Keep Nepal Free

Nepal needs a helping hand, not charity

2008-10-04T19:17:00.003-05:00

Despite the aid flowing into the country, infrastructure is woefully underdeveloped and life expectancy still appallingly low

Sunny Hundal Saturday October 04 2008 16:00 BST

Stuck between two of the most populous countries in the world who are growing rapidly, Nepal should in theory be benefiting from its strategic proximity to India and China. But the reality is somewhat different. It is one of the 10 poorest countries in the world, 90% of people live in villages where infrastructure and basic amenities are terrible, and political instability over the past two years or so has driven away many tourists – one of its main earners.

I arrived at the capital, Kathmandu, a few days ago and immediately fell in love. In that, I'm not alone. There are not only thousands of backpackers and tourists here at any one time, but the number of people who keep coming back or want to volunteer here is exceptionally high. In fact there's even a word for the latter – volunteer tourism.

Nepal has character, it has great scenery, and it has a hell of a lot of international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working here. According to one estimate, their number jumped from around 220 in 1990 to possibly over 15,000 today.

With a population of only around 29 million, you would think that given the amount of aid poured into the country, things would be much better. And yet infrastructure is woefully underdeveloped and the average life expectancy rate is appallingly low.

I spoke to several aid workers here who were quite positive about the work being done in Nepal. But behind that optimism there is frustration and also an unwillingness to confront more difficult questions.

For example, the number of NGOs and international NGOs in Nepal is so large that they comprise almost 60% of the country's gross national product (GNP). Without them the economy would collapse. Some estimate that volunteers alone contribute up to 5% of GNP.

This brings up a whole list of questions and related problems. Given there is so much money flowing into Nepal, why hasn't the situation improved faster? Is there even a need for so many international NGOs?

A recent article in the Economist pointed to similar problems with aid in Africa - lots of money coming in as aid but question marks over its effectiveness.

Many, such as Oxfam and Action Aid have criticised governments in the past for not funding them and channeling the money directly to government projects or local Nepalese organisations.

They argue that they have developed years of expertise to effectively deliver aid and services much more effectively than the government can. Indeed, in many ways the third sector is a more desirable channel of delivering services such as housing, food and health services because they are also less prone to corruption.

But the flipside is that by developing their own parallel systems, the thousands of third sector organisations are not only replicating work done by each other, but also taking over the government's role. Surely it would be better over the long term that the Nepalese government itself develops the capacity and knowledge to provide the services it is meant to?

Even worse, international agencies are also fond of flying in their own "experts" when needed, rather than developing and growing local expertise. As the old saying goes – give the man some fish and he can feed his family for a day; teach him how to fish and he can feed them for a lifetime.

Even if the international NGOs are somewhat at fault, more blame can be laid at the door of massive donor countries such as the G8 – who provide a huge bulk of the money flowing into Nepal. Nepalese government officials quietly complain that they spend far too much time trying to manage the big donors and the projects those donors are running.

The World Bank, always fond of lending money to developing countries to build massive infrastructure projects they don't need (contracted out to western companies of course) and contributing to their national debt, is a big part of the same problem too. The money is coming in but the Nepalese government is finding that it has to spend a significant amount of time adhering to their demands and "managing donor business" as one put it, rather than running domestic affairs.

Tied aid is another big issue. The US government ties its own aid so that recipients such as Nepal are forced to spend a proportion of that money with those countries. As the Economist rightly points out, food aid from the US usually acts as a huge subsidy to American farmers, and even destroys local businesses. To top it off, the US government still considers Nepal to be run by terrorists even though this country is rapidly becoming more stable than it has ever been.

People are loth to criticise developmental agencies and foreign aid because they result in good work, but measuring their effectiveness and improving that is a real problem.

In some ways this is changing but then there are social issues too. The trafficking of women from Nepal into India remains a huge problem but neither country is devoting many resources into dealing with it. Groups like Mighty (Maiti) Nepal are trying to address it but have been criticised themselves for their approach towards HIV-positive people, compared to the Blue Diamond Society. As with everywhere, women and minorities face major hurdles and even the aid agencies aren't doing enough to combat it.

The international NGOs working in Nepal need to coordinate and realise that the country's future lies in the hands of local organisations, such as Brac and Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. The Nepalese people don't need charity – they need a helping hand to make this gorgeous country live up to its reputation.

Nepal: Koshi Flood - OCHA Saptari Situation Report, 02 Oct 2008

2008-10-03T21:36:00.000-05:00

Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

Date: 02 Oct 2008

Key Developments

- Relief efforts slowed by Strike and upcoming 'Dashain' festival

- Government distributes money for festival to flood affected families

- Government registration is completed, but actual number in need of assistance remains an issue

- Growing concerns over WASH gaps (Toilets ) in Spur areas

- Suspected measles case reported

- Host communities restive, demands assistance

CONTEXT

More than a month after the breach of Koshi River eastern embankment on 18 August the East West highway still remains closed. Many displaced families are living along the embankment wall and in neighbouring VDCs of Saptari district (particularly Bhardah and Hanumanagar VDCs) that was not flooded. Water level in some of the affected villages have receded, but not to sufficient levels to enable sustainable return.

Registration and Affected Population:

According to the latest registration done by the Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS) volunteers and the District Administration Office (DAO), 20,284 individuals of Nepali origin representing 4,186 families have been displaced. An estimated 1900 families of Indian origin are also getting assistance. Data entry for the registration was done by students from St. Xaviers College and the District Electoral Office.

The displaced people are spread in 25 camps located along the East –West highway as well as the Spur areas located in the east of Koshi Barrage, Sunsari District, but accessible only from Saptari District. Humanitarian assistance is reaching out to these groups, but the number of the affected population who are living in host families and who might equally need assistance is unknown. Request for assistance, some laced with threat of violence are already being received from host populations as well as people from fishing communities who lost livelihood opportunities due to the river changing its course but are not displaced.

There is evidence that many people have succeeded in registering more than once and other needy cases missed out. The registration data requires verification and therefore actors with the relevant expertise need to jointly work with the government in the verification process.

Access/ Security Constraints

Strike/Bandh called by Madhesi Mukti Tiger (MMT) and Janamorcha Nepal hampered the relief distribution from 27-29 September. Because of the three day bandh, hiring of private vehicles to transport humanitarian actors as well as consignments was suspended. A vehicle rented by the District Public Health Officer DPHO to transport health workers was set ablaze in Bhardaha area of Saptari district on the evening of 28 September. OXFAM could not move to the camps and likewise, growth monitoring of UNICEF/CONCERN worldwide in the IDP camps was affected. WFP's food supply from the western part of the country was equally affected. However, WFP is providing food to those IDPs and district administration office has assured enough security to those food carrying convoys.

A group of people tried to vandalize Oxfam and MSF vehicles parked outside the Star Hotel in Rajbiraj (which is also Oxfam's field office). Local authorities and the police reported that these are ordinary criminals whose activities scale up around Dashain and promised to step up security.

Maoist-led government has formally requested the various armed groups of the Terai region for talks

2008-10-03T21:34:00.001-05:00

Nepal’s plea
Saturday, Oct 04, 2008
Prerana Marasini

KATHMANDU: The Maoist-led government has formally requested the various armed groups of the Terai region for talks.

A Cabinet meeting on Friday decided to form a three-member committee to start the process of dialogue with the 14 armed groups active in the southern plains.

The Terai-based groups have been saying they are fighting for the welfare of Madhesis, the people residing in the region.

Ideology takes a back seat

2008-09-30T19:39:00.002-05:00

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

New Delhi had a Plan B just in case combative Maoist guerrilla leader--elected--Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Nepal Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ sprang any political or diplomatic surprises on his first official visit to India. In the mid-1990s, the only other Communist Prime Minister of Nepal, Mr Manmohan Adhikary, on a similar visit, was expected to rock bilateral relations. He chose not to do so and Prachanda followed suit even after he and his party had said many unpleasant things about India not too long ago.

Never has any Nepali Prime Minister attracted so much attention and curiosity as Mr Dahal who spent eight of his 10 years underground around Delhi and Haryana while in Kathmandu, a human rights activist and Maoist sympathiser, Mr Padma Ratna Tuladhar, was being passed off as the elusive leader. Shock and awe, the literal translation of ‘Prachanda’, were cultivated through anonymity and fiction.

His first overground visit to New Delhi was in 2006 when as leader of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) he told the Hindustan Times summit that the Maoists had abandoned the armed struggle for multi-party democracy. His every word and step was monitored carefully but no one ever dreamt that he would become Prime Minister. How we got this wrong is another story.

The Maoist brush with India started early. They realised that India would not allow a military conquest of Kathmandu and power could not flow from the barrel of the gun. Top Maoist leaders would frequently refer to India as ‘expansionist’, ‘imperialist ‘ and ‘colonialist’, warning their armed wing that ultimately they would have to fight the Indian Army.

Ignoring this stark reality, military hardliners led by Mr Dahal launched in 2005 the impossible Battle of Khara in far west Nepal against the Nepal Army — a modern day Charge of the Light Brigade — that ended in the biggest debacle of the war. It was the turning point of the people’s war and victory for the pragmatists favouring joining the political mainstream. India facilitated the political union of constitutional forces against monarchy and the election. This did little to woo the Maoists.

The anti-India tirade was maintained. In fact, it picked up in the run-up to the April election. Nine of the Maoists’ 40-point demands advocated in 1996 and recrafted for the election manifesto were India-centric, targeting unequal and lopsided treaties, especially the 1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship, Gorkha recruitment in the Indian Army, border encroachments and iniquitous use of water resources from rivers emanating in Nepal.

The revival of the ‘equidistance policy’, an euphemism for the China card, figured prominently among the pet peeves. In an interview on Nepal television, Mr Dahal underscored the need for China balancing India in Nepal. His visit to China before India after being sworn in as Prime Minister raised hackles in New Delhi though officials pretended it was business as usual. His Defence Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa Badal, former Deputy Commander of the PLA, has just returned from China with a $ 1 million military aid package.

After the recent floods in Nepal and India caused by Kosi, a river rising in east Nepal, Mr Dahal called the 1954 Kosi Treaty a “historic blunder”. The anti-India faction of the Maoists has called for an economic policy that looks beyond India. Party hawks had directed Mr Dahal to get the 1950 Treaty scrapped and ask India not to interfere in Nepali politics.

Maoists have reason to be angry with India. It was New Delhi that declared Maoists a terrorist organisation even before Nepal did and arrested their top leaders. But for the Indian Army’s military assistance and expertise to the Nepal Army, the PLA ran a good chance of reaching Kathmandu. Only King Gyanendra’s absurd coup forced the termination of the supply of military hardware to the Nepal Army but by then it was a bridge too far for the Maoists as the Army was fully fortified, backed by adequate reserves.

India’s unarticulated deterrent was not lost on the Maoists. Even after Jan Andolan II in April 2006, New Delhi, ignoring the people’s uprising against the palace, intervened, persisting with its twin-pillar policy of constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy when the first pillar had collapsed.

Maoists have never forgiven India for delaying the end of Monarchy and not crediting them sufficiently for the historic transformations in Nepal. What is worse, India’s National Security Adviser told a television channel after the Maoists’ stunning success in the election that India was used to working with the routed Nepali Congress Party and wasn’t actually expecting the Maoists to win. The list of Indian omissions and commissions is long.

Fortunately for India, Mr Dahal’s coalition partners — three Communist parties and two Madhesi parties from the Terai, one of whose leaders is a former Maoist — and the Opposition Nepali Congress helped moderate the Maoist agenda for Mr Dahal’s visit. The lessons from Khara, three years of the peace process and the ultimate aphrodisiac, power, have taught Mr Dahal flexibility and pragmatism and turned him into a sophisticated politician.

The irony is how both the Maoists and India, at loggerheads, may settle down to accepting the compulsions of geography and ground reality. India made all the wrong calculations on the Maoists, Mr Dahal and his flock targeted Delhi. India is now engaging not just the Maoists but also other political parties. A number of Track I initiatives have been held in Patna, Delhi and Banaras as part of proactive diplomacy though New Delhi has lost much ground in the security sector.

Will the conversion of the Maoists into a political entity have a sobering effect on Indian Maoists and other separatist groups with which they had linkages? There is, therefore, great relevance of the ongoing peace process for Nepal, the region and the rest of the world.

Several challenges remain. Maoists continue to figure on the US Terrorists Exclusion List, now downgraded to Group of Concern even while Mr Dahal met President George W Bush in New York earlier this month. Taming Maoist hardliners and making others give up their bad habits will be as hard as taming Nepal’s turbulent waters that wreak havoc in India. As India lives in the spill-over zone of Nepal, New Delhi will remain a key stakeholder of the peace process and stability of the Government.

Nepal's new Maoist government oust priests from selecting a girl to be a "living goddess"

2008-09-30T19:32:00.002-05:00

The new 'living goddess' wants to be a nurse when she is older

Nepal selects 'living goddess'
29/09/2008 19:12 - (SA)

Kathmandu - Nepal's new Maoist government has taken over the task of selecting a girl to be a "living goddess", ousting royal priests from a role they fulfilled for centuries.

The strictly atheist Maoists gained power in the Himalayan country after the end of the civil war in 2006 and landmark polls earlier this year that brought down the world's last Hindu monarchy.

"Just because we are now a republic and no longer have a king or royal priest, does not mean we should end our traditions," said Keshab Bahadur Shrestha, a member of the government panel that selected the girl known as a Kumari.

The girl selected, Shreeya Bajracharya, is from Bhaktapur town, 30km west of Kathmandu. She is the six-year-old daughter of a farmer.

She met 32 strict criteria, including having "eyelashes like a cow" and a "voice as soft and clear as a duck", said Shrestha.

Bajracharya made her first public appearance at a religious festival in Bhaktapur on Sunday.

For centuries, residents from three medieval towns in the Kathmandu valley have worshipped young virgin girls from a Buddhist caste as the living incarnation of the Hindu goddess Taleju.

The previous Bhaktapur Kumari, 11-year-old Sajani Shakya, upset traditionalists last year when she travelled to the United States to promote a documentary.

Religious officials said she had lost her divine status by travelling abroad and her term as Kumari ended in March with her symbolic wedding to a fruit.

Despite Nepal's new secular status, religious tradition remains deeply ingrained in a country where 80% of people are Hindu.

Last week, an attempt by the Maoist finance minister to cut a $200 government grant to Kathmandu's "Royal Kumari" festival caused rioting and prompted criticism that the Maoists were starting a "cultural revolution".

