Following the release of two videos concerning the Nepalese Prime Minister’s controversial attempts of amending the country’s laws on corruption and political violence, thousands of Nepalis have called their representatives to demand an end to the bills.
The first of the videos posted on August 21st on a popular Nepalese YouTube channel, IN-Depth Story, explains how the recently formed government under K. P. Sharma Oli is trying to push an amendment bill to the country’s Anti-Corruption Act of 2002 (2059 in the Nepalese calendar). It reached 330,000 views at the time of this writing.
The amendment would stipulate that cases of corruption must be filed within five years of becoming known. If the bill passes, many high-profile scandals involving leading politicians of the past few years would automatically be deemed unfit for trial.
Although former civil war leader Prachanda – whose last term came to a sudden end after losing a vote of confidence in Parliament – was replaced by Oli as Prime Minister, the video argues that the amendment would actually benefit corrupt politicians of all major parties.
IN-Depth Story therefore encourages its audience to call or contact the representatives chairing the State Affairs and Good Governance Committee that is overseeing the bill. Within only a few days, the aforementioned representatives had received thousands of calls and the issue was officially brought up in Parliament.
The second IN-Depth Story video posted a few days later on August 25th covered another bill that had already entered parliament during the Prachanda government. The bill contains a mixture of widely varying amendments. The clause causing the recent outrage concerns the National Penal Code. It states that a person committing an act of violence may go unpunished if: (1) he or she states that the violence was carried out in disagreement with the current political system; (2) expresses a desire to continue being active in politics in a peaceful and law-abiding manner; and (3) reaches a peace agreement with the government.
The amendment is tailored to former Maoist revolutionaries now being active in politics, among them Prachanda himself, who have faced accusations of violence and murder during the ten year civil war period. The second video has already reached 263,000 views as of now and ended with a similar call to contact the representatives overseeing the bill in question.
The LLCO stands firmly on the side of the people who have taken up the courage to hold their corrupt politicians responsible. The current political landscape of Nepal is more similar to a Mafia family than to a functioning state, and is ripe for fundamental change. We further acknowledge that crimes were committed by both sides during the Nepalese Civil War between the government and the Maoist revolutionaries led by Prachanda. Demagogues and opportunists like him, who rouse peoples’ hopes for their own gains and then betray their own followers to secure a comfortable place for themselves in capitalist politics, should face severe punishment.
The old communist parties of Prachanda, Oli, and all the others are now a firmly established part of Nepal’s Mafia politics. What is necessary now is an organization that can actually replace Nepal’s corrupt political structures instead of simply staffing them with new profiteers. What is necessary now is an organization that can take the peoples’ outrage beyond making phone calls and towards actually building a better tomorrow for Nepal and all oppressed and underdeveloped nations of the world.
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NEW POWER 
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