Perhaps the collapse of the Nepalese peace process was not entirely unexpected.
But until the last minute both sides were still telling the public they were committed to dialogue. The government and the Maoist rebels fighting it were under pressure to find a peaceful end to a seven-year-old insurgency.
In a sudden turn of events, however, King Gyanendra dismissed Nepal's government and imposed a state of emergency last Tuesday, cutting off his Himalayan country from the rest of the world. Flights were diverted and civil liberties severely curtailed, but King Gyanendra denied that he had staged a coup d'etat.
In a live TV broadcast this week, the Nepalese leader tried to clarify his actions: "I have decided to dissolve the government because it has failed to make necessary arrangements to hold elections by April and protect democracy, the sovereignty of the people and life and property."
Soldiers were seen surrounding the houses of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and other government leaders, while armored vehicles with mounted machine guns were patrolling the streets of Katmandu.
According to the Press Trust of India, the King stated that a new government would be formed that "will restore peace and effective democracy in this country within the next three years."
In Nepal, crisis is nothing new. The past few years have been one long, slow crisis. Earlier this week every telephone line and Internet connection had been disconnected by royal decree. But cutting phone lines and Internet connections is nothing in a country where three and a half years ago almost the entire royal family was wiped out, apparently after the crown prince went on a berserk rampage.
Nepalis are moving to the capital in the thousands because it's the only place safe from a Maoist insurgency that has already claimed more than 10,000 lives. The king may have seized absolute power, but Maoists camped halfway up the Himalayas can still bring his capital to a near standstill any time they want by calling a general strike.
One of the reasons that the Maoists have become so powerful is the King's increasing unpopularity.
After his father died, Gyanendra became a trusted adviser to his brother, King Birendra, but they fell out in 1990. That was when Birendra agreed to give up absolute power and become a constitutional monarch. Gyanendra opposed the constitutional monarchy from the start.
Birendra's death in the royal massacre of 2001 caused an outpouring of grief. Not just any king had been killed; Birendra gave Nepalis democracy and constitutional rights. When Gyanendra succeeded him, grief gave way to rage. Even now, many ordinary Nepalis do not believe the official version of the massacre: that it was carried out by a drunken, enraged Crown Prince Dipendra. And we thought the British Royal Family had problems.
Many find it highly suspicious that Gyanendra was conveniently away from the palace when it took place. It is considered even more suspicious that virtually the sole male survivors in the royal family were Gyanendra and his only son, Crown Prince Paras.
By utilizing draconian policies to maintain power, King Gyanendra is playing into the hands of the Maoists who decry his autocratic monarchy, hardening their resolve to overthrow him and install a communist republic. The only sensible way to deal with the situation would have been for the king to encourage elections, however flawed. The king needs to regain the trust of the people. He needs to stick to the timeline of elections put together by the central government and he must continue the constitutional changes of former King Birendra.
Furthermore, the world community needs to do more to facilitate peace in an already volatile South Asia. By pulling out of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation meeting in Dhaka, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sent a rightful snub to King Gyanendra, who was to attend. Britain has threatened to review security and development assistance to the kingdom. In a recent press conference, Foreign Office Minister Douglas Alexander said after summoning the Nepalese ambassador that the King's actions "will increase the risk of instability in Nepal, undermining the institutions of democracy and constitutional monarchy in the country."
The United Nations, the United States and China have also expressed their concerns, albeit in a comparatively muted manner.
The international community must not let Nepal become a failed state. As witnesses to recent history, we have all become all too familiar with how renegade groups and terrorists can capitalize on political vacuums. And prospects of avoiding another Afghanistan, Somalia or Sudan seem grim indeed.
Arjun Iyengar '05 is anti-draconian.