The Kumari in Kathmandu spends most of her time locked up in an ornate palace in the heart of the city, though last month Nepal's supreme court ruled that the practice violated the child's human rights

$1.3 Million in military aid for Nepal from CHINA

2008-09-28T11:10:00.002-05:00

Sunday, 28 September, 2008, 12:07 AM Doha Time

KATHMANDU: Nepal’s northern neighbour China has announced a military aid of Rs100mn (over $1.3mn) for Nepal, the first military aid received by the new Maoist-led government of the Himalayan republic.
China’s Minister for Defence Liang Guanglie made the announcement during a meeting with his Nepali counterpart, Maoist Defence Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa ‘Badal’ on Friday. Badal is on a visit to China at the invitation of the Chinese defence ministry to observe military exercise ‘Warrior 2008’.
The Russia-educated Badal, who was the military strategist of the Maoists when they were an underground party waging an armed war against the state, is the first defence minister Nepal has seen after a long time.
In the past, the portfolio was held by the prime ministers themselves.
Just as Nepal’s new Maoist Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ visited China soon after assuming office, Badal also followed suit.
Though Nepal’s official media reported about the military assistance yesterday, it was, however, not specified whether the aid comprised cash or military equipment.
Around last year, when the Indian government sent non-lethal military assistance to Nepal, it created a furore with the Maoists lodging vigorous protests and accusing New Delhi of trying to sabotage the peace process.
Badal, who also met Guo Boxiong, vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, the apex body in the Chinese armed forces, reiterated his government’s commitment to the One-China policy.
Badal also repeated the assurance given by Prachanda during his visit that Nepal would prevent anti-China elements - meaning mostly Tibetan refugees - from staging anti-China activities on Nepal’s soil.
Indian military officials would be closely watching Badal’s visit. Even though the Indian government says it is unperturbed about Prachanda choosing to visit China before India, the Indian military establishment is wary of Nepal’s China tilt over defence issues.
During King Gyanendra’s government, India took serious umbrage at the royal government going on an arms buying spree and paying the Chinese manufacturers hard cash while ignoring the mounting dues to India for the supply of arms at a high subsidy.
China had been the only neighbourhood country to supply arms to the Nepal army during King Gyanendra’s regime. The weapons were used to combat the Maoist insurgency as well as the pro-democracy movement started by the political parties together with the Maoists and civil society. – IANS

Nepal crippled by strike against federal plans

2008-09-28T11:03:00.001-05:00

Singha Durba, one of Kathmandu's busiest roads,

is deserted during a general strike September 28, 2008. Gopal Chitrakar

Sun Sep 28, 2008 3:23pm IST

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Shops were closed and vehicles stayed off the roads across Nepal on Sunday during a strike called against a plan to turn the Himalayan nation into a federal state, officials and witnesses said.

Major political parties and the Maoist-led coalition government have agreed to split Nepal into several autonomous provinces under a federal structure after preparing a new constitution likely in two years time.

"A small and poor country like Nepal should not be turned into a federal state," said Chitra Bahadur K.C., chief of a leftist group, National People's Front, that called the day-long strike to oppose the plan. "The federal system will weaken national unity."

Activists pelted stones and set fire to half a dozen vehicles in Kathmandu. Others trying to enforce the strike also clashed with police but officials said there were no injuries.

Nepal abolished the 239-old monarchy in June, part of a 2006 peace deal with Maoist former rebels ending their decade-long civil war which caused more than 13,000 deaths.

During their war that started in 1996, the Maoists promised to create autonomous provinces but critics said Nepal had no infrastructure and resources required to turn it into a federal state.

Nepal's Maoist government wages war on sleaze

2008-09-28T10:59:00.000-05:00

28 Sep, 2008, 0833 hrs IST, AGENCIES

KATHMANDU: Nepal's new Maoist government has declared war on sleaze in the capital Kathmandu, saying the increasing numbers of massage parlours and nude dance bars are driving up crime and immorality.

The ultra-leftists pledged radical change in the impoverished nation after they won landmark polls in April which placed their former warlord leader as prime minister of the world's newest republic.

For Bamdev Gautam, Nepal's new home minister, that means battling Kathmandu's mushrooming adult entertainment sector, which he describes as a "breeding ground for depravity" and "at the heart" of an urban crime problem.

"This is a movement against social evils. We've seen the growth of vicious immorality among Nepali youth because of these late-night restaurants and dance bars," home ministry spokesman Modraj Dottel explained.

During the civil war, when government troops were battling the Maoists, there was a heavy security presence in urban areas and many residents felt safer.

But urban areas in Nepal have now been hit by a slew of kidnappings, muggings and knife attacks since the end of the
Maoist insurgency in 2006, with gangs exploiting political instability and a lack of policing.

The rise in sex-related businesses has also created more human trafficking, sexual exploitation of young girls and a rise in HIV infections, activists say.

Parts of the capital, like Thamel, the main tourist area, have turned into red light districts -- bad news for the Maoists, who promote themselves as champions of the poor and exploited.

Thamel is falling under the "control of gangsters and petty criminals whose sole purpose is to promote prostitution, vulgarity and dupe tourists and locals," said a notice by a Thamel residents' group placed in local papers recently.

"The residents of Thamel would like to heartily thank the home ministry and the government of Nepal for taking this great step to curb hooliganism, muggings (and) open prostitution," the residents said. Action is certainly being taken.

On a recent night in usually vibrant Thamel, the streets were empty by 10:30 pm, with police patrolling and locking up entertainment spots and chasing away customers. Still, not everybody is happy.

Bar and restaurant owners say they are worried the crackdown is discouraging foreign tourism -- a vital income-earner for Nepal -- by lumping legitimate nightlife businesses in with those offering sex.

Prabin Rayamajhi, who owns "De La Soul," a cosy bar in the heart of Thamel that offers alcoholic beverages but no floor shows or sex, said the forced early closing hours were killing business.

"I'm gradually letting my staff go as I can't afford their pay," he said, adding that otherwise he supported the need to control a boom of bars with names like "Pussy Cat Bar" and "Krazy Girl."

"If this crackdown continues, many legitimate businesses like mine will go under, throwing thousands out of work," he said.

Dance bars, the main target of the crackdown, are really feeling the pinch of the ultra-leftist government.

"I really don't know what I'll do if this place shuts down," said 23-year-old waiter Dev Bahadur Pulami in the deserted "Ice Dance Bar", as 12 women danced half-heartedly to an empty room.

Nepal Constituent Assembly members protest against Maoists carrying arms inside ICC

2008-09-25T08:11:00.000-05:00

ANI

Kathmandu

Thu, 25 Sep 2008:

Kathmandu, Sept 25 (ANI): The Constituent Assembly (CA) members of Nepali Congress today raised serious concern over possession of modern weapons by Maoist cadres inside the premises of International Convention Center (ICC), where CA meetings are held.

Speaking at a meeting held in the Parliament, Nepaliongress leaders Arjun Prasad Joshi and Shobhakhar Parajuli said that some Maoist cadres are entering parliament with AK-47 weapons registered by the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), even after formation of the government under their leadership.

The police deployed for security could not seize the arms since they are sealed by the United Nations.

The leaders demanded that the Home Minister should clarify as to who is responsible for security arrangement at the parliament.

They also called it as rehearsal to impose their dictatorial rule and influence the Constituent Assembly proceedings during the Constitution writing process.

On Monday, police personnel at the third gate of the ICC had tried to stop a Maoist cadre possessing arms from entering parliament but failed, Kantipur reported. (ANI)

Nepal’s Maoists: What’s Next?

2008-09-23T19:33:00.001-05:00

2008-09-23

Nepal’s Maoists have entered the country’s political mainstream, following a war that killed thousands. But is one-party rule still their ultimate goal?

Maoists demonstrate in support of moves to abolish Nepal's monarchy and establish a republic, 28 May 2008. AFP

WASHINGTON—Experts are divided on the commitment of Nepal’s Maoists to democracy, following a 10-year civil war and elections in April that gave the party a majority of seats in the country’s legislature.

The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) is now the largest party in Nepal’s constituent assembly. And in August, the party’s leader, Prachanda, was named prime minister.

With multi-party elections and the abolition of Nepal’s monarchy this year, Nepal’s Maoists have now achieved their “core demands,” said Urmila Venugopalan, Asia Editor for the Country Risk division of Jane’s Information Group, in London.

“However, at the same time, I think there are genuine concerns that the Maoists have not completely dismantled their parallel power structures at the local and village levels,” she said.

More than 19,000 Maoist fighters have still not been integrated into Nepal’s regular army—a condition of the peace agreement negotiated when the Maoists laid down their arms two years ago, she said.

And many of those weapons are unaccounted for, despite a promise that the guns would be “locked away” under U.N. supervision, Venugopalan said.

“I think the impression is that the Maoists still retain a significant cache of weapons.”

Another concern, Venugopalan said, is that the Maoists have not disbanded their youth wing, the Young Communist League (YCL), “which seems to act as a kind of parallel police force.”

“So I think there are credible fears about the intentions of the Maoists. But I think at this stage it’s still a little bit unclear to see where they’re actually going.”

Time to disarm

Bob Templer, Asia Program director for the New York-based International Crisis Group, agreed the YCL should be disarmed. “They’ve talked about that, but haven’t done much about it,” Templer said.

Templer said the Maoists’ political leadership may now be trying to avoid direct contact with the group. “But at the same time, they’re not entirely unhappy to have a force that’s capable of intimidating people and doing things like that.”

The Maoists may have abandoned their goal of one-party rule, though, “when they signed the initial agreements with the other parties that led to the peace process,” Templer said, adding that the Maoists recognize they live in a “changed world.”

“They’re very conscious of the failure of communist regimes around [the world] … And they’re very conscious of certain things, such as the fact that it’s unclear that India would tolerate an aggressively Maoist government on its doorstep. And it’s unclear whether Nepal’s donors would support it.”

“What they really wanted is to get rid of the monarchy, and that’s happened,” he said.

Power base

“[Prachanda] is playing it very carefully right now,” said Mikel Dunham, a close observer of Nepal’s politics and author of the book Buddha’s Warriors. “The country obviously is in very dire straits, and they need foreign investment.”

“Right now, they’re in a position where they have no choice but to work with the other parties,” Dunham said.

But Dunham said the Maoists are now expanding their power base “on the sly” by quietly placing themselves in unions and private businesses.

“I have a Tibetan friend who owns a carpet factory in Bodhnath, which is on the outskirts of [Nepal’s capital] Kathmandu, and one day he walked into his office and there were three Maoist cadres sitting at this desk, saying that they were going to ‘help him’ with his business.”

“The Maoists’ agenda is and always will be to ultimately take over the country,” Dunham said.

Tilt toward China

Nepal's increasing political tilt toward China has meanwhile put at risk Tibetan refugees protesting China's crackdown in neighboring Tibetan regions of China.

Tibetans demonstrating outside Chinese diplomatic facilities in Nepal have routinely been beaten, detained, and threatened with deportation to India.

"This is the first major crackdown on us by the new Maoist-led Nepalese government," said Tenzin Kunkyab, part of a group of 80 Tibetan protesters detained on Sept. 9. "I think the Nepalese authorities are acting under Chinese pressure."

Told they would be taken to an immigration office, "we refused to move," Tenzin Kunkyab said.

"And police carrying lathis [wooden batons] came in to beat us and force us into police vehicles. Many old ladies were also beaten and injured. Two protesters' hands were badly hurt. When we arrived at the immigration office, they left us in the vehicles for 30 minutes, and later we were moved back to the original detention center."

"They are trying to stop our protests by threatening to deport us, but our protests will continue," he said. "Nepal is [still] a democratic nation."

Reported in Washington by Richard Finney. Additional reporting by RFA's Tibetan service. Tibetan service director: Jigme Ngapo. Translation by Karma Dorjee. Produced and edited for the Web by Sarah Jackson-Han.

Trade in electricity with India can benefit Nepal

2008-09-23T19:31:00.000-05:00

Prerana Marasini

Third Power Summit begins in Kathmandu

KATHMANDU: With a key point of developing Nepal as one of the important electricity producers for India, the third Power Summit has begun in Kathmandu from Tuesday.

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony, India’s Minister of State for Commerce and Power, Jairam Ramesh, said trade in electricity with India could bring Nepal financial benefits.

“Nepal’s electricity potential could be used to attract Indian investments in electricity-intensive industries which could bridge Nepal’s trade deficit with India.”

According to government figures, Nepal’s trade deficit with India was more than Nepali Rs. 105 billion (Rs. 6,543.60 crore) last year alone. A message sent by Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Prachanda (who is now in the U.S.) said the government could not sustain the deficit for long.
Investment assurance

Nepal’s deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, Bam Dev Gautam, requested foreign investors to feel safe in investing in Nepal. He said the new government was committed to providing peace, security, and stability needed for the developmental projects to proceed.

Meanwhile, Mr. Jairam Ramesh told The Hindu that the recent visit of Nepal’s Prime Minister to India was helpful in ‘reassuring’ the Indian investors.
Infrastructure

Mr. Jairam Ramesh has said that India wanted to build most modern infrastructure in its trade transits in Nepal. “We are basically looking at building roads, quick immigration facilities, banking and communication facilities in the trade centres,” he told reporters in Kathmandu, before flying to Birgunj.

Accompanied by Nepal’s Minister for Commerce and Supplies, Rajendra Mahato, Mr. Jairam Ramesh would be visiting Raxaul on Wednesday.
Non-tariff barriers

In order to revise the existing trade and transit agreements, as said in the joint statement, Mr. Jairam Ramesh told The Hindu that India was ready to lift the ‘identified’ non-tariff barriers imposed on goods exported to India.

Nepal's New PM Makes the Rounds

2008-09-22T17:18:00.003-05:00

Nepal's Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, right,
sought to allay Indian fears that his Himalayan nation would shift
its focus away from New Delhi toward their other giant neighbor, China

Manish Swarup / AP

By Ishaan Tharoor

When Pushpa Kamal Dahal departed for the 2008 Olympics' closing ceremony days after becoming the first Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, the writing — for many Indians — was on the Great Wall. For citizens of the other rising Asian giant, the Games had already broadcast how far their India lagged behind China on the field of play. Now, the leader of Nepal — once virtually a client state of its vast southern neighbor — was marking his rise to power not with the customary audience in New Delhi, but in Beijing.

