Exactly one and a half months ago Indian Border Special Force (Sima Sasastra Bal) (SSB) began chasing Nepali families from Triveni Susta Village saying the territory lies under the jurisdiction of the Indian State of Bihar. About 1000 Indian farmers, who had entered Susta with the help of Indian forces, destroyed about 10 hectares of sugarcane planted by Nepali farmers and also manhandled men and women. This clearly shows India's interest to displace about 350 Nepali people from their homeland.
Nepali farmers didn't keep quiet this time. They formed a Committee for a "Save Susta Campaign" coordinated by Gopal Prasad Gurung. They took their appeal to Kathmandu, asking the government to intervene immediately and start fixing the border. The team met with the Home Minister Dan Bahadur Shahi and requested him to begin border demarcation talks with the Indian government. The villagers also requested the Home Minister to deploy security forces in Susta for the safety and security of Nepalis living there. Surprisingly, the minister did nothing, only saying that the forces were focused on fighting against Maoist rebels. The Royal government, which is more concerned with convincing the international community including India about its current position, is still quiet while Nepali farmers face harassment by Indian farmers and SSB personnel.
However, human rights defenders, researchers, border specialists and historians couldn't keep quiet. They visited Susta village to inspect the problems last week. The situation they describe is horrific, created by the "big brother" of South Asia. Nurjaha Begum broke down when the team led by Chetandra Jung Himali of the Civic Committee for Border Concerns listened to what Susta dwellers have been going through. Nurjaha told the team: "Indians beat Nepali men; and women are beaten up too, particularly they hit on sensitive parts of women. Indian forces accuse us that we have relations with the King and Maoists; they harass us stating that we smuggle tiger skin, which is not true."
The seven-member inspection team found the Indians to have encroached further into about 200 hectares of Nepali land. Indian farmers were found building houses in those areas, and about 1000 SSB were stationed there. "Now the total Nepali land that India has grabbed in Susta alone has reached about 14,000 hectares," says Buddhi Narayan Shrestha, a noted border specialist and historian in Nepal. India has encroached onto Nepali land in Susta on several occasions in the past.
The Narayani River flows from north to south, from Tribenighat to Sustait, forming a 24 kilometer border between Nepal and India. No physical demarcation was made on either side of the river though "boundary delimitation and delineation" was done after Nepal and India signed the Sugauli Treaty in 1816. This has created room for border disputes.
The International "Fixed Boundary Principle" and "Fluid Boundary Principle" are in practice for border demarcation. In Nepal-India's case, the 9th meeting of the Joint Technical Level Boundary Committee of the two countries in the first week of January 1988 had agreed to demarcate the riverine sector on the basis of the Fixed Boundary Principle. According to this principle, says the border specialist, Shrestha, "the borderline should be fixed along the course followed by the Narayani River in 1816 no matter whether or not the river flows along that area today." India does not accept this principle in Susta, while it has created disputes in the Mechi River area in eastern Nepal by erecting new border posts inside Nepali territory as per the Fixed Boundary Principle. The two cases of Mechi River area and Narayani River area are exactly the same in nature but India has imposed two different principles for them.
To stop encroachment, a police post was established in Susta. The government also built a health post and school in order to maintain Nepal's territorial integrity but time and again stories of confrontation between Nepali and Indian farmers have been coming to light. Also the locals narrate cases of Indian farmers trying to get Nepali citizenship by means of fraud and forgery in order to own those areas. However, Susta is not the only case, as Nepal shares over 1800 kilometers of border with India and border disputes exist in at least 85 different places. Boundary posts at dozens of points have disappeared; the 10-yard wide strip of no man's land between the two countries is getting blurred day by day and in addition 372 square kilometers of the Nepali territory of Kalipani at the tri-junction of Nepal, India and China has been occupied by Indian troops since the 1960s.
A map was drawn with the help of the Canadian government in 1985 and in 1992, another map was drawn with the assistance of the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA). In both cases, the maps show the whole Susta area in Nepal's territory.
The actual scientific demarcation of the Nepal-India boundary had started during the topographical survey of the whole of Nepal carried out by the Survey of India in 1926-27. But India has delayed making all the topographical maps available. For instance, it has not made available 17 sheets of which 12 sheets pertain to the Nepal-India border of the Kalapani area, and 5 sheets pertaining to the Nepal-China border. Several attempts have been made at the national level to resolve the Susta issue but nothing has happened due to a negative Indian attitude. Indian bureaucrats always suspect a ploy being hatched by Beijing or Islamabad when Nepal brings any agenda for discussion. Early this month the Nepal-India Joint Technical Level Boundary Team met in order to resolve border disputes, but like many previous meetings, it ended inconclusively.
