
Albeit he could change his color and so the preference if and when he is approached by some with greater favor(s) that what he has been enjoying at a particular time.
The Chinese President though is coming to Nepal but then Nepali population believe that President Xi is visiting Nepal for the people of Nepal but not for the chameleon leaders-the fake communists that they are.
China is in know of India’s men in Nepali politics.
At best the US may have to deal with two North Korean regimes in Asia.
The first being in the Korean peninsula and the new one in Nepal neighboring China and India both.
Sounds funny but it is a fact.
Clearly, Nepal’s handling of Nepal’s foreign policy is in the wrong and incompetent hands.
It was Minister Gyawali who in December 2018 talked with Mike Pompeo and almost hinted his US counterpart that Nepal shall support his Strategy.
But when some Pundits of International Relations talked that the Indo-Pacific Strategy was some sort of military alliance designed by the US wherein Nepal as a staunch supporter of Non Align Movement must not have Okayed the US stance by Minister Gyawali then the issue took a different political dimension.
Nepal neither remains a nonaligned country nor is it practicing an equidistant/equiproximity policy in between the two immediate neighbors.
Basically, Nepal’s foreign policy is pegged to Indian foreign policy. Nepal follows the Indian instructions. And that’s it and for this the Royal institution was dismantled in which the US too have had a bit of contribution. Ambassador Moriarty knows it better.
But yet to a greater extent India dictates Nepal’s foreign policy, for instance take the Kashmir issue and the Nepali stance taken finally by Minister Gyawali.
Clearly speaking, Nepal has only one lobby and that being of the Indian establishment. It is there and shall be there as long as the RAW intelligence agency is pumping in money in billions and billions in Nepal to its undercover agents.
Sensing that India has already captured the Nepali politics, China at a later stage (after 2008) began thinking that she too must have some political influence in Nepal.
And thus China entered in a big way which could be felt easily at the moment.
However, it is here that China too got cheated in that the “undercover agents” who had been serving the Indian establishment were able somehow or the other to convince the Mini Beijing in Kathmandu that they were ready to serve Beijing.
The Mini Beijing got excited and accepted the thug agents who approached and thus these proxies began serving both India and China as “double cross”. Both the nations were happy but did not think that they are being duped secretly.
Here is a real story: It so happened that one fine evening the Chinese Ambassador (Ambassador’s name withheld) invited some “agents” at a dinner. Needless to say, the national politics was discussed and the invited guests too extracted some Chinese plans for Nepal and etc…).
The dinner ended and the men dispersed.
However, one double cross out of excitement rang the Indian embassy and “informed” the detailed talks that had taken place on the dinner table.
Unfortunately he rang while he was still inside the Embassy gate and got exposed.
The dinner continues and the double crossing practice, let’s presume, must have been in the progress as witnessed some years ago. The exposed man still enjoys Chinese dinner, we have been told.
And what is the guarantee that the US too is not being lured by such double cross agents? Achtung!
If one is addicted to “supplying information or selling” then he can sell the same to as many as he could if the price is a hefty one. This is a booming business in Kathmandu these days.
The sellers are always in search of buyers and the process continues in our country. Father Ambassador Saran had collected as many agents as he could. Some agents were even sent to Delhi to talk to Prachanda in Delhi…..
In all, criticisms apart, the nation now needs a matured and competent diplomat/diplomacy who/which could convince China, India and the US that Nepal shall make every possible efforts in taking proper care of their interests if any but these countries too should allow the Nepalese to remain “pro-Nepal” as has been rightly said by the vibrating US diplomat.
Instead of blaming China, India or for that matter the far flung US, Nepal must adopt and adhere to a diplomatic strategy that takes proper care of the core interests of all these three countries ( and also of the Developed West and our honorable donors) and tell these countries not to poke their nose in Nepal’s internal matters.
One envoy posted in Nepal is micro-managing Nepali State. The US envoy perhaps knows him well who is just one and a half kilometers away from the US embassy Southwards?
It is really unfortunate that a foreign diplomat should now teach the Nepali people to remain pro-Nepal. This is too much but a fact.
Isn’t it a matter of shame for us? Perhaps hundred percent yes.
At an interaction organized by the Institute of Strategic and Socio-Economic Research (ISSR) in Kathmandu on September 27/19 the US Ambassador to Nepal, Randy Berry advising Nepal said that “We have never asked Nepal to be pro-America. We, of course, welcome the decades-long partnership between the two countries”.
The pro-Indian and pro-China men who perhaps were listening to the US envoy’s wise counsels must have covered their faces. Let’s hope so.
The visibly upset US Ambassador to Nepal, Randy W Berry told Nepal to be pro-Nepal, not even pro-America or against any other country.
Perhaps this is the first time that a foreign envoy of the Ambassadorial rank, has dared to tell Nepali people to abandon the slave-mentality in serving a particular country or countries but instead “take pride in your own well preserved sovereign status”.
Nepal to recall, is an ancient nation which had its existence even during the Mahabharata era.
The Ambassador was quick enough to clarify his country’s stance that Nepal has never been asked to join the Indo-Pacific Strategy. “That because there is nothing to join it,” Ambassador Berry told the interaction attended by lawmakers, former ambassadors, diplomats, retired army officials, and senior journalists.
Elaborating his version on the Indo-Pacific strategy or (policy) he added that “Look around this region, not a single country has joined the Indo-Pacific Strategy because nobody has been asked to join”.
Ambassador Berry clarified adding that the Indo-Pacific Strategy is the name which we gave to a US policy. “It describes what we strive to do. We Americans strive to do to protect in advance a free open and secure Indo-Pacific region,” he tentatively concluded.
But his message was loud and clear.
His statement must have jolted those who possess abundant love and honor for alien countries than what they may have for their own mother soil.
We thank the foreign envoy who says think of Nepal first. But will Ambassador Berry in a friendly manner admonish the present day rulers of Nepal to discipline themselves. Will he dare to correct the US deviations seen at time of Ambassador Moriarty which brought Nepal to this pathetic situation to what Ambassador Berry has been witnessing for himself? Isn’t it Excellency?
Ambassador Moriarty’s personal vendetta with the then Nepal sovereign is the sum total of today’s Nepali politics. Is there a room for a suitable correction or subtle “action” Ambassador? But the suggestions must not look like “intervention” Mr. Ambassador. Though we are used to unnecessary interventions but yet we prefernot to be intimidated by others except India. That’s all.