Prachanda's Old Video

From Republica's website:

http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=4670

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This is a good watch. The video is in Nepali, but the gist is there in English. Also, Prachanda is a very physical actor, delighting in the limelight he is at the focus of, so his intention, his glee, his duplicity does come across. It is somewhat troubling that this video has been leaked from the inner circles of the Maoist Party: it must have been a, official video document of the Prachanda's visit to the guerrillas in the cantonments. At that time, the party's ambition was to make him the president of the country, with executive powers.

This, of course, makes the biggest difference: to me it points to their naivete regarding the complexity of negotiating their way through the hurdles set in their paths by coalition partners, and other mitigating factors of democracy, like a free press, for instance, or the fact that a lot of people may fundamentally disagree with their world view.

If Prachanda was lying to his guerrillas and telling the truth to the Nepali people, he is still a liar. If he was lying to the Nepali people and telling the truth to the guerrillas, he is still a liar. Worse, this choice of whom to lie to and to whom to tell the truth, shows how he cannot conceive of a single nation of people. Democracy allows for differences in attitude and opinions, but only a dictatorship separates the people into friends and enemies.

One curious observation: among the comments made by people who've seen this clip, commentators using the Nepali language tend to favor Prachanda, whereas commentators using the English language tend to disfavor him.

There was a ginormous procession through the city yesterday, by the Maoist organizations, while the party was disrupting proceedings at the CA, demanding that the president ask for their forgiveness for his "unconstitutional" move. The president's move was indeed unconstitutional, but in my opinion, only so because certain ideas, certain contingencies hadn't been addressed in the interim document. I think the man acted to show balls, unlike all other politicians who are using this opportunity to show how cunning they can be.

The fall-out of this video, although it was also aired through Image Channel, can't be a huge one: what should be the most shocking aspect of this revelation is the manipulation of the people by the Maoist party with its "relief" package of Rs 100,000. Second to that, I think, is the revelation that the party had to come to the negotiating table because they had ruined their relationship with the people, and not because they were having a strategic upper-hand in the war. Third is the revelation that they were never serious about the elections.

It is quite possible that the incompetence of UNMIN, on which they seem to have banked, and the wisdom of the people to force them into the democratic process by voting for them, surprised the Maoists into being more seriously dedicated to their new role as "the state."

Nagarik has a full-page spread dedicated to the text of the video, and it appears that the video has been cleverly edited, the chronology shifted around, but that's TV for you. Nothing erroneous, though, in the edit, nothing deceptive.