Nepal is a sovereign country and the government should take immediate action against Indian encroachment. "In fact the issue should be internationalized as India, claiming itself a representative of South Asia, is seeking a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council," says Gopal Siwakoti Chintan, a human rights defender. He questioned, "Would India's hegemonic nature towards smaller countries in the region qualify it to achieve the permanent seat in Security Council? The government should raise this question while dealing with India, which needs smaller countries' vote in UN elections."
Other members of Nepali civil society say that only a political commitment in both countries may resolve the border problems. However, what is happening in Susta tells a different political scenario. Bihar State of India, which shares the border with Nepal in the South, is holding elections of its State Assembly in January next year; and Indian politicians are influencing voters by distributing disputed Susta land to Indian farmers. It may also be mentioned that Sima Sasastra Bal (SSB) told Nepali families that they would be provided a land ownership certificate from India if they said that the territory belonged to India.
"1000 Indian farmers have entered in Susta, it is not only encroachment in our land, but also an encroachment in our nationality," said Ram Chandra Chataut, an activist. Adds the border specialist, Shrestha, "Historical documents should be collected in order to begin border demarcation immediately. If we remain quiet, those Nepalis living in frontier would become foreigners in future."
The Civic Committee for Border Concerns is launching programs under the Save Susta Campaign both in Nepal and India. Border specialist, Shrestha, historian Dr Surendra KC, human rights defender, Chintan and others are seeking an audience with King Gyanendra to request him to intervene immediately for resolving the Susta border dispute, and ending harassment faced by Nepali farmers. They will also submit a memorandum to the Indian government through its embassy in Kathmandu. They will meet with the Chief of the Army Staff of the Royal Nepalese Army to ensure security for Nepali people living along border areas. The Committee will make a documentary on the reality of Susta and organize interactions in New Delhi in order to inform concerned Indian citizens.
"India is using its media to misinform even Indian citizens. Recently, Indian TV spread a false story about my book, which was published seven years ago and tells the reality of Nepal-India border issues. Thus, we should not keep quiet," says Fanindra Nepal, a researcher.
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(AFP/Devendra M. Singh)
AP - Thu Oct 13, 6:02 AM ET By: Cam Simpson
Chicago Tribune
KATMANDU, Nepal - (KRT) - The jolting news out of Iraq came to the woman from a neighbor boy.
"What's your son's name?" the child cried out, his voice ringing through their village in the Himalayan foothills, almost 4,000 miles from the American theater of war.
"Bishnu Hari Thapa," the woman called back.
"Turn on your television," the boy shouted.
Peering at the small screen in her family's apartment, Bishnu Maya Thapa saw the solemn face of her firstborn son. Worried for three weeks, ever since he'd left an alarming phone message, she now saw him posed before a black banner emblazoned with Arabic, holding his passport open with his right hand, just below his chin.
Someone beyond the frame's edge held a rifle's muzzle over Bishnu Hari's head. Alongside him stood 11 other Nepalis, as if gathered for some kind of class photo. The 12 men had been seized by terrorists in Iraq, the announcer said, the words robbing the mother of her breath.
It had been only seven weeks since she sent her 18-year-old son off to earn a paycheck that would bring their family a better life. But that paycheck was supposed to come from the safety of a five-star hotel in Jordan, not the combat zone of Iraq.
Whether Bishnu Hari and most of the other 11 Nepalis even knew before leaving home that they were headed to Iraq remains a mystery.
At least three did, but they were deceived about key details. Most of the rest, including Bishnu Hari, appear to have been lured with fraudulent paperwork promising jobs at the luxury hotel in Amman.
They learned Iraq was their real destination only after their families went deeply into debt to pay huge sums demanded by the brokers who sent these sons and brothers to the Middle East.
The stench of grease, scorched cumin and sweat coats the brown thatch walls of the New Bamboo Cottage, a Tiki-hut restaurant on the edge of Katmandu, Nepal's sprawling capital.
In the early summer of 2004, Bishnu Hari worked odd jobs around the restaurant. At night, he would sleep on the pale linoleum tables shoved together, side-by-side and end-to-end, after the restaurant's final customer had gone home.
He was 5 feet tall and wore blue jeans and sandals. His face often sported fuzz that wouldn't trouble a razor. But in Nepalese society he was already a man, expected to help his family. That was why his mother, like so many here, had prayed for a son.
For Bishnu Hari, sleeping on the restaurant's tables was about finding a chance to improve the lot of a mother who earlier in her life had crushed stones at a quarry for pennies a day. It was about helping a father shouldering the burdens of rent, food and clothing for a family of five.