"Prachanda chooses China over India," growled a headline in the Times of India, referring to Nepal's new PM by the nom de guerre the ex-Maoist rebel had used during a decade-long insurgency waged in the Himalayan foothills. That war changed the political landscape of Nepal. Dahal's trip to the Bird's Nest, in the eyes of India's hawks, threatened to upset the order of things in the whole region.

A month later, New Delhi's fears have been calmed — if not fully dispelled. During a five-day trip to India in September, the Nepali Prime Minister warmly embraced his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, stressing that good relations with India were "vital" for Nepal's future and downplaying his earlier Chinese visit as merely a happy opportunity to witness the greatest show on earth.

Dahal made clear, though, that Nepal will not be doing business as usual with India under his government. A treaty signed in 1950 will now be renegotiated to redress what many in Kathmandu consider India's historically domineering role in its affairs —to this day, Indian exports and businesses control much of Nepal's economy. "The time has come to effect a revolutionary change in bilateral ties," Dahal told reporters in New Delhi on Sept. 16. "I will tell Nepali citizens back home that a new era has dawned."

Nepal has undergone seismic change in the past half year. In April, Dahal and his Maoists won a majority of seats in an assembly charged with the task of reshaping a country that had existed for over two centuries under a rigid, feudal monarchy. Nepal's last king vacated the royal palace soon after, in June, and Dahal, who only a few years back was a fugitive in his own country, was sworn in as Prime Minister on Aug. 18. From the ashes of a civil war that claimed over 13,000 lives, his Maoist-led government now intends to revitalize one of Asia's poorest nations, swapping talk of armed revolution with praise for capitalist industry. They want to transform Nepal, a country whose landscape holds untold potential both for tourism and hydropower, into what one Maoist official described as "the Switzerland of Asia."

Dahal knows Nepal needs outside help. But the Maoists, who remain on the U.S. State Department's terror watch list with a reputation for vigilante violence, have yet to gain the full confidence of the international community. This holds most true for India, whose foreign policy establishment is still reeling from the overthrow of Nepal's ancien regime and the political elites it had previously patronized. Though India helped vault Dahal into the limelight by forcing Nepal's monarchy into peace talks with his rebels, certain circles in New Delhi harbor a fundamental distrust for the Maoists as India reckons with its own ongoing Marxist-Leninist revolt. Ajai Sahni, a prominent analyst and the director of the Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management, insisted before the April elections that "Nepal's Maoists have no intention of honestly participating in the democratic process."

Fair or not, it's this bullish sentiment that amplified the implications of Dahal's Olympic visit last month. Dahal himself eulogizes the Chinese path to prosperity and has referred to India in the past as an "expansionist" enemy. His government unflinchingly cracked down on Tibetan activists, further evidence, to some in India, of Beijing's growing influence over Kathmandu. Ironically, China backed the monarchy to crush the Maoists during the civil war, but Beijing — unburdened by the divisive rancor which grips India's democracy — has nimbly changed tack, expanding its already significant involvement in Nepal's hydropower sector, while promising rail links between Kathmandu and Lhasa.

But Dahal and Nepal's new breed of politicians "have not forgotten that the Chinese were once not on their side," says S.D. Muni, India's leading Nepal expert. They know that as Asia's two giants grow and flex their muscles, Nepal must deftly maneuver between them. Dahal's trip to India has also yielded a raft of new investment proposals, which tellingly preceded the Maoist-led government's announcement of its first budget on Sept. 19. "Anybody in power in Kathmandu would know that they need India more than China," says Muni. "The China card is played simply as a reflection of their relationship with India."

As India and China jockey for contracts, Nepal's new leader may be trying to communicate a larger message. After a decade of war, Nepal is still counting the cost of violence, chronic energy and food shortages, and the loss of its best and brightest to jobs overseas. It's easy for the country's neighbors to see it as it was in its kingly past — a helpless, compliant pawn in the geo-political games of others. But, as Dahal and his government attempt to refashion the nation, most Nepalis — beginning with the Prime Minister — want India and China to see a Nepal finally standing on its own feet.

Landslide, flood kill 45 in far-western Nepal

2008-09-22T05:03:00.001-05:00

KATHMANDU, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Nature's fury continues unabated in Nepali far-western region as the death toll climbed to 45 on Sunday. Over 35 people are still missing due to incessant downpour, landslides and flood in the past two days.

According to The Himalayan Times Monday's report, 26 have died in Kailali, 10 in Kanchanpur, six in Doti, one each in Bajhang, Dadeldurra and Darchula districts, the regional police office said.

Around 4,000 people have been displaced in Kailali as more than400 households failed to escape the flood fury.

The transport sector has been paralyzed in the hilly districts.

The Central Natural Disaster Management Committee Sunday allocated 10 million Nepali rupees (135135 U.S. dollars) for the relief and rescue operations for the victims in the region. The army has been deployed in Kailali and Kanchanpur, said the daily.

Floods in Nepal Kill 24 People, Force Thousands to Flee Homes

2008-09-21T23:49:00.000-05:00

By Michael Heath

Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Flooding and landslides in western Nepal killed more than 24 people and forced tens of thousands to flee their homes during the past two days.

At least 15 people were killed in Kailali district and 25 communities inundated when the Mohana River burst its banks after torrential monsoon rains, Nepalnews.com reported. Almost a dozen flood- and landslide-related deaths were reported in the Kanchanpur, Bajura and Doti districts, it said.

Tens of thousands of people fled their homes in the Kailali district capital, Dhangadhi, after it was inundated. More than 50,000 people in Kailali and Kanchanpur are waiting to be rescued.

Nepal is still recovering from flooding in the southern Terai region last month that displaced at least 70,000 people, according to the United Nations. Poor weather is hampering rescue and relief efforts in the far west.

Labor Minister Lekhraj Bhatta joined other lawmakers on a visit to flood-hit areas in Kailali yesterday amid complaints about the government's slow response to the crisis, according to Nepalnews.com.

Nepal's Maoist PM to meet Indian premier

2008-09-15T02:36:00.001-05:00

Nepal's Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal,
also known as 'Prachanda' (R) in New Delhi

NEW DELHI (AFP) — Nepal's new Prime Minister Prachanda was to hold talks with his Indian counterpart Monday in New Delhi on issues ranging from trade ties to flood control measures, officials said.

Nepalese officials said before the visit he was keen to reassure India that his trip to China for the Olympics closing ceremony was not a move to end Nepal's close links with India.

The Maoist leader arrived in the Indian capital on Sunday for his first visit to neighbouring India since he took the job last month, and was to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday, a foreign ministry statement said.

Flood control is expected to be high on the agenda, an Indian official said, after the Kosi river breached its embankments in Nepal and submerged large swathes of northeast India last month.

India and Nepal traded blame over the disaster, which left hundreds of villages underwater and millions of people destitute.

Prachanda, a former school teacher whose real name is Pushpa Kamal Dahal, led a decade-long insurgency against Nepal's monarchy before signing up for peace in 2006 and embracing multi-party democracy.

Maoist information minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara said this week Nepal hoped to build a "new and smooth relationship with India in the changed political context."

New Delhi, which has been battling its own Left-wing insurgency, "has been justifiably wary of the Maoists north of the border," the Indian Express noted in an editorial Monday.

It urged New Delhi to engage the new Nepalese administration, arguing that "a genuinely friendly, stable Nepal could be very helpful indeed."

India is of vital importance to Nepal as its lone fuel supplier and key trading partner.

Unidentified disease hits 1,000 in western Nepal

2008-09-12T09:21:00.000-05:00

KATHMANDU, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- At least 1,000 people have been reportedly affected by an unidentified disease in some villages of Gulmi district in western Nepal, while number of pneumonia patients has gone drastically up in the district.

According to the National News Agency RSS Friday's report, the unidentified disease gripped Darling for a week and Neta and Paudi Amarai in the district, some 200 km west of Kathmandu, for the last four days. The disease is characterized by headache, fever, common cold, fainting and diarrhea.

With the number of patients increasing, the Village Development Committees (VDCs) have fallen short of medicines, the RSS said. Young people in between 14 to 20 years of age were more affected. Classes in schools have also been affected due to the disease.

However, district public health office said it was not aware of the epidemic. Acting chief of the office Shiv Chalise said a team of health personnel would be dispatched to the VDCs soon. 　

President of India contributes month's salary for Bihar flood victims

2008-09-11T23:30:00.005-05:00

President Pratibha Patil

Posted: 9/11/2008 4:42:00 PM IST

New Delhi, Sep 11 (IANS) President Pratibha Patil Thursday donated a month's salary to the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund for the Bihar flood victims.

The president has contributed a month's salary towards the relief and rehabilitation of those affected by the unprecedented floods in the state caused by the Kosi river, a statement from Rashtrapati Bhavan said.

The floods have claimed at least 50 lives, according to official estimates.

Over 2.7 million people and nearly one million cattle have been affected by the floods caused by a breach in an embankment of the Kosi upstream in Nepal. About 100,000 hectares of farmland have been submerged and nearly 300,000 houses damaged.

Nepal's President Ram Baran Yadav

The Nepal army mounted unit escorts their President Ram Baran Yadav as he leaves the Constituent Assembly building after presenting the country's plan and programme for the coming year in Kathmandu September 10, 2008.
REUTERS/Gopal Chitrakar (NEPAL)

19 Nepali parties seek amendment to gov't roadmap

2008-09-11T20:59:00.000-05:00

KATHMANDU, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- Altogether 19 parties including the main opposition Nepali Congress (NC) party on Thursday registered their proposals seeking an amendment to the government's program.

According to reports from local leading news website eKantipur, in their 22-point amendment proposal, the Nepali Congress, the second largest party in the Constituent Assembly (CA) has asked the government to replace the terminologies mentioned in the government's programs such as "Janamukti Sena" -- the People's Liberation Army which is the armed force of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN-M) -- and Janayuddha -- the People's War, which was launched by the CPN-M from 1996 to 2006 -- with CPN-M soldiers and civil war respectively.

The CPN-M led by its chairman and Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal "Prachanda" emerged as the single largest party after April CA elections and is leading the first republic government of Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal.

The Nepali Congress has also demanded that "the first joint government" should be mentioned in the programs instead of "the first national joint government".

Likewise, the opposition party, in its amendment proposal, has also proposed to mention the returning of the properties seized during the decade civil war, compensation to those displaced by the conflict, dismantling of the paramilitary structure of the CPN-M youth front, the Young Communist League (YCL), a federal republican state instead of a forward taking constitution and the guarantee of a multiparty parliamentary democratic system.

Terai Madhesh Democratic Party, Rastriya Prajatantra Party, Rastriya Janashakti Party, People's Front Nepal, and Nepal Workers and Peasants' Party among other parties have filed their own amendment proposals.

On Wednesday, President Ram Baran Yadav had tabled the policies and programs of the CPN-M-led government for the next year at the legislative session of the Constituent Assembly.

3,000 trees fall mysteriously in West Nepal

2008-09-11T20:49:00.001-05:00

3,000 trees fall mysteriously in W Nepal

www.chinaview.cn 2008-09-11 14:26:59

KATHMANDU, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- In what locals believe to be the handiwork of some supernatural power, nearly 3,000 trees at a local community forest in Banke district in mid-western Nepal collapsed in a matter of 10 minutes, eKantipur.com reported on Thursday.

According to the website, locals have been completely baffled as the trees at the Shrikrishna Community Forest, some 360 km westof Kathmandu, fell in quick succession last Monday.

According to the locals, the land in the area has deep cracks. "There was neither a gale nor a storm during that day," said Tilak Bahadur Chand, a local.

Unable to explain the incident, people have resorted to supernatural theories. The open-mouthed locals have begun saying that the incident is ominous and they are now fearful something bad might happen soon.

"It is a bad omen," said another local. News about the incident spread quickly and every day people from the surrounding areas in huge numbers are visiting the site of the mystery. And they are offering different explanations -- many see in it the hand of some supernatural power.

Locals said they immediately apprised the District Forest Office (DFO) about the incident. They allege that the DFO has become a mere spectator, taking no initiative to find out the truth.

However, Hemlal Aryal, a forest official, said that they would soon visit the site to find out what is behind the incident.

Nepal says to deport illegal Tibetans back to Tibet

2008-09-11T10:50:00.006-05:00

A Tibetan protester shouts anti-China slogans from a police van near the Chinese consular office in Kathmandu September 10, 2008.

Police arrest Tibetan protesters near the Chinese consular office in Kathmandu September 11, 2008.

A Tibetan protester shouts from a police van near the Chinese consular office in Kathmandu September 11, 2008.

Thu Sep 11, 2008 10:35am EDT

By Gopal Sharma

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepal's Maoist-led government will deport Tibetan exiles living illegally in the country, an official said on Thursday, a move likely aimed at stopping regular protests against its influential neighbor China.

More than 20,000 Tibetans live in Nepal. Thousands fled Tibet after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

Those early arrivals were given refugee status in Nepal. But new exiles from Tibet cannot stay in Nepal, which hands them over to the U.N. refugee agency for their onward journey to India, where their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama lives.

Now, Nepal wants to deport all Tibetans without either official refugee status or U.N. documents back to Tibet, where they could face action by Chinese authorities.

Tibetans are not allowed to organize any anti-China activities in Nepal, but in recent months they have staged near-daily demonstrations in Kathmandu against the Chinese crackdown on protests in Tibet in March.

The new Nepal move is seen as an attempt to discourage the exiles from organizing anti-China protests.

Home Ministry Spokesman Modraj Dotel said police had detained 106 Tibetans to see if they had necessary papers to establish their refugee status.

"If they have the status they will be allowed to stay," Dotel said. "Otherwise, they have to leave the country."

Dotel said the verification of papers was being done with the help of the United Nations refugee agency.

Kathmandu considers Tibet as part of China, which appears to be unhappy with the way Nepali authorities were handling the protests. In recent months, more than 10,000 Tibetans were detained during the protests but were freed within a day or two.

Beijing has been pressing Nepal to do more to stop the protests, mainly staged outside a Chinese consular office in Kathmandu.

Nepal's new leader, Maoist Prime Minister Prachanda visited China in August, when he met Chinese President Hu Jintao and reaffirmed Nepal's one-China policy.

