By Rabi Raj Thapa

The two-day Gen-Z protest and its impact have been great and long-lasting. How security forces became excessively aggressive on September 8 and became numb and defenseless within the next day is hard to understand. This will likely remain a mystery and a riddle for many security experts and conspiracy theorists for a long time. On the first day of the Gen-Z demonstration, security forces displayed monstrous brutality without any compassion, whereas they succumbed to an attitude of sacrificial lambs the following day. Nepal saw a day of mayhem, lynching, loot, vandalism, and arson that forced all government top guns into hiding to save their lives.

The question always remains: who is to be blamed? During the riot of the March 28 protest in Tinkune and the September 7 and 8 protests around Kathmandu, it is definitely the PM KP Sharma Oli, and the Home Minister Ramesh Lekahk who are the main culprits. It was they and the police organizations who, intentionally or by order, deployed excessive firepower to subdue uniformed school and college students with hundreds of rounds of lethal bullets.

Recently, the US former Congressman and National Guard Major General, William Enyart, has heavily criticized President Trump’s deployment of National Guard soldiers to major cities in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Like the National Guard of America, APF is the best-trained paramilitary force of Nepal. Like the Nepal Army, they are trained more in military skills, not police skills. They are trained as a stand-by force to deploy to assist in disaster recovery like hurricanes, river floods, tornedoes, to name but a few. However, the way they were deployed gave a mixed message of what they are and what they are not.

The past few incidents clearly shows government weakness in public order management in Civic Disturbances. This is going to be more acute and challenging for the security forces.

Therefore, security agencies must recover their thousands of semi-automatic weapons that can be abused during the forthcoming elections. Second, there are still 9,000 jail-breakers and fugitives who can aggravate armed incidents, intimidate and terrorize voters during the election time. The government also must sternly warn fugitives and jail-birds to surrender soon within a stipulated time-line or face severe consequences.  

Now the time has come to introspect and examine the fault-lines, consolidate and strengthen security sector reform to prepare it to cope with a more challenging situation that is definite to come soon. This is an opportune moment where security organizations do not have politicians milking them as bastions of suppression and corruption. Whatever the political system, the crux of the matter with security sector reform is to gain people’s trust, confidence, and credibility in the people they serve and protect.

How can low-ranking security personnel trust their leadership when the leaders cannot protect their subordinates? It is a primary duty of security top-brass who order and use them on missions in war or in peace-time. The government’s trust and confidence in its security forces is also essential.  

What the government did during the Gen-Z protest and demonstration failed to guard people’s fundamental rights and freedom to assemble and express? The government and security forces breached people’s deep bonds of trust? When they or ignored and crossed their limit, people retaliated, where maybe miscreants took advantage. But ultimately it was the fault of the government and the security forces as well. Once lost, it takes years and generations of police forces to recover its lost credibility and morale. This happens when security personnel start to shoot and kill unarmed school and college students, and become trigger-happy. This can be stopped only by proper, intensive professional training and good leadership. Police should never let it happen in the future. Today’s Nepal’s problems and challenges are of a long-lasting nature that need a far-sighted long-term solution. It cannot be achieved by trigger-happy, ill-trained, unprofessional, and badly led leadership.

The writer is a retired AIG of the Armed Police Force.