MPs ratifying MCC accord through a voice voting on Sunday night in Parliament.
By P.R. Pradhan
Ending years-long controversy and political drama staged by those double standard leaders, the American grant project Millennium Challenge Corporation has been ratified by Parliament Sunday late night, 27 February, one-day earlier than the deadline given by the Americans.
The burning question is why the political parties in the ruling alliance took the MCC issue in the streets creating violence if they were to ratify it from Parliament without any amendment!
Adopting MCC for sharing power:
Whether the MCC is not against Nepal’s national interests now? Until yesterday, Maoist supremo Pushpakamal Dahal Prachanda and Unified Socialist chair Madhav Kumar Nepal were defining MCC as part of the Indo-Pacific Strategy of the US government, therefore, they denied accepting the grant project. Moreover, Prachanda made the issue more controversial by performing double standards. During the Nepal Communist Party government led by K.P. Sharma Oli, Prachanda hinted his confidant speaker Krishna Bahadur Mahara for not tabling MCC registered by the then government. After Mahara was dismissed from the post, Agni Sapkota was assigned as the speaker. Sapkota also, as per the instruction of Prachanda, tried to keep pending the MCC accord in Parliament. In the meantime, Prime Minister of the present coalition government, Sher Bahadur Deuba and Maoist Center chair Prachanda wrote a joint letter to the MCC headquarters requesting some time for developing consensus on the MCC accord for its endorsement. Until disclosure of the joint letter, Prachanda was lying to his party leaders and also the Nepali people and loudly opposing the MCC project saying that it cannot be endorsed without amendment.
Prachanda and Nepal even mobilized their party workers for demonstrations protesting MCC. What we saw in the streets and bad words used against the USA are on the record, otherwise, one can visit youtube channels.
Finally, Dahal and Nepal have negotiated for the MCC accord just to save their association with the alliance government. Moreover, when the UML leaderships gave a green signal for the MCC and the possibility of the formation of a new alliance government became high, Prachanda and Nepal became ready to accept the MCC accord to avoid UML joining the power. So far, they have presented a 12-point descriptive note as a face-saving. Constitutional experts say that the descriptive note is meaningless as this is not a bilateral issue, whereas, MCC is the accord signed by the two partner countries.
New cold war era and MCC:
Russia has launched an attack on Ukraine and the world has now been polarized. Americans are responsible for compelling Russia for military intervention in Ukraine. Moreover, Ukraine’s wrong handling of its foreign policy is responsible for the present Russian interference.
Ukraine’s desire to join NATO and the formation of an anti-Russian government in Ukraine are the main reasons for the Russian military intervention. Obviously, Russia has a serious objection on Ukraine’s desire to become a NATO member or being the member of the European Union. Clearly, Russia didn’t wish NATO to come upto its international border. Ukraine, a part of the former USSR, didn’t try to understand the security concern of Russia, from which, the country is facing a military intervention.
Although the US government has supplied a huge amount of arms and logistics to Ukraine, the former denied sending its armed force to Ukraine. The US President Joe Biden said, “The Ukrainian people themselves have to fight the war!”
The European countries too are divided on the Ukraine issue. The reason is that stopping the supply of gas and petroleum products from Russia would adversely affect the power supply and also the economy in Europe.
As the Ukrainian leadership failed to understand the mood of the West and tried to hurt the Russian security sensitivity, Russia had no other options except a military intervention.
Lessons for Nepal:
It can also be a lesson for Nepal, a tiny nation between two huge neighbours and emerging global powers. The lesson is that Nepal should maintain balanced diplomatic relations with both the neighbours. More importantly, Nepal should always be alert to the security sensitivity of both neighbours. Especially during the new cold war era, Nepal is needed to play a very balanced role and should not try to hurt any of the neighbouring countries’ security concerns. As we saw, the Americans didn’t come to fight against the Russian military in Ukraine, they don’t come to Nepal in case of any military intervention in Nepal. This is the reality. Whether our leaderships have ever tried to understand the security sensitivity of our neighbours?
Besides, Nepal like tiny countries should remain alert on the citizenship issue. Open border and free flow of citizens of each other countries and distributing citizenship to the migrated population can be the reasons for a split or disappearance of a sovereign and independent nation.
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