(Editing by Krittivas Mukherjee and Paul Tait)

2008-09-10T23:38:00.004-05:00

Police beats a Tibetan protester after an arrest near Chinese consular office in Kathmandu September 9, 2008. Tibetans living in Nepal were protesting against Chinese actions in Tibet. REUTERS/Gopal Chitrakar (NEPAL)

Police arrest a Tibetan monk near Chinese consular office in Kathmandu September 10, 2008. Tibetans living in Nepal were protesting against Chinese actions in Tibet. REUTERS/Gopal Chitrakar (NEPAL)
REUTERS/GOPAL CHITRAKAR

NEPAL: Emergency health response to help flood victims

2008-09-10T23:31:00.000-05:00

10 Sep 2008 10:21:05 GMT

SHREEHARIPUR, 10 September 2008 (IRIN) - Urgent medical attention is needed for the people displaced by the floods on 18 August taking refuge in temporary shelters, including school buildings and tented camps, in Sunsari and Saptari districts, according to the Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS).Government health officials said more than 11,000 displaced families in Saptari camps needed medical attention.

Most suffer from diarrhoea, gastroenteritis, fever, respiratory disorders and skin infections that have worsened because of inadequate medical care, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF). Oxfam has built more than 2,000 temporary shelters in Saptari District alone, which has seen a large influx of displaced families over the past two weeks, and is constructing more camps to house up to 23,000, according to NRCS. Health concerns are mounting with the growing numbers living in the tiny camps in very hot weather. Lack of awareness "I'm worried about my son. He's been sick for days," said 50-year-old Abhina Khatun in Bhardaha VDC of Saptari District, where nearly 15 people have died this month. Khatun's 12-year-old son Mohammad Hafij was suffering from dehydration and diarrhoea after drinking polluted water from the river where he had been swimming.

Many children and adults have come down with diarrhoea after swallowing river water, despite warnings by village facilitators who educate the displaced families on hygiene and sanitation. The heat and humidity are so intense that residents cool off in the river. "There is a challenge to ensure that the communities follow hygiene practices. The children often do not pay attention until they get very sick," said Shila Karn, working with Sabal, a local NGO supported by UNICEF to promote hygiene and sanitation in the camps. Emergency response Following increasing health problems among displaced families, the government is boosting health services with the help of international agencies and NGOs, including the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), UNICEF and World Health Organization (WHO). "We have stepped up our services and this has helped to reduce the number of patients," said Garib Das Thakur, chief of the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division of the Department of Health. Hand-pumped tube wells, bathing spaces and toilets have been installed, helping to reduce the incidence of diarrhoea. But some NGOs remain concerned over the lack of doctors at the camps, which are run by health workers, including community medicine assistants or health assistants.

Medical staff also complain they are overburdened by the sheer numbers of people. "There is a need to expand the team and also involve more workers to disseminate health education as that could save a lot of lives," said health worker Bhupendra Chaudhary. He was particularly concerned over the plight of children, with nearly 6,000 in the camps of Saptari District alone. However, the District Public Health Office said it had already expanded its team and services. It now maintains a 24-hour emergency healthcare service close to the camps. Moreover, 18 doctors from Kathmandu have arrived to provide additional support. At the same time, Rotary International is building a special health camp to help provide better medical aid.

Nepali Congress to act tough against Maoists

2008-09-09T17:43:00.000-05:00

ANI

Kathmandu

Tue, 09 Sep 2008:

Kathmandu, Sep 9 (ANI): Nepal's former Prime Minister and president of Nepali Congress (NC) Girija Prasad Koirala today said that his party would act tough against the Maoists to make them a democratic force.

Addressing a function here, Koirala said his party would act strong against undemocratic activits of the Maoists in the capacity of a responsible opposition.

He said the party has completed a historic responsibility by ending the conflict that ravaged the country for a decade.

Koirala also claimed his party rendered vital role for establishment of republican system in Nepal.

Earlier Nepali Congress Vice-President Ram Chandra Poudel said that the Maoist People's Liberation Army can't be integrated with the Nepali Army as the former is loyal to a political party.

He also accused the government of failing to provide assistance to the flood victims of Koshi disaster, which in its aftermath has claimed 36 lives so far, and rendered over 50,000 homeless.

He also assured that the Nepali Congress would assume the role of a responsible opposition party and would not engage in the game of pulling down the government, Nepalnews reported. (ANI)

Nepal Maoists 'must free' child soldiers

2008-09-09T09:47:00.001-05:00

August 26, 2008 - 5:49PM

Nepal's former rebel Maoists, who now lead the country's government, should immediately release children from their remaining guerrilla army, the United Nations says.

Around 19,000 former fighters - including 3,000 underage combatants - have been in UN-monitored camps since a 2006 peace deal that ended the Maoists' bloody "people's war".

UN agencies must have access to the children to ensure their "recovery and reintegration", Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, said.

"The promise of peace has not come to fruition for these children," she said.

Nepal's Maoists, whose leader Prachanda was sworn in as prime minister last week, said they had yet to decide what to do with the 2,973 underage fighters, who were all under 18 in May 2006.

"We cannot chase them away just like that. They were helpful during the 'people's war' and now we cannot just ditch them," senior Maoist Chandra Prakash Gajurel told AFP.

Despite winning polls in April and having their leader become prime minister, the Maoists have not tackled the issue of the fighters, who battled Nepal's security forces for a decade.

The former rebels - whose decade-long civil war killed at least 13,000 people - say the fighters should be integrated into the Nepalese army.

But the army has said that there is no place in its ranks for politically indoctrinated guerrillas.

Special Monlam Prayers for Taktse Rinpoche

2008-09-09T09:44:00.000-05:00

Posted: September 9th, 2008, by MeYuL.com

Pokhara Solidarity Committee

9th September 2008

Pokhara, Nepal All the five Tibetan refugee camps in Pokhara namely Tashi Palkhiel, Tashi Gang, Tashiling, Paljorling and Jampaling arranged special prayers on 8th September 2008 in their respective camps.

Each camp offered butter lamps and recited monlam for peace and better realm of rebirth of His Holiness the Dalai lama’s eldest brother Taktse Rinpoche who unfortunately passed away on 5th September 2008 in USA. Taktse Rinpoche struggled and worked for the independence of Tibet through out of his life. He was living evidence when and how the Chinese entered Tibet and carried out their so called liberalization of Tibet. The whole Tibetan community and the Tibetans in Tibet lost a great person and a good leader. Pokhara Tibetan Solidarity Committee

Nepal parties criticise Maoists' "undemocratic" actions

2008-09-09T05:24:00.000-05:00

Monday, September 8, 2008 : 2325 Hrs

Kathmandu (PTI): Within a month of formation of the Maoist-led government in Nepal, parties across political spectrum have slammed the "undemocratic behaviour" of the former rebels and criticised their youth wing for trying to impose an "authoritarian rule" in the country.

The partners in the ruling coalition here have joined the main opposition party the Nepali Congress, which slammed the "totalitarian attitude" of the CPN-Maoist and its Young Communist League.

"We will check their (the Maoists) attempt to impose their authoritarian rule on all state organs," Nepali Congress spokesman Arjun Narsingh Khatri said at a press conference at the end of the party's central working committee meeting.

The second largest party in the Constituent Assembly also accused the CPN-Maoist of being determined "to intensify its acts of violence and increase influence of armed combatants in statecraft."

Ruling coalition partner, the leftist CPN-UML, also accused the Maoists Young Communist League of defaming the communist movement in the country, with co general secretary Jhalanath Khanal asking CPN-UML's own youth wing to protect the movement.

Central member of the Madhesi People's Rights Forum (MPRF), another coalition partner, B P Yadav said the Maoists have continued acts of terror including abduction, killing and extortion in Siraha district in southern Nepal in violation of the peace agreement signed by them.

Meanwhile, the transport strike called by MPRF activists in Siraha district, to protest Maoists' acts of seizing personal property, continued for the sixth day, severely affecting normal life.

Seized properties will be returned: Nepal PM Dahal

2008-09-09T05:20:00.001-05:00

TGW

Nepal’s first Maoist Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has once again assured that the forcibly seized properties by the Maoists party will soon be returned to their lawful owners.

This the Prime Minister said only after repeatedly grilled by the media men present at the Pokhara Airport on Monday.

Prime Minister Dahal on his return to Kathmandu was forced to land in Pokhara- Nepal’s tourist town, as the helicopter carrying him and his team ran out of fuel, say reports.

PM Koirala on Monday attended “Dolpa Fest” in the district of Dolpa.

“After we bring the government’s policies and programs, we will return the seized properties”, said the Prime Minster talking to the reporters.

Prime Minister Dahal has been making similar assurances in the past however, let alone returning seized properties at times of the Maoist led rebellion, the Maoists cadres have recently seized 11 bighas of land, including a 16-room building worth Rs. 80 million, belonging to Birendra Saha of Kalyanpur-6 at Ramnagar in Siraha District.

Immediately after assuming the post of the prime minister, Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal had publicly assured that his party will return the illegally seized properties and create favorable atmosphere for the displaced people to return home within 15 days.

However apart from giving lofty assurances the Maoists has not done any thing tangible so far.

2008-09-09 09:44:16

Nepal to free slaves trapped by ancestors' debts

2008-09-08T12:46:00.001-05:00

5 hours ago

KATHMANDU (AFP) — Nepal's Maoist-led government vowed Monday to end slave-like conditions for around 150,000 bonded labourers in the far west of the country who have been paying off debt for generations.

Under the "Haliya" (land tiller) system, children inherit debt accrued by their parents and grandparents and have to work in the fields for moneylenders and landlords.

"This practice will be scrapped after a committee we have appointed submits its report," Krishna Bahadur Mahara, the Maoist government spokesman, told AFP.

Nepal officially abolished all forms of slavery in 2001, but the Haliya system -- which traps people in a cycle of debt -- lives on in remote areas, said activists.

"It has continued in our region because landlords forced poor people to continue with this age-old tradition," Gorak Sarki, a Haliya from Doti district, 440 kilometres (275 miles) west of Kathmandu, told AFP.

"When we complained the authorities just ignored us, and we were compelled to stick with the tradition to survive," said Sarki.

Haliya labourers say they want a minimum wage and an allocation of land.

"We have high hopes of the new Maoist government. They have promised revolutionary land reforms so we hope they will address our issues," Dambar Bishwokarma, another Haliya activist from Doti district, said.

Nepal's Maoists are now leading the country after signing up for peace in 2006 following a bitter, decade-long insurgency.

They emerged victorious in landmark polls in April for a body that abolished the unpopular monarchy and is now due to write a new constitution for the world's newest republic.

Indians unsafe in Nepal: Senior Police official

2008-09-08T07:19:00.001-05:00

Indians unsafe in Nepal: Senior Police official
TGW

Nepal Police has nabbed five men alleged for their involvement in the bombing of the personal residence of Nepal’s vice-President Parmananda Jha, situated in Gaurighat, Kathmandu.

A group called as National Liberation Army (NLA) had immediately taken the responsibility for carrying out the explosion talking over telephone with a local Television Channel. The men who were nabbed by the police as per the reports have accepted that they are indeed the members of the said group.

The explosion took place on August 17, 2008 in the aftermath of Mr. Jha’s excessive love for Hindi language which became evident when he preferred to deride Nepal’s National Language Nepali and his own mother tongue Maithili by taking oath and secrecy of the office in Indian language Hindi.
Jha was heavily criticized in the country for taking oath and secrecy of the office in the alien language Hindi- a language spoken in the northern part of India only, after his election as the country’s first vice president.
Mr. Jha belongs to the ethnic Madhesi communtiy whose ancestors hail from Kushweshorsthan of Dharbhanga district, northern India.
In addition, reveals a weekly newspaper, Parmananda Jha’s own brother Dhanananda Jha owns a bi-cycle repairing center in Darbhanga District, India.

A Plastic Hand Grenade, high explosive ranges of 3600-4200 splinter and double bearings were used to carryout the explosion where a security guard of the Nepal Army was severely injured.

Nepal’s Police Force has taken it as a huge success and has pledged to continue its efforts towards nabbing several other criminal groups operating in Kathmandu and bringing them behind bars.

Metropolitan Police Crime Division Office (MPCD), Hanumandhoka had on Sunday organized a press conference.

Speaking on the occasion, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Upendra Kant Aryal said that this underground group survived basically on extortions and ransoms mainly form the Indian entrepreneurs and people of the Indian origin in Nepal.

The mastermind of the said explosion, Mohan Karki is a Bachelors Degree Holder form the Ratna Rajya Campus Tribhuwan University, Kathmandu.
2008-09-08 09:02:56

Where Are They?

2008-09-06T21:31:00.000-05:00

FROM GORKHAPATRA

By Nandalal Tiwari

Recently, different human rights organisations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), made public a list of those who were made to disappear during the 10-year armed conflict, from 1996 to 2006. They have shown that the whereabouts of nearly 1,300 people are still unknown. Of course, this is not the first time that the human rights organisations have come up with a list of the disappeared and demanded that the government take the issue seriously as well as steps, including setting up of a powerful commission, to establish the status of the disappeared. However, successive governments have so far been trying to evade the issue.

Cases of disappearances

The act of disappearing people started after the government began arresting people suspected of being members or sympathisers of the CPN-Maoist that launched an armed rebellion in February 1996. There were cases of disappearances during the 30-year Panchayat period, too, but they were few compared to the insurgency period. The numbers suddenly increased after the army was deployed to quell the insurgency in 2001. This is made clear by the National Human Rights Commission, which in 2005 said that it had received nine complaints of disappearance in 2000 whereas the number rose to 584 in 2003 alone.

A committee formed after the reinstatement of democracy in 1991 under the chairmanship of Hiranyeshwor Man Pradhan, who was additional justice of the Supreme Court, had submitted a report to the government a year after. This is the first committee in Nepal’s history set up to probe into the disappearances. The committee had probed into the cases of 61 persons who were kept in custody and made to disappear for acting against the partyless Panchayat system. The committee had reported that 37 of the disappeared were killed in custody whereas the status of the 26 persons remained unknown. The committee had recommended that the government take action against the security personnel involved in the act of disappearing. Unfortunately, the government never took steps to that effect, instead it promoted those police officers found guilty by the committee.

With the escalation of cases of disappearances by the state, the families of the disappeared had held a fast unto death in 2004, demanding that the government make the status of their kin public. Following it, a committee was formed under assistant secretary Ram Gopal Malego of the Home Ministry during the premiership of Sher Bahadur Deuba. Although the committee made public a list of the disappeared many times, it never showed the status of those disappeared. It only made public the names of those who were taken into custody and then released. The other committees formed later, including one headed by Baman Prasad Neupane, now Defence Secretary, fared no better.

Thus, not a single committee formed to investigate into the disappearances during the armed conflict has been effective. The reasons being that, first, the government was insincere; second, the committee lacked specific power; third, there was lack of legal provision; fourth, the security wings were unwilling to admit their mistakes and bring the guilty to book.