In Bishnu Hari's hometown of Siudibar, a rural village named for a wildflower, there are few opportunities beyond subsistence farming. But he was trained as a welder and electrician, giving him the skill to fix the wiring rigged all around the New Bamboo Cottage. In return, the owner let him stay there for free.
Being close to Katmandu was his real reward: Bishnu Hari dreamed of getting a job in another country with help from one of the city's more than 400 manpower agencies.
For a fee, often 10 times more than Nepal's per capita income of $270 a year, those agencies send men to labor in the Persian Gulf region, Malaysia and beyond. While onerous, the fee is a gamble that any job in the Middle East might yield a salary of $200 a month, an unimaginable sum in Nepal.
Tourism, once buoyed by Westerners in search of Shangri-La, was an early casualty of Nepal's nine-year-old civil war with Maoist rebels. Almost 40 percent of the country's nearly 28 million people live on less than $1 a day.
So the estimated $1 billion wired home each year by overseas Nepalis outpaces tourism, all exports and foreign aid combined.
Many from Bishnu Hari's remote village, in a district ravaged by the Maoist war, had made the five-hour bus ride to Katmandu before him, following the same dream.
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Kumar Thapa, a former neighbor from Bishnu Hari's village, was living in Katmandu. During a visit back home, he had offered to help the young man.
Thapa is what Nepalis call a dalal, which is a Hindi-derived word once used to identify a pimp. Now it's synonymous with "middleman" or "agent." Dalals are vital to the overseas labor system. They don't have licenses. They only take cash. There are no receipts. Nothing is written down.
Thapa was an amateur in this world, but he earned the dalal's reward. He pocketed a fee for each man he sent to the labor agents. And he hoped for another commission, helping get Bishnu Hari into the New Bamboo Cottage and close to the action.
After sleeping on the restaurant's dining tables for three weeks, Bishnu Hari found an advertisement in the June 13, 2004, edition of the Kantipur Daily, the leading Nepalese-language newspaper.
In the bottom corner of Page 16, it read: "Vacancies in Amman, Jordan."
More than 100 jobs were waiting for Nepalese men, the ad promised. They would fetch $200 to $500 per month. Just one month's salary would be enough to cover rent for Bishnu Hari's family for more than half the year. Enough for him to send his little brother to college.
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With the American presence in Iraq making Amman a boom town, the city needed cleaners, laborers and laundry workers. Butchers, bus drivers and mechanics, too. There were even four openings for a "salad man."
But there was a price to be paid to secure such a job, as there always is here. The agency's cut of the fee ranged from the equivalent of $1,000 to $1,285, a huge sum for a Nepalese boy.
"Preference will be given to candidates who have already worked in hotels," the ad stated. "Probable flight for selected candidates within two months."
Near the bottom of the ad was a logo, a crescent moon and six stars slung low over two mountain peaks. Arching over the stars and the mountains like a rainbow were the words "Moon Light Consultant Pvt. Ltd."
Moon Light also stated in the ad that a "demand letter" for the hotel jobs in Amman from its Jordanian counterpart - called Morning Star for Recruitment and Manpower Supply - was on file with the government, as required by Nepalese law. Job interviews were scheduled for the next day.
In less than three months, Moon Light's logo would become the focal point of rage for thousands of Nepalis wielding torches, tire irons and Molotov cocktails in their own streets. They would burn and loot Moon Light's office, along with scores of others.
But on June 13, it was still a symbol of hope for men such as Bishnu Hari.
He could have gone straight to the job agent himself. But instead, like many other inexperienced young men from rural villages, he entrusted his future to an older, more experienced man, the dalal who understood the world of overseas work. So he took the newspaper to Thapa.
Moon Light listed its Labor Ministry registration number in the ad, so Thapa figured it was aboveboard. He knew the office, so he took the young man from his village there.
If Bishnu Hari or any of the other men responding to the ad that day had questions about Moon Light, the firm's full-color brochure would have offered answers.
Printed on 42 glossy pages, it was more like a soft-cover book or the special edition of a top-selling magazine. "Our motto is `Right workers for the right job' so that all of our clients are happy with us," it announced on its first page.
Inside were copies of 32 demand letters from Moon Light's broker-counterparts in the Middle East, including Morning Star.
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The brochure also carried a picture of the smiling Prahlad Giri, Moon Light's general manager.
At 6 feet tall, Giri would have towered over most of the men who responded to the Moon Light ad. Although just 24, Giri ran Moon Light, his family's business. Dressed in a three-button suit, shirt collar open, he would poke the air with his slender fingers when he spoke or touch the tips of all 10 together and prop his hands below his sharp chin, like a man saying something profound.