It is obvious that the previous governments never wanted to work towards making public the status of the disappeared. Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai in 2000, for instance, in response to a query about the whereabouts of Milan Nepali and Dandapani Neupane, had bluntly admitted, “They have been killed.”

The NHRC mentions that both the army and police act very irresponsibly in relation to its queries on disappearances. It must be noted that the ICRC in Nepal had stopped working on disappearances in 2004, on the ground that the government and army refused to cooperate. A report of the UNOHCHR in Nepal in 2006 on the disappearances of the 49 people held at the Bhairabnath battalion barracks at Maharajgunj in Kathmandu also stated that it never got any response from the army. The government had labelled the CPN-Maoist a terrorist organisation in 2001and imposed a state of emergency and enacted the Terrorist and Disruptive Act to curb the rebellion. This Act was instrumental in enabling the security mechanisms to arrest any individual and keep him/ her in detention for a year without observing any legal procedures that included notifying the family members or the human rights organisations. This Act was scrapped only in 2006.

Facts, fiction and fate

Maina Sunuwar, a girl of 15, was arrested from her home at Kharelthok in Kavrepalanchowk district on the morning of February17, 2004 by a covert team dispatched by the Birendra Peace Operation Training Centre in Panchkhal. Under the pressure of the HR organisations regarding her whereabouts, the army first stated that she had been shot dead while trying to escape at Hokse area. But later on, after a year, it admitted that she had died of electrocution and been buried at the Centre.

At midnight of July 15, 2004, a team of the army took away Sarala Sapkota from her home at Jeevanpur-1 of Dhading district. Her father tried best to locate her status, but got himself detained. However, on January 11, 2005, a team of the NHRC accompanied by forensic experts exhumed a human body from a field near Sarala’s village. Sarala’s relatives as well as the villagers were sure that the skeleton was that of Sarala. However, the NHRC wanted a DNA test and sent the sample to India, but there has been no report on the findings.

Krishna Sen ‘Ichchhuk’, the then editor of Janadisha’ daily and a renowned literary figure, was arrested on May 20, 2002 at Naya Baneswor in Kathmandu. He was detained at the Mahendra Police Club. Eyewitnesses say he was badly tortured. He died five days later and was cremated at Pashupati. However, the government then claimed that he was killed in an encounter at Gokarna, north of Kathmandu.

The ways ahead

The CPN-Maoist, now the party in the government, and the then government headed by

Koirala had agreed in the Comprehensive Peace Accord to set up a Commission of Inquiry to investigate into the disappearances and make public the status of those who were made to disappear. However, two years have elapsed since then. In addition to the unwillingness of the previous governments, the commission was not set up due to the deficient legal framework. Therefore, the government should immediately make the necessary legislation to that end.

In the meantime, it is imperative that the government provide relief to the families of the disappeared. And the relief should not be less than it provides to the families of those who were killed during the period. In fact, it should be more because the families of the disappeared have suffered more.

Prachanda told to discuss ‘unfair treaties’

2008-09-06T18:36:00.001-05:00

Sunday, Sep 07, 2008
Prerana Marasini

KATHMANDU: Minister for Peace and Reconstruction Janardan Sharma on Saturday said Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal alias Prachanda should discuss the “unfair treaties” Nepal has signed with India, during his ‘first political’ visit to India.

Mr. Sharma said: “India should positively think about Nepal and the ‘unfair’ treaties should be re-evaluated, including the 1950 Treaty. We will advise the PM on the issues that need to be raised in his India visit.”

Mr. Prachanda will visit India on September 14. Earlier, when he visited the flood-affected area in Sunsari, Mr. Prachanda had said the Kosi Treaty was a ‘historical mistake’.

Coalition fissures

Referring to the Maoists’ youth wing — Young Communist League — collecting donation from citizens, CPN (UML) leader Madhav Kumar Nepal, in a TV interview, said: “I hear that YCL is collecting donation even today. How can I, then, say that the alliance is strong?”

Another ally, the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum, has called an indefinite transportation strike in Siraha district for the past three days.

Protesters said the Maoists have not fulfilled their commitment as stated in the Common Minimum Programme.

Waters in India recede, but officials warn flood danger still high

2008-09-06T18:31:00.003-05:00

13 hours ago

PURNIA, India (AFP) — Some villagers began trying to return to their flooded homes in eastern India on Saturday as waters slowly receded, but officials warned the move was risky with a month of heavy rains still expected.

Almost 900,000 people have been evacuated to higher ground since flood defence walls broke upstream in Nepal almost three weeks ago, shifting the flow of the Kosi river away from its normal course and east onto farmland.

Large swathes of the impoverished state of Bihar were flooded. About 100,000 people remain marooned in village islands by the river, with most refusing to leave, while some evacuees are trying to head home.

"We have reached a stage where people in the thousands are still left, but they are now refusing to come out," state disaster management official Pratyaya Amrit told AFP.

"People think the flood is over. In a lot of the camps people have started moving back. In the last two to three days, at least 10,000 to 15,000 have gone back."

But India's monsoon season, when much of the country receives more than 90 percent of its rain, does not end till the close of September, and officials say the river could rise again.

About 1,100 square kilometres (440 square miles) of villages and farms remain underwater, even though levels have decreased by a foot (30 centimetres) or more in parts.

In areas surrounding Birpur town, on the border with Nepal, an AFP photographer accompanying an Air Force relief flight said more than 80 percent of the area was under water.

On Saturday, some 2,000 people could still be seen Saturday sheltering on rooftops and dry strips of land, waving to the helicopter for emergency food supplies.

The helicopter was dropping red and orange water-resistant packages containing beaten rice, lentil flour, palm sugar and water purifying tablets, a relief official said, adding that the relief sorties would be reduced Sunday.

"Right now we have nine helicopters," Deepak Kumar Sahu, an official coordinating flood relief efforts told AFP.

"Tomorrow we'll withdraw two. The focus is on the evacuation and the rehabilitation camps."

Army officials running boat rescue operations this week said the receding water was making it harder to reach distant villages, where people have been without food or water for weeks.

"Beyond 15 to 20 kilometres (nine to 12 miles) it is hard for us rescue," said one army official, asking not to be named.

"We're trying to get as far as possible."

But with frequent stops to pull boats across shallow sections of water, they can only get as far as nearby villages where people want to stay put, asking instead for supplies to be sent to them.

On a road in Bihar's Purnia district, 350 kilometres from state capital Patna, rescued villagers unloaded from boats trudged towards the town and camps all week.

But as reports circulated that water levels were falling, just as many villagers were walking the other way, to check how much water was on either side of the road and decide what to do next.

With camps running out of room for the tens of thousands of people who have left their homes, many of the freshly evacuated villagers are living on the road.

But local administrative officials say new camps were being set up and more medical teams were being deployed.

"We're increasing capacity by putting up tented accommodation," said Purnia's top administrative official C. Sridhar.

"Some people who are coming with cattle are setting up on the side of the road. We are persuading them to move towards camps."

Disaster official Amrit said rescue boats would ferry food to villagers as well as try to convince them to evacuate.

"We have another 25 days (of monsoon) to go. What if the levels go up again?"

Impaired Accountability: State of Disappearance in Nepal

2008-09-06T18:24:00.002-05:00

Impaired Accountability: State of Disappearance in Nepal

Type :	Report
Title :	Impaired Accountability: State of Disappearance in Nepal
Source :	Informal Sector Service Centre
Date Added:	3-Sep-2008
Publication Date :	1-Aug-2008
URL :	http://www.humansecuritygateway.info/documents/INSEC_Nepal_Disappearances.pdf

Enforced or involuntary disappearance is a complex criminal offense that involves violation of a number of fundamental freedoms and basic human rights, including the right to personal freedom and security, the right to have legal remedy, the right against torture or other cruel, inhuman and degrading behaviour, and the right to life as such.

The government of Nepal has not created any mechanism as to probe into the cases of serious crimes such as the act of disappearance and to punish the offenders. Such inaction has crippled the lives of hundreds of victims and some thousands of their family members and relatives who are living traumatised life for years. In other words, the victims and their families have been re-victimized by the deepened culture of impunity and the mercy of inaction.

Families of the missing persons, independent experts of the United Nations (UN), the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal (OHCHR-Nepal), a number of national and international human rights organisations and their networks have been raising concerns over alleged cases of disappearance and culture of impunity in Nepal.

The human rights community has been urging the government to, among other things, make a law defining 'disappearance' an act of criminal offense and provide for substance mechanisms to bring the perpetrators to justice, and form a high-level probe commission on disappearance charged with a broader and strong mandate. In this report, situation of disappearance has been analysed in particular reference to the implementation of recommendations of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) following the Group's visit to Nepal in December 2004.

In addition, the status of national and international mechanisms has also been discussed with particular focus on those providing for human rights of disappeared persons. A number of recommendations have been made for the government, international community and civil society organisations drawing their attention, among others, to prioritize their actions towards putting an end to impunity and take steps to make public the whereabouts of allegedly disappeared persons and to protect those persons' basic rights and fundamental freedoms. This report is expected to be useful for diverse sectors of individuals and organisations, including the WGEID, that concern with the situation of disappearance in Nepal.

10 Maoists arrested in Andhra Pradesh

2008-09-06T10:39:00.002-05:00

Updated: 09-05-2008

The arrests were made in Warangal district in Telangana region, which was once the stronghold of Maoist movement.

Four of those arrested were from CPI-ML Praja Pratighanta faction. The remaining were suspected to be cadres of Communist Party of India (Maoist).

The police recovered 16 weapons and 1,200 bullets from the arrested Maoists.

The arrests were made at a time when the state police were anticipating increased Maoist violence in the state, especially in areas bordering Orissa and Chhattisgarh.

Maoist violence in the state has drastically come down over last couple of years but the police anticipate that the extremists could step up their activities before the elections scheduled to be held in March next year.

The police sources said Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakahapatnam district, which share borders with Orissa and Khammam, Warangal and Karimnagar districts having border with Chhattisgarh could see violence in the coming days in view of the relatively stronger Maoist movement in the neighbouring states.

In the biggest-ever attack, Maoists had killed 38 personnel of the elite anti-Maoist force Greyhounds by launching a surprise attack on their motor boat in Balimela reservoir in Orissa near the border with Visakhapatnam district in June this year.

There’s been massive flooding across Bihar province in Northern India and into Nepal. 250,000 homes have been wiped out.

2008-09-05T18:29:00.000-05:00

There’s been massive flooding across Bihar province in Northern India and into Nepal. 250,000 homes have been wiped out. More than 2 million Indian and Nepalese people have fled their homes and are now utterly dependent on food aid. Many are on the brink of starvation. Others are injured. Still others are falling ill and developing infections. CHRISTIAN BLIND MISSION'S partner is working flat out to deliver food, water purification tablets and hygiene kits to thousands of families. We’re also giving medical care to those who are injured and sick, and at immediate risk of life-long disability. In these situations, people with disabilities are too often overlooked. cbm is making sure this doesn’t happen by giving families relief and medical care.

Needs Assessment

cbm's partner, Emmanuel Hospital Association (EHA) has identified Madhepura and Murliganj block as some of the worst affected locations. Our team in Bihar have identified the following needs to rescue and restore families in these areas:

food
hygene
temporary shelter
medical assistance

Flooding leaves 3 Million people homeless in India and Nepal

2008-09-05T18:07:00.004-05:00

US is sending A BILLION DOLLARS to Georgia for aid ...
What is the US doing for these 3 million flood victims from the Koshi River???

Rupak De Chowdhuri

As a result, on August 21 , U.S. Ambassador Nancy J. Powell issued a disaster declaration due to the impact of flooding in Nepal . In response, USAID is providing $50,000 through USAID/ Nepal to Save the Children/U.S. and the NRCS for the local purchase and transport of emergency relief supplies, including blankets and shelter materials, to populations affected by the flooding.

According to the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi , due to the sudden onset of floods, evacuation activities were slow to start and rescue equipment and boats are in short supply. Flooding has also damaged infrastructure and inundated an estimated 90,000 acres of agricultural land, destroying crops.

As a result, on August 28 , U.S. Ambassador David C. Mulford issued a disaster declaration due to the impact of flooding in India . In response, USAID is providing $100,000 through USAID/ India to the Prime Minister's Relief Fund and Catholic Relief Services to support rescue efforts and the procurement and delivery of emergency relief supplies to populations affected by the flooding, among the worst in fifty years.

TORONTO, Sept. 5 /CNW/ - cbm's International Emergency Response Team has
mobilized a disaster management group to respond to the tragedy in India and
Nepal.
 Extreme flooding has caused nearly three million people in India and
Nepal to flee their homes.
 "It's almost impossible to imagine the heartache and loss experienced by
these people over the past few weeks," says Dave McComiskey, Executive
Director, cbm Canada.
 About 10 days ago, the monsoon rains hit northern India, overflowing the
Koshi river embankment in Nepal. Three million Indian and Nepalese people,
displaced or stranded from their homes are now utterly dependent on food aid.
Many are on the brink of starvation, and the spread of communicable diseases
could result in permanent disabilities.
 cbm is working diligently with its partner to deliver food, water
purification tablets and hygiene kits to thousands of families, including
those in the area of the Biratnagar Eye Hospital.
 Medical care is being given to the most vulnerable - those with
disabilities, and others who are injured, sick or in immediate risk of a
life-long disability.
 "As you know, in these situations, people with disabilities are too often
overlooked," stated McComiskey. "Experience tells us the longer a crisis
continues, the greater the long term consequences to people's livelihood.
 "People with disability are often those who suffer the most as they are
unable to flee from danger, find food when it is in short supply, and suffer
greatly from long term economic repercussions."
 cbm is asking Canadians to help the people suffering in India and Nepal
by phoning Toll-free: 1-800-567-2264 or (905) 640-6464, online donations at
www.cbmcanada.org

For further information: Lindsay O'Connor, cbm National Media, PR
Manager, (905) 640-6464 ext 289, loconnor@cbmcanada.org

cbm Canada responds to emergency in India and Nepal. (CNW Group/cbm International)

What happens at this spot in Nepal over the next six months will decide who is homeless in large parts of Bihar, who is going hungry and who is migrat

2008-09-05T18:03:00.000-05:00

November 4, 2006

Neelesh Misra, Hindustan Times

Email Author

September 06, 2008

First Published: 00:18 IST(6/9/2008)

Last Updated: 01:24 IST(6/9/2008)

Calming Kosi

This is where the Kosi river, like an angry goddess, smashed through the embankment at one in the afternoon on August 18, wiping away a kilometre and a half of concrete and hurtling down on its lethal journey towards the Indian plain.