Would-be workers swarm the offices of such brokers after job ads appear. Lines stream outside the doors, into hallways and even streets and alleys unprotected from the hot sun of Katmandu summers.
Among the job seekers, Bishnu Hari was a standout. Unlike many young Nepalese men, he had graduated from high school. He was experienced in wiring and welding. And he was ready to pay the fee.
Giri said in an interview that he didn't mention anything about Iraq to the applicants that day. Because of the danger, the Nepalese government had prohibited job agents from sending men there.
But Giri said he did offer Bishnu Hari and the others who interviewed a warning: Jordan's Morning Star is a multinational company, and it might send you somewhere else.
Bishnu Hari's dalal, though, said Iraq wasn't mentioned, only Jordan. In any case, at the end of the day, Bishnu Hari got the one piece of news he really wanted to hear: He had passed the interview. He was told to have his money ready.
Within days, Giri's office filed paperwork with the Nepalese Labor Ministry for Bishnu Hari and 34 others to head to Jordan for Morning Star. He and at least eight other men, the paperwork said, had contracts to work at Amman's five-star Le Royal Hotel.
In the days ahead, Bishnu Hari couldn't wait to get out of the New Bamboo Cottage - for good. He excitedly asked Thapa, the neighbor who recruited him, "When will I go?"
In late June, Bishnu Hari spoke by phone with his mother. It was time to pay the fee for the job, he told her, so please arrange to get the money.
She borrowed more than $2,100, about $400 of which came from the local development bank, a sort of savings and loan. The rest came from lenders in the village who charged 36 percent interest a month, she said.
Bishnu Hari made the five-hour bus ride back to Siudibar the next day to collect the cash.
If his mother had known what awaited her son, "I would have kept him by my side even if I had to do backbreaking work," she said. "For me, he was still like a newborn babe, just like a chicken that hatches from an egg."
The promise he made before leaving still echoes in her mind:
"Life is hard for us, Mummy. I will earn and send money home. We will buy land and build a small house to live in."
She handed him the cash, sending him out of their small apartment and back to Katmandu.
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Bishnu Hari was among many young men following a route that would take them to Katmandu and then to the Middle East. The 11 others who eventually would be kidnapped with him in Iraq also came from rural areas, stretching from the hills of northwestern Nepal to the nation's low-lying plains in the southeast.
They ranged in age from 18 to 27. Their lack of opportunity at home was evident in the professions written in their passports - "farming," "helper," "labor."
One of them, 19-year-old Ramesh Khadka, began his journey from a mud-and-brick home with a blue tin roof in a village where he helped farm his family's fields near the nexus of two majestic river valleys, the Nalu and Lele.
In another Nepalese village hundreds of miles away, three best friends who would later meet Bishnu Hari boarded a bus. Budhan Kumar Shah, Manuj Kumar Thakur and Lalan Singh Koiri were inseparable in their hometown of Mahendranagar, in Nepal's lower plains.
Just weeks before, a recruiter had trolled their village, promising that any willing young man could earn $700 a month serving food to U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
The three best friends had listened together intently. They and their families knew little of Iraq, the American war, its dangers or the nation's daily atrocities. "Don't worry," family members recalled the recruiter telling them. "You are working for American soldiers. The plane will take you to the camp, and in the camp there is no danger."
The oldest, Shah, marveled at the idea that just one-month's salary was more than four times what he earned all year as a ticket-taker at the local movie house. His two friends, Thakur, a 23-year-old college student, and Koiri, a 21-year-old farmer, were equally dazzled.
Together, they persuaded their families to borrow money to pay the broker, who had demanded $3,500 per head. And together they boarded a bus, which rolled down a road where oxen pull carts filled with dung and straw before passing under a canopy of mango trees and reaching Nepal's only east-west highway.
It would take them all night to reach the Nepalese capital.
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Bishnu Hari flagged a taxi in early July outside the restaurant where he'd been working, and waiting, for weeks.
The cab took him to Katmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport, which fills nearly every day with young men headed to the Middle East. The volume is so great that Gulf Air even reconfigured its Boeing 767s to accommodate more workers.
Destinations roll across the airport's flight boards: Doha, Dubai, Manama, each a hub for the network that sends South Asians to labor in the Middle East.
Bishnu Hari and several of the other men took a night flight, landing at Queen Alia International Airport on the Fourth of July.
About three weeks later, he phoned Nepal. Bishnu Hari called the New Bamboo Cottage and spoke briefly with his younger brother, Krishna, who had taken his place at the restaurant in the hope of landing a job overseas as well.
Bishnu Hari started to ask his brother how things were, but the line went dead.