No one heard a thing in this Nepal village that afternoon — until the screams began and people started to flee homes. The river had suddenly become sprawling ocean. It would soon submerge more than one lakh acres of land in India and affect more than 25 million people in the worst flooding in modern Indian history.

Indian officials are now rushing to repair the damage, and engineering nightmare that involves doing the opposite of what the river did. Over the next several months, they will try to change the course of the river all over again.

Farmer Abdul Rehman was sitting restless after lunch that day not too far from the embankment built to guide the path of the river, known for its wayward snake-like movement.

“We had all noticed the crack that morning — we went looking for the Indian officials all over but could not find them,” said Rehman. “But what could we have done that day after all? They hadn’t repaired the embankment for seven years. This had to happen.”

Rehman owned two bighas of land by the river. "I was a land owner; I am now a labourer repairing the same bridge that killed my life," he said. Behind him, the gushing river, 1.8 kilometres wide at that point, flowed with the speed of cars in an average New Delhi traffic. It has wiped away entire villages.

Dozens of other Indian and Nepali local residents echoed Rehman's view. Under a 1963 treaty between India and Nepal, the Bihar state government is responsible for the maintenance of the Kosi dam, an arm-like spurs, one of which broke and set off the disaster.

Devi Rajat, the engineer-in-chief for north Bihar, shrugged off the allegation -- though he admitted that no inquiry had yet been carried out into the breach 19 days ago.

"It is not as if repairs have not been carried out," he said. "There is an Indo-Nepal Kosi high level committee that inspects the dam and suggests repairs which are then done every year," Rajat said.

Before the end of every financial year, boulders used to be kept in giant wire meshes to reinforce the concrete and protect it from the frequent lashing of the river. "For 7-8 years, I have seen that no repairs were done. Earlier, they were done every year," said Surya Prasad Yadav, 41, a local Nepali Congress leader who lives nearby.

On Friday, trucks packed with large boulders drove in on the narrow embankment leading to the river. Labourers worked like clockwork, handing each other boulders that were then wrapped up in wire and placed by the swift current. The water is too strong; hundreds of rocks have been swept away and a motorboat with engineers just could not fight the current Friday on a reconnaissance and turned back.

Engineers will now cut through the silted bank of the river, where it flowed until last month, to create a 10-metre wide, 3-litre deep alternate channel for the river. The river is then expected to widen that with its own force over one month, bringing down the force of water in its current path. When 60 per cent of the river is diverted, engineers will begin an equally tough task, rebuilding the embankment. The entire process is expected to take six months. "We are fighting a battle against the current," said KP Sharma, a project engineer at the site. "But we cannot predict the mind of the river."

(With inputs from Amitabh Jha in Purnia)

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print.aspx?Id=9062a6d6-28d5-4f7f-abbf-946e4ce81664Biharflood_Special

Maoist, NC leaders give opposite views on army integration

2008-09-04T20:21:00.003-05:00

nepalnews.com ia Sept 03 08

A senior commander of the Maoist People's Liberation Army (PLA) has warned of further conflict in the country if the parties fail to merge the two armies - Nepal Army and PLA - as per the peace accord.

Speaking at an interaction programme in the capital Wednesday, deputy commander of the PLA Nanda Kishor Pun 'Pasang' said the process of integration between the two forces would begin within three months and complete in six months. The peace process will not be successful if the two armies are not integrated, he said.

However, Nepali Congress leader Dr Ram Sharan Mahat strongly opposed the idea of merger of PLA into Nepal Army saying it would politicise the national army. He threatened that his party would take to streets if the two forces were merged. He claimed the merger of politically indoctrinated militants into the national army is against the prevailing military ethics and practices.

Retired army General C. B. Gurung said serious debate and concrete security policy are required before taking any decision on the future of two armies since the issue is a sensitive one, which is linked with national security.

Another retired Nepal Army General Gopal Singh Bohara suggested leaders to look for alternatives than to merge PLA into national army. However, security expert Indrajit Rai, who is a constituent assembly member representing CPN (Maoist), said there is no alternative to merging two armies if Nepal needs lasting peace. nepalnews.com ia Sept 03 08

VIDEO: Political leaders and security experts participating ...

Nepal keen on restoring peace and economic development

2008-09-04T06:04:00.003-05:00

Submitted by Sahil Nagpal on Mon, 09/01/2008 - 08:15.
Kathmandu, Sept 1 : Nepal’s Prime Minister Prachanda has said restoring peace, economic development and formulation of a new Constitution are the main challenges for the new government.

Speaking at an economic summit on ''Double Digit Growth: A National Commitment'' organized by Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI) here on Sunday, Prachanda said, "We are committed to bring the peace process to a logical conclusion within six months and the new Constitution will have to be drafted in two years, then we will concentrate on economic development."

"The new constitution will be a document against feudalism," he added.

Prachanda said the Maoists Government was committed to made efforts to spur economic growth.

He said there was need for equal private and public sector involvement in economic development.

"We have no dearth of resources, what we need are vision and planning for investment. We are committed to creating conducive environment for investment," Prachanda said.

Jhalanath Khanal, General Secretary of CPN (UML) highlighted the need to devise long and short term measures to achieve economic growth in a short span of time.

He said the hydro power, tourism, agriculture and industrialization are the tools for economic development. (ANI)

Prachanda wants ’50s treaty renegotiated

2008-09-04T06:02:00.000-05:00

KATHMANDU, Sept. 3:

Ahead of his proposed visit to India, the new Nepalese Prime Minister, Prachanda, has said that the historic 1950 Indo-Nepal trade and transit treaty needed to be reviewed. “Nepal has now become a republic after big political changes, therefore the 1950 treaty needs to be reviewed,” Prachanda told the BBC's Nepali service. This were his first comments on the treaty, but he did not give details as to what needs to be changed.
The Nepalese premier, whose recent visit to Beijing had been perceived as a snub to New Delhi, said he would visit India before going to attend the annual session of the UN General Assembly, without specifying any dates.
However, the foreign ministry sources said the tentative schedule for a visit was 17-18 September.
In an effort to curb the movement of criminals across the porous border, Nepal's Maoist-led government has placed the renewal of the extradition treaty with India on top of the agenda during Prachanda's New Delhi visit. Nepal's new government will probably look into the details of the draft of the agreement, which was to have been signed earlier during the Nepali Congress-led coalition government, before taking up the matter with New Delhi, home ministry sources said in New Delhi.
It is likely that besides other matters the issue relating to the extradition treaty will come up during the Prime Minister's forthcoming visit to India later this month, the ministry sources said. Nepal Home Minister Mr Bam Dev Gautam did not give he details of the treaty that Nepal planned to ink with India. n PTI

Nepal's new Maoist prime minister, Prachanda gives his first interview since taking up the post.

2008-09-03T20:14:00.002-05:00

Wednesday, 3 September 2008

Prachanda's first interview as Nepal PM

Nepal's new Maoist prime minister, Prachanda gives his first interview since taking up the post. Excerpts from the interview, with Rabindra Mishra editor of the BBC's Nepali service, are reproduced here

_________________________________________Prachanda says he wants socialism established by democratic means

___________

In the past Maoist leaders had vowed not to keep any private property. They handed over their private properties to the party. Now, what will you do to your salary that you will be drawing as prime minister?

That (money) will go to the country and the people. It will be deposited in the party treasury. Except some amount for the general upkeep, the salary will be deposited in the party treasury.

Then, how can one be assured of the right to private property under your government when you are yourself are not keeping private property?

We do not believe that private property should be abolished. But we believe that the leadership must keep away from making money to ensure that the properties of the people are protected and promoted.

What three things you will do in the next three months that will make a difference to the people?

First, a special committee will be announced to facilitate the integration (of the army) and rehabilitation within six months as part of moves to take the peace process to a logical conclusion. Second, the process of constitution making will be expedited in three months. Third, programmes to provide immediate and long-term relief will be announced.

Given that the army integration is being seen as a very sensitive issue will you let the current army chief General Rookmangud Katawal complete his tenure?

The demand of the time is to exercise maximum restraint. The country will suffer by any move that breeds bitterness at this juncture.

So the suspicions about the army chief being sacked are misplaced? He will not be sacked, will he?

That will not happen. As long as everyone including the army, the police and the other officials remain committed to the people's mandate on democracy, peace and change, no one needs to feel insecure. There will be no prejudice against any.

How will you handle the army integration? The Nepali Army seems to have its own ideas about this. How will you merge your combatants into the national army?

Now that I have become prime minister I have been travelling with the army security. I have found a serious commitment and sense of responsibility in the Nepali soldiers. I don't think that we will face any problem in taking this (integration) process to a conclusion.

If you had so much faith in Nepali Army, why did you distrust the NA and, instead, induct your combatants of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) for your personal security?

I never showed such distrust. I never wanted to show any bit of distrust towards NA or police or PLA or armed police. Since last two years armed police and PLA personnel had been providing security to my residence in Naya Bazaar. This was an issue that needed a technical solution. I do not want to suspect anyone or make anyone feel humiliated. The PLA also should not feel that they have been orphaned now that I have become Prime Minister. I am quite sensitive on this matter. Both PLA and NA understand the issue very well.

Among the 20,000 Maoist combatants in the cantonments, how many will be accommodated into the Nepali Army. What happens to the rest?

The PLA combatants who are staying in the cantonments and who have been verified by the United Nations are all eligible for rehabilitation and integration. According to our latest understanding each and every PLA combatant will be given the freedom to choose whether he/she wants to return home or engage in other professions. Therefore, I am not in a position to say how many PLA combatants will be integrated and how many of them will return home.

How long will the ex-King Gyanendra be allowed to stay in the Nagarjuna palace?

We are discussing this matter. The cabinet has just been expanded. It will take up the issue soon.

Will you re-open the probe into the palace killings (of 2001)?

This issue will be raised at the Constituent Assembly. There have been no satisfactory answers yet to the people's serious questions about the incident.

Perhaps the people could raise similar questions about you also?

Maybe. But the people of Nepal have already justified our action - you call it civil war or people's war - through the constituent assembly verdict. Have the people ever justified the palace killings?

Do you ever feel that you hands are stained with blood?

Sometimes in the event of grave mistakes on our part, I was emotional. But what is more important is the great process of transformation and the class, ethnic, regional and gender consciousness which have come about through our movement. So I do not feel the need to repent.

Would you have visited China first if it had not hosted the Olympic Games?

Let's not get into hypothetical questions. Since China is our neighbor and since we could not attend the inaugural ceremony of the Olympics I went there for the closing ceremony. Anyway, it would not have been easier for me to go there first if there had been no Olympic.

Since China is the land of your inspiration Mao Zedong, you must have harboured wishes to travel there?

I would be lying if I said no.

What do you want to do with the 1950 Indo-Nepal treaty?

Nepal has become a republic passing through big changes since the Rana regime. So, the 1950 treaty should be clearly reviewed. It cannot be kept in the present form.

What are the provisions that you do not like in the present treaty?

I am engaged in consultations on my visit to India soon. So, I do not want to reply to your question at this point.

When are you visiting to India?

I am going to attend the UN General Assembly. I will travel to India before that.

You used to claim that different power centres were blocking your ascent to power. Have you defeated those centres now?

I cannot use the same language as I am Prime Minister now. I have said on many occasions that had any other party won the election, nothing would have stopped the formation of a new government within a week. It took four months for us.

You have defeated the King and elbowed out Girija Prasad Koirala. Do you feel that you have mastered the policy of 'use and throw'?

I am pained by the allegations that we engage in 'use and throw'. I never think that I have cheated anyone. But in course of advancing my cause, I might have made compromises and come closer to one or another at different times. But there was never any conspiracy there. It was our philosophy of cooperating with others to defeat the primary enemy.

There are two schools of thoughts within your party - one favouring the People's Republic and the other favouring the Democratic Republic. Which one will prevail?

That is not the case. There is no illusion within our party regarding our ultimate goal of establishing a Socialist Communism. However, in the current national and international circumstances, we have decided to move ahead by institutionalising the federal democratic republic.

So, you want to establish a People's Republic by means of the state of the democratic republic?

We will definitely attempt to establish a People's Republic by institutionalizing democratic republic and through the legitimate means like elections. Once we attain that, we will then work to achieve socialism and communism.

Will there be a people's republic if your party wins a majority in the next election?

Let's not understand this in a provocative manner. We will definitely try our best to ensure that the new constitution will be as close to the ideal of People's Republic as possible. I believe that the constitution would pave the way for a People's Republic, Socialism and Communism.

How can it pave the way for communism when you have said there will be guarantees of all kinds of political freedom?

We have concluded that socialism without multiparty competition and political freedoms cannot survive. We have learned this from the experiences of Russia and other countries.

What are you talking about, socialism or communism?

I am talking about socialism. A lively society can be built only if there are political freedoms and competitions within socialism. Communism is something like a heaven where there is neither a class nor a state nor an army. It will take hundreds of years to reach there.

You are not in a mood to step down as party chairman even after becoming PM. Why?

Certainly since I will not be able to devote adequate time and energy for the party after becoming the PM, other comrades will have to take more responsibility. But there is no rule anywhere in the world that the party chief has to step down when he becomes PM. Besides, ours is a party that believes in central and unified leadership. So there is no question of abandoning one responsibility when taking up another.

You once publicly said that top leaders will not join the government and act like Mahatma Gandhi?

What I said that that will happen only after a people's constitution and a stable government are put in place. We believe that a leader does not need to stick to the position of a prime minister or a president once the revolution is completed, constitution is written and the country cruises on a stable course.

Politicians are smart in playing with words, aren't they?

Not at all, I have only tried to reply in a very direct manner.

How long will your government survive?

It will continue till the constitution is written and the peace process is completed. I believe our party will win majority, even two-thirds majority in the next election. Then, our government will continue for another five years. We will improve our performance during that period. There will come a situation where people will start thinking that Maoists alone can run this country. In the subsequent election, we expect to win 90 percent votes and we will continue in power for many decades.

You have high expectations. Do you believe they will be fulfilled?

Definitely. We have strong faith in people. We are devoted to the nation and the people. No one can severe our relation with the people.

Interview translated from Nepali by Sanjaya Dhakal and Sushil Sharma.

Prospects of Coalition Government in Nepal

2008-09-03T20:09:00.003-05:00

Thursday, 4 September 2008, 11:35 am

By Siddhi B. Ranjitkar

Finally, Maoist Chairman Prachanda put together all political parties willing to be partners in the coalition government and gave a full shape even though some small parties might join in the government in the future. Three major parties such as Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-Maoist), Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist and Leninist (CPN-UML), and Madheshi People’s Rights Forum (MPRF) are major players in the coalition government. The CPN-UML could have sent better persons than those sent to join the government. The swearing-in ceremony was held on August 31, 2008.

The swearing-in ceremony for the newly inducted ministers did not go off without a hitch. Obviously, the presidential-residence administration did not make the reporting arrangement properly. First, they did not let the reporters in to the presidential residence where the ceremony was to be held soon. Reporters took it as an insult to them. So, the reporters boycotted the ceremony laying down their cameras and reporting equipment at the entrance to the presidential residence. Even the Minister for Information could not persuade the reporters to cover the swearing-in ceremony. The Minister assured the reporter of not repeating such incident in the future. The presidential administration set up a committee to investigate the snag in administering the reporting system and to report it within five days.

Prime Minister Prachanda administered the oath of office and secrecy to six ministers including Bamdev Gautam belonging to the CPN-UML and six ministers belonging to CPN-Maoist and one each minister belonging to Nepal Sadbhavana Party, Janamorcha Nepal (People’s Front), and CPN-United on August 31, 2008. The CPN-ML was supposed to join in the government but did not do so obviously not getting the appropriate portfolio for its General Secretary CP Mainali.

The CPN-UML proposed-six ministers did not participate in the first swearing-in ceremony held on August 22, 2008 saying that Bamdev Gautam did not get the position next to the Prime Minister so it was a breach of protocol. Although all of six ministers to-be in full uniform and were at the presidential residence for taking an oath of office and secrecy from the Prime Minister in presence of the President, they refused to take the oath when they found out that Dr. Baburam Bhattarai was next to the Prime Minister in the hierarchy of the ministers.

However, the Prime Minister went ahead of administering the swearing-in ceremony for eight ministers belonging four each to the CPN-Maoist and MPRF on August 22, 2008; he could not call off the ceremony, as he was going to China for attending the concluding ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Game on August 24, 2008.

One of the ministers to-be Vishnu Poudel coming out of the presidential premises and talking to the reporters said in a belligerent tone that Bamdev Gautam did not get the second position in the cabinet; it was a breach of protocol; Gautam had been a Deputy Prime Minister in the previous government; so, he needed to get the second position in the cabinet otherwise the CPN-UML would not join in the cabinet. General Secretary Jhalanath Khanal simply repeated what Mr. Poudel had said to the reporters.

In 1997 after the defeat of the coalition government of the Nepali Congress (NC) and Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) headed by Sher Bahadur Deuba in the no-confidence vote during the period of the hung parliament, Bamdev Gautam became the Deputy Prime Minister of the coalition government of the CPN-UML and RPP headed by Lokendra Bahadur Chand. Mr. Gautam as a Deputy Prime Minister also had the portfolio of Home. He held the local elections and made his party the most successful one in the local elections making sure that most of the members of his party were elected to various positions in the local governments. In addition, Mr. Gautam could not keep his image clean and left negative impression on the people. Maybe, these are the few reasons why he lost the election held on April 10, 2008, for the seat on the Constituent Assembly.

The CPN-UML cadres had objected the selection of the losers in the election for the Constituent Assembly seats for the ministerial positions. However, the CPN-UML leadership brushed off the concerns of the cadres selecting most of the losers for the ministerial positions.

Central Committee Member of CPN-UML and Member of Constituent Assembly Bhim Rawal strongly came out against not including anyone from the far western region of Nepal on the proposed list of ministers. He even threatened that all of the members of the Constituent Assembly elected from the far western region would resign en mass from the Constituent Assembly if the CPN-UML did not reconsider the selection of ministers to join in the coalition government headed by Maoist Chairman Prachanda. However, nothing came out of his stand as well as of the CPN-UML leadership on the revision of the list of the selected persons for the ministerial positions.

Immediately after taking the oath of office and secrecy from Prime Minister Prachanda in presence of the president on August 31, 2008, Deputy Prime Minister Bamdev Gautam declared triumphantly that he would bring to an end to the anarchy and lawlessness; would also end the political protection of the criminals; he swore that he would take actions against any criminal activities of no matter whether they were the members of the Youth Force (YF) belonging to his party or Young Communist League (YCL) belonging to the CPN-Maoist.

The irony was that recently there was a fierce fighting between the cadres of the Youth Force and the YCL in Dhankuta: the administrative headquarters of the eastern region severely wounding the local leader of the YCL. The local administration had imposed a curfew indefinitely after the YF cadres severely beat up the YCL leaders. However, Deputy Prime Minister holding the portfolio of Home could not ensure the arrest of the criminals even after his words of not allowing anybody taking law in their hands breaching the rule of law were still fresh in the air.

Deputy Prime Minister holding Home portfolio Bamdev Gautam also said he would make necessary changes in the security departments such as Nepal Police, Armed Police Force and National Investigation under his ministry to expedite in maintaining law and order; would replace the administrative or security staffs failed in their responsibility with new ones. Probably, Deputy Prime Minister Gautam is hinting that he is for removing the high-level staffs appointed or promoted by the former government and then appoint his own men to those positions so that he would be able to run the security administration as he likes.

Prime Minister Prachanda has been telling the people in public that the three main tasks of his coalition government are 1) taking the peace process to a rational conclusion 2) crafting a new people’s constitution and 3) ensuring the fast socio-economic development in the country.

Completing the peace process probably means integrating the People’s Liberation Army into the Nepali Army, setting up a truth commission and making known the whereabouts of missing people disappeared by both the Nepali Army and the CPN-Maoist.

Crafting a new constitution means the Constitution Assembly members formulating a new constitution with the provision for a federal democratic republic of Nepal in other words restructuring the State.

Ensuring the fast socio-economic development means surely removing all the social evils including the discrimination based on gender, caste, region and ethnicity and increasing the incomes of Nepalis as a whole as soon as possible.

Prime Minister Prachanda also said that the Nepalis as well as the members of the international community have both the hope on and suspicion about the coalition government led by the CPN-Maoist; the suspicion was more than hope in both the cases; the government needed the cooperation and the trust of the Nepalis as well as the international community for its success; so, the government would try its best to turn the suspicion about the government into trust in it.

Recently appointed Finance Minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai has said that the Ministry of Finance staffs have been working days and nights to prepare a new budget and submit it to the Constituent Assembly-parliament for an approval within mid September; the budget would focus on the poverty alleviation, fast economic growth and sustainable development. He also called a meeting of all donors in Nepal and presented his approach to development to the meeting and sought the cooperation from the donor community on making his approach to development a success. He also repeated his mantra: the public-private partnership for development.

The coalition government ministers would engage in triangular contest. The CPN-Maoist as the major partner in the coalition government tries to have the maximum possible credits from doing the best possible work. The CPN-UML tries to redeem its lost position; however, how the concerned ministers would do remain to be seen. If the history is of any guide then the performance of Bamdev Gautam as the Deputy Prime Minister holding the portfolio of Home in his previous incarnation is not surely enviable. He loved Home portfolio for obvious reasons, as it endowed with power and resources for ensuring to strengthen his party. The MPRF ministers were as new as the Maoist ministers except for one: Bijaya Kumar Gacchadar; their actions would tell the public whether they would work for the benefits of people or of them only.

Concerning the transforming the suspicion about the government into trust in it would be possible if the government would certainly stop all sorts of irregularities happening in the name of the YCL and do everything for the benefits of the people in general.

Regarding the fast economic development, the Finance Minister needed to be ready to turn over all sorts of profit-oriented businesses to the private so that they could make profits at the same time benefit the people. If the Finance Minister would like to see the per capita income growth in double-digit figures then he needed to be ready to scrap the prevailing Labor Act and Rules and replaced with a new business friendly Labor Act and Rules. For the benefits of the labor terminated from the jobs, the government needed to make the provision for the unemployment benefits to such laborers only for the period they did not have a new job. These are easier said than done; however, the new ministers with the new enthusiasm at least needed to try those things.

The monarchists have brought Nepal from the highest level of socio-economic development of that time to the current status of destitute during the 240 years of the monarchical rule. However, the people in the United States of America have brought it from the status of almost nothingness to the current status of the most affluent nation during the 200 years of its democratic administration. So, Nepalis could anticipate living a better life if everything would go democratically in the years to come.

‘80-year-old’ leads war on Kosi in Nepal

2008-09-03T13:08:00.002-05:00

Kathmandu, Sep 3 (IANS)

A man, said to be in his 80s, is leading the war on the raging Saptakosi river that has been spreading death, destruction and disease in Nepal and India since last month.

Nilendu Sanyal, a former engineer-in-chief in Bihar’s water resources department as well as Flood Control Commission, is the architect of the blueprint that could tame the errant river and beat it back to its old course.

Sanyal, who retired almost two decades ago, is still active and only last year asked the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar to use a clever American technology to plug breaches in embankments, a common hazard in both south Nepal and India’s Bihar and Uttar Pradesh states during monsoon.

He is now leading the battle to stop the Saptakosi from destroying more spurs in its barrage. Floods triggered by the waters of the Kosi - as it is known in India - have affected millions of people in the two countries.

Sanyal was flown to Nepal’s submerged Sunsari district, where the Saptakosi barrage is located, Aug 31, to assess the damage. He was flown in by helicopter from Forbesganj in India as the roads are submerged and unusable.

Sanyal and other engineers from Bihar were taken to the site where a spur was in imminent danger of collapsing by motor boats.

‘He was an inspiration to all of us,’ said Jainendra Nath Singh, executive engineer from Bihar’s water resources department, who is camping in the area along with his team.

‘He remained on the spur, discussed what’s to be done and the next morning returned to India to discuss his plans with the authorities.’

Singh said Sanyal has a master plan to restore normalcy.

He has recommended digging a pilot channel so that the excess water of the raging river can be diverted, leaving it weak and then beat back the feeble river to its old course.

The barrage on the Saptakosi river was built in 1954 after a water-sharing pact between India and Nepal.

Nepalis accuse the then prime minister, Matrika Prasad Koirala, who signed it, of succumbing to Indian pressure and acceding most advantages to the bigger neighbour.

The barrage was built by India and according to the pact, the government of Bihar has to maintain it.

However, there are allegations of corruption and negligence on both sides of the border.

Nepal’s new Maoist Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal called the Kosi pact a ‘historic blunder’ and is expected to discuss scrapping or reviewing the treaty with the Indian authorities when he visits New Delhi later this month.

Bihar flood victims loot relief depot

2008-09-03T12:30:00.003-05:00

Whole of the north Bihar is reeling under flood as River Kosi is causing havoc in the region. In this picture, a flood-hit damaged railway track is seen near Dinapatti in Madhepura on August 22. (PTI)

One of the worst hit districts is Purnia where houses have completely submerged under water.
People living here are facing a tough time. (PTI)

The picture shows an aerial view of the flood affected Purnia in north Bihar on August 22.
(PTI)

The desperation of the flood victims is getting from the bad to worse. In Madhepura, people waiting for food packets looted a storage depot after the officer guarding depot tried to impose some restriction in food distribution.

With flood-hit areas facing shortage of supplies, their patience is fast running out.

"We are all running around hungry and all we are facing are atrocities and beatings. How is a man supposed to deal with that?" said Kumar, a flood victim.

Officials at the camp say the people were just not willing to wait.

"Ration was stored here to distribute among the flood victims," said Ram Chandra Singh, a police official.

"Ration had come in for distribution which was stored away. The BDO made us incharge of making sure that people gathered in a queue. When we insisted that the ration be distributed or the people would get infuriated the BDO asked people to shift their position which just made things worse," said Singh.

The Centre has already announced a 1000 crore relief package and the Army is aiding rescue and relief operations. But political blame game has already begun.

Lalu Prasad Yadav says the Nitish Kumar government is slow in implementing relief measures and Mayawati is blaming the Centre for not taking up the Kosi dam issue with Nepal.

2006-04-11T20:25:00.000-05:00

Policemen remove a roadblock set up by opposition party supporters in Katmandu, Nepal, Tuesday April 11, 2006. Although most parts of Katmandu remained peaceful opposition party supporters clashed with policemen in isolated pockets.

(AP Photo/Binod Joshi)

Left endorses US stand on Nepal as it asks PM to push it forward

2006-04-11T20:23:00.000-05:00

Ananda Majumdar
Posted online: Wednesday, April 12, 2006 at 0000 hrs

NEW DELHI, April 11: Despite its strong anti-American stand on Indo-US engagement, the Left parties find themselves on the same platform as the US on the question of restoration of democracy in Nepal as they push the UPA Government to mobilise international opinion to bring popular rule to the Himalayan Kingdom.

So much so that when US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack issued a statement that King Gyanendra’s decision to impose direct palace rule had failed in every regard and he must now restore democracy immediately and begin talks with political parties, the Left endorsed that as a “strong statement.”

One difference between the US and the Left is that while Washington does not recognise the Maoists, the Left—despite their strong battle with the Maoists in India—have brought them into the negotiations on Nepal’s future.

Using the US statement as a sign of growing international opinion against Nepal’s monarchy, CPM’s Sitaram Yechury and Nationalist Congress Party’s D P Tripathy met the Prime Minister today. The two, part of India’s 12-party Nepal solidarity committee, made two specific suggestions to Manmohan Singh: India use its good offices to mobilise international opinion and be sympathetic to Nepalese who flee from repression.

The PM responded that India wanted establishment of multiparty democracy in Nepal, and had suspended arms supply."

Nepal King Orders Protesters Shot on Sight

2006-04-08T03:50:00.000-05:00

Nepalese policemen during a protest rally. Nepal's government slapped a daytime curfew on the capital and warned violators could be shot in a bid to thwart anti-royal protests as the army said clashes with Maoist rebels left at least 12 dead in the west of the country.

(AFP/Devendra Man Singh)

Unrest shuts down Nepal, leaves 22 dead - World - smh.com.au

2006-04-06T09:47:00.000-05:00

april 7, 2006

KATHMANDU: At least 22 people were killed when Maoist guerillas attacked a district town hours before a strike against the monarchy shut down Nepal yesterday.

Roads across the country of 26 million people were deserted as the strike, called by opponents of King Gyanendra, began. Businesses and schools were shut despite the Government's call on people not to heed the strike call.

In the capital, Kathmandu, the centre of the campaign, hundreds of riot police and soldiers, some of them in armoured vehicles, patrolled deserted streets, while activists burnt tyres on roads to enforce the closure.