He called back later, and the fractured message he left haunts his mother to this day.
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REUTERS/Gopal Chitrakar
Nepali girls enjoy playing on a swing in Tinkune, in the capital Kathmandu, October 8, 2005. Nepal is celebrating the Hindu festival of Dasain, one of the biggest festivals in the country, during which government offices and many other businesses remain closed for a period of 10 days to celebrate the biggest Hindu religious function depicting the victory of good over evil. REUTERS/Gopal Chitrakar
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KATHMANDU, OCTOBER 5: Seventy-Three Maoist rebels have surrendered to civilian authorities in Nepal in two separate incidents, a media report has said. ‘‘Of them, 68 Maoists surrendered to the district administration in Gulmi regretting their past acts of terror and violence and committed themselves to peaceful life,’’ state-run Radio Nepal said, quoting security sources. ‘‘Five rebels have surrendered in Dhading district,’’ the radio added. Meanwhile, a Royal Nepalese Army soldier was killed in Hetauda in Makawanpur district yesterday when he accidentally shot himself with his own gun, a senior officer said. In another incident, Maoists shot dead a civilian in Rautahat district. The victim’s mother was also attacked by them with sharp weapons and sustained injuries.
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AFP/File - Wed Oct 5, 5:35 AM ETThe delegation, led by Tom Phillip, director for South Asia and Afghanistan at the UK Foreign and Common Wealth Office, will prepare a detailed report on Nepal, which will be the basis for EU's development assistance and other cooperation to Kathmandu.
The delegates has begun consultations with Nepalese political parties, government officials and members of civil society regarding the King's power grab, efforts to restore democracy and the Maoist problem, Nepali Congress (Democratic) leader Prakash Sharan Mahat said.
The EU is one of the major donor groups helping Nepal's development efforts.
The delegation last year visited Nepal when Sher Bahadur Deuba was the Prime Minister and increased assistance to Nepal from earlier 17 million Euro to 120 million Euro after assessing the situation, said Mahat, Foreign Minister in the deposed Deuba cabinet.
But following the February move, the EU did not release the additional assistance to Nepal.
During their brief stay in Nepal the Troika will hold meeting with Nepali Congress President Girija Prasad Koirala, Nepal Communist Party-UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal, King Gyanendra's deputy Tulsi Giri, high officials of the Royal Nepalese Army and Nepal Police and leading human rights activists, said sources in the UK Embassy, which is currently heading the EU's Nepal mission.
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AFP/File - Tue Oct 4,12:27 AM ET 
AP - Sun Oct 2,11:38 AM ET
KATHMANDU, Oct. 3 (Xinhuanet) -- The anti-government guerrillas of Nepal have abducted 333 civilians from different villages of a eastern district of Nepal, local government office confirmed here Monday.
"The guerrillas abducted them from Bharapa, Subhang, Panchami, Tharpu, Yoyang and Nagi villages of Panchthar district, some 500 km east of Kathmandu," District Administration Office said in a press statement.
The guerrillas took civilians to unidentified locations, the statement noted, adding, "The abducted, mainly between 17 and 35 years of age, included teachers, students and farmers from various parts of the district."
The guerrillas force the civilians, teachers and students to take part in their "ideological" programs and usually free them after a few days unharmed.
Meanwhile, 60 guerrillas have surrendered before the District Administration Office of western Gulmi district and mid-western Jumla district, state-owned Radio Nepal said Monday.
A total of 60 guerrillas including the heads of the self-styled"local peoples' governments" and some members of the militia force of the guerrillas outfit surrendered in Gulmi district, some 400 km west of Kathmandu.
 | Sudeshna Sarkar (IANS) Kathmandu, September 29, 2005 |00:05 ISTA message received at Nepal's only international airport of a bomb in a Jet Airways flight from India on Thursday turned out to be a hoax. But the incident triggered panic and scary memories. The memory of an Indian aircraft hijacked from Kathmandu in 1999 was revived at Nepal's Tribhuvan International Airport here when the airport authorities received a message that an Indian aircraft flying in from New Delhi had a bomb in it. There was alarm at the airport as the aircraft belonging to private Indian airline Jet Airways, carrying 115 passengers and nine cabin crew, flew in. The authorities activated all security agencies, along with the fire brigade, a rescue squad and emergency services, and the Boeing 737 was made to land at the airport at 1.40 pm. After the landing, it was parked separately, passengers were evacuated and their belongings unloaded. However, the threat turned out to be a hoax with nothing suspicious being discovered on board. Ultimately, the aircraft was released for its regular flight to New Delhi at 5 pm. The authorities did not say immediately how they received information about a possible bomb. | |
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