The leftist rebels struck Malangwa, a town 350 kilometres south-east of Kathmandu, on Wednesday.

They stormed through the town, firing at soldiers guarding government offices and security posts and attacked a local jail and freed more than 100 inmates, among them some of their comrades, before fleeing.

Six policemen, six guerillas and two civilians were killed in the fighting, police said.

An army helicopter carrying troops to the area crashed near Malangwa, killing eight of the 10 soldiers on board, an army officer said. The other two men were missing.

The seven main political parties had called for the strike, defying a government ban on protests. Although the guerillas, who are fighting to establish a communist state, are supporting the political groups as part of a pact against the king, they are not taking part in the protests.

Activists and politicians were detained on the eve of the strike in an effort to scuttle it, and a curfew was imposed to prevent Maoists infiltrating the protests.

Maoist blockade hits Nepal firms

2006-03-16T07:04:00.000-06:00

Thursday, March 16, 2006 02:09:57 pmREUTERS

KATHMANDU: A blockade ordered by Maoist rebels kept most vehicles off roads across Nepal for a third straight day on Thursday, disrupting supplies and hitting businesses hard, industry officials and residents said.

The rebels, who have been fighting since 1996 to replace the monarchy with a communist republic, called the blockade of Kathmandu, district capitals and other cities in a bid to end the absolute rule of King Gyanendra, who seized power last year.

Authorities have urged drivers to defy the rebels, offering armed escorts to vehicles willing to risk it, but most roads across the mountainous nation were all but deserted.

"Industries are on the verge of being closed due to the blockade," said Bijay Sarawagi, chief of the Birgunj unit of the Federation of the Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Birgunj is a major business centre in the southern plains.

"We can't send our products to the market and bring raw material from outside because transport vehicles are not running," Sarawagi said. "If this situation continues we'll have no alternative but to close down factories."

Trucks carrying goods from India, which supplies the bulk of essential supplies to the landlocked nation, were backed up at border crossings because drivers were scared to defy the Maoists.

"I saw nearly 50 Nepal-bound trucks loaded with goods waiting on the Indian side of the border," journalist Kulmani Gwyanli said from the western town of Bhairahawa, a major trading point along the border with India.

Ordinary Nepalis were also feeling the impact of the blockade.

Kathmandu housewife Lila Poudel said she had stocked 200 kg (440 lbs) of rice for a family of four but was worried that fresh vegetables would soon disappear from the markets.

"The price of tomatoes has more than doubled to 40 rupees (55 US cents) a kilo and prices of other vegetables have also increased by more than 50 percent in just two days," Poudel said outside a vegetable shop in the capital.

"But I don't care about the price as long as I get what I want," she said. "Soon things may not be available."

Officials said the capital, home to more than 1.5 million people, had enough food grains for two months and supplies of petrol, kerosene and diesel for two weeks.

Nepal is among the 10 poorest countries in the world, and its tourism- and aid-dependent economy has been shattered by the 10-year Maoist rebellion.

The Asian Development Bank, a key donor, said in a recent report that economic growth slowed to 2 percent in the financial year ending July 2005 from 3.2 the previous year.

Sarawagi said the industries hardest hit were those exporting vegetable oil, plastic bags and iron goods to India. In Birjung alone about 500 companies, employing 30,000 workers, have been hit by the rebel action.

Nepal has been in turmoil since King Gyanendra seized full power in February last year, sacking the government and suspending some civil liberties.

He justified his move as necessary to quell the Maoist conflict, that has killed more than 13,000 people, but the fighting rages on leaving the king more isolated than ever.

Nepal seven main political parties, which reached a loose accord with the Maoists in November to restore democracy, have opposed the blockade, saying it can only hurt ordinary Nepalis.

Sexual minorities face police brutality

2006-03-15T13:27:00.000-06:00

15 Mar 2006 18:36:22 GMT

KATHMANDU, 15 March (IRIN) - For Kala Rai, the freedom she so desperately craved as a 'meti', or transgender person living in Kathmandu, has never come easy. Arriving in the Nepali capital three years earlier from the small town of Dharan in Sunsari district, 600 km from the city, her plight is indicative of many in this particularly marginalised community.

'As a meti, I have always faced problems with my family and had limited opportunities,' the demure 25-year-old explained, adding: 'All I wanted was to live my own life.'

But living that life comes at a price in this conservative Himalayan nation of 27.6 million.

'I am constantly harassed by the police, who taunt me, take my money and even beat me if I don't do what they demand,' she maintained, claiming she herself had been raped by the police on at least three different occasions.

Such acts have not gone unnoticed, however, with repeated calls on the government by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission to work for greater tolerance of sexual minorities.

According to the Blue Diamond Society (BDS), Nepal's only organisation for sexual minorities, more than 200 cases have been reported since the NGO first began recording such human rights abuses in 2003, but it believes many cases go unreported, particularly outside the capital.

'The situation with regard to the meti community in Nepal has gone from bad to worse, with routine incidents of police brutality being reported,' Sunil Pant, BDS's founder and director, said on Wednesday in Kathmandu, citing routine incidents of physical and sexual abuse, blackmail, extortion and even attempted murder.

"The human rights abuses faced by metis are generally worse than [those experienced by] other sexual minorities in Nepal," he added.Indeed, on Monday, one day before 'Holi', a national holiday marking the advent of spring all over Nepal, 27 metis were systematically rounded up by the police and are currently being held at Nepal's district headquarters without charge."Usually there are never any formal charges placed against them," Pant conceded, voicing his frustration at trying to secure their release from jail. Many of them were simply picked up off the street or even from their homes.

These arrests reportedly occurred less than a week after the US State Department's report on the human rights situation in Nepal was published, acknowledging violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons by members of the Nepalese police, his group said on Tuesday. "We were allowed to talk to them for just two minutes," the activist said, noting many of those being detained had complained of cold, the denial of food and a lack of clean bedding. "We weren't even allowed to get their names," he complained, referring to his morning visit on Tuesday. But such incidents involving Nepal's sexual minorities are far from unusual. On 9 August 2004, the police similarly rounded up 39 metis, keeping them incarcerated for 13 days before any charges were finally brought against them.

"It was only after mounting international pressure and a media campaign that charges of public offence were actually made against them," Pant said, noting such acts serve only to marginalise the meti community further, many of whom have been driven to prostitution in the city of 2.5 million just to survive. Nepal ranks among the world's poorest countries with a per capita income of around US $300, making the chance of metis securing any form of employment all but impossible. "No one wants to give them jobs. Even finding jobs cleaning restaurants has proven difficult for them. They do what they have to survive," Pant explained."A lot of metis couldn't go to school because the schools wouldn't accept them," he added, underscoring the desperation and climate of discrimination they face.

Although there are no exact figures on the number of metis in the country, BDS counts between 500 to 700 transgender individuals regularly active within their organisation. Moreover, BDS asserts the ongoing conflict between the government and Maoists has forced more metis to move to the capital for safety. But advocating for gay and transgender rights in a country like Nepal continues to be a challenge, with BDS currently awaiting a Supreme Court decision on a petition calling for the NGO's ultimate closure – much to the chagrin of outside observers. "Nepal's government must decide whether it wants to enforce homophobia or protect basic human rights," Scott Long, Director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Project at HRW, said, commenting earlier on the April 2004 incident.

According to the international watchdog group, although there was no provision in Nepalese law that explicitly criminalised homosexual activity, the country's civil code punished "any kind of unnatural sex" with up to one year in prison – precisely the provision used to justify arrests of men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender individuals in the kingdom.

Mystery "Buddha" boy goes missing

2006-03-11T17:11:00.000-06:00

Sat Mar 11, 8:45 AM ET

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepali police began hunting on Saturday for a teenaged boy who some people believe is an reincarnation of Buddha after he disappeared from the site where he had been meditating for almost 10 months.

Fifteen-year-old Ram Bahadur Bamjon has not been seen since early Saturday, said Hari Krishna Khatiwada, a district official of Bara, 150 km (95 miles) southeast of Kathmandu.

The boy had been meditating there without food or water since May. Some of his followers are also missing.

"So far we have found no trace of them," Khatiwada said.

Sitting cross-legged beneath a "pipal" tree, which is sacred to Hindus, Bomjon drew more than 100,000 people to the dense forests in southeastern Nepal.

But visitors were only allowed to see him from 50 metres (165 feet) away and the boy was hidden from public view at night behind a curtain drawn by his followers.

Soldiers die in Nepal 'attack'

2006-03-10T09:11:00.000-06:00

Nepal has been fighting a Maoist insurgency for a decade

At least three soldiers have been killed in an attack by suspected Maoist rebels in south-western Nepal, officials say.

Five policemen and a civilian were hurt in the attack on a security checkpoint in Tribhuvan Nagar in Dang district.

The rebels have not commented on Thursday morning's incident.

Violence has escalated across Nepal since the rebels abandoned a four-month unilateral ceasefire in January after the government refused to reciprocate.

A local official told the BBC that the security check post had been sent up to keep a vigil on the movement of suspected Maoist rebels in the area.

Violence

Earlier this week, Maoist rebels freed more than 100 prisoners in an attack on a hill town in eastern Nepal.

At least 12 people, including seven rebels, were also killed in the clashes that followed the attack in Ilam Bazar.

Last week, more than 30 people died in clashes between troops and Maoist rebels in south-western Nepal.

More than 13,000 people have been killed in violence in Nepal since the rebels took up arms 10 years ago.

2006-01-24T05:58:00.000-06:00

AP - Tue Jan 24, 6:42 AM ET

Riot police, unseen, use water cannons to disperse activists of Nepal's seven largest political parties during an anti-king demonstration in Katmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2006. Police clashed with pro-democracy protesters Tuesday, firing tear gas and beating activists with batons just hours after authorities lifted a ban on demonstrations in the capital of this Himalayan kingdom. (AP Photo /Aijaz Rahi)

2006-01-08T12:10:00.000-06:00

AFP/File - Sun Jan 8, 1:48 AM ET

Nepalese soldiers in Kathmandu. Suspected Maoist rebels set off a bomb in a municipal building in southwestern Nepal but caused no casualties.(AFP/File/Devendra M. Singh)

2005-12-15T06:43:00.000-06:00

Supporters of Nepal's seven major political parties participate in a protest rally against King Gyanendra in Katmandu, Nepal, Thursday, Dec. 15, 2005. Hours after a Nepalese soldier ended an argument with a group of villagers spraying them with bullets and killings at least 11 people, around 15,000 protestors marched through Katmandu demanding the countrys king restore democracy and condemning the killings.

( AP photo/ Binod Joshi)

Nepal leader urges India not to back Government headed by King

2005-12-13T06:55:00.000-06:00

By: Marcus Dam

External support will make it more repressive: Communist Party of Nepal (UM-L)

# Several smaller political parties of Nepal are joining the pro-democracy movement
# Maoists are slowly veering towards the idea of a peaceful political transformation

KOLKATA: "We urge the Indian Government not to lend any support to the Nepal Government that could end up with the latter turning even more repressive towards the movement for democracy in Nepal," Keshab Badal, former Nepalese Industries Minister and senior leader of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), one of the largest mainstream political parties of Nepal that is in the forefront of the anti-monarchy and pro-democracy campaign in that country, said here on Sunday.

"We seek the sympathy of the Indian Government in our endeavours to replace the monarchy in Nepal with a democratic republic. The Government headed by the King is stockpiling arms and procuring weapons in preparation for the bloodiest civil war in the country," Mr. Badal told The Hindu.

The militants belonging to the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) are slowly veering towards the idea of a peaceful political transformation to people's democracy in the country, he observed. "We cannot expect them to change [their violent ways] overnight but they seem gradually to be coming around to the point of view of the seven political parties spearheading the pro-democracy movement in Nepal," Mr. Badal said.

The Maoist rebels who had called for a three-month ceasefire that lapsed on December 3 have, under pressure from various international and national groupings including the seven party forum of Nepal's democratic parties, reportedly extended it by another month.

"Talks between the Maoist leaders and us started nearly six months ago and it's been only a month since we [the seven democratic parties and the Maoist rebels] have been able to reach a 12-point understanding for a joint movement against the monarchy and the setting up of a democratic republic in Nepal," Mr. Badal said.

"Several other smaller political parties of Nepal were joining the pro-democracy movement," Mr. Badal said. "There were also other organisations from the civil society like teachers' groups, bar associations and human rights organisations which were coming together and widening the base of the movement.

"The recent reshuffle in the Nepalese Ministry is nothing but a move by the monarchy toward greater oppression of the people by intensifying the repression of the present regime, taking us further from any solution to the present political crisis in Nepal," he said.

Mr. Badal was in the city to lead a procession brought out by the Nepali Democratic Movement Solidarity Forum - a Kolkata-based organisation comprising various organisations supporting the movement for democracy in Nepal. He, along with representatives of the Forum, later addressed a rally in support of "the struggle of the Nepalese people for a sovereign and self-reliant Nepal."

2005-12-12T06:07:00.000-06:00

Nepali women shout anti-monarchy slogans at New Baneshwar in Kathamandu December 12, 2005. The United Women Organisation of Nepal organised an all-women rally demanding a constitutional assembly and a return to democracy.

REUTERS/Gopal Chitrakar.

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Nepal reporters lose court fight

2005-11-11T09:13:00.000-06:00

Journalists protest in Kathmandu
Journalists say they are now left with only street protests
Nepal's Supreme Court has refused to block a controversial law that bans criticism of the king and bars private radio stations from broadcasting news.

Although this is not a final verdict, the ruling clears the way for the government to impose the law.

Critics say the law imposes severe curbs on the press but the authorities say they are not stifling the media.

King Gyanendra assumed direct power in February saying politicians had failed to tackle the nation's Maoist rebels.

Vibrant

A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Dilip Kumar Poudel refused to defer the law, which also introduces much higher fines for defamation.

Now street protests are our last resort. The ruling has crushed hopes of the journalists

Major opposition parties and key donors such as India and the US and international media watchdogs have criticised the law.

The BBC's Sushil Sharma in Kathmandu says Nepal's independent media have been vibrant since the establishment of a multi-party democracy 15 years ago.

But lawyers for media groups who brought the petition to the Supreme Court seeking the deferral now admit defeat.

Ram Krishna Niraula, a lawyer for Kantipur Publications, Nepal largest media group, told Associated Press: "We have lost the case. Though the final decision is yet to come, it has little meaning."

Narayan Wagle, editor the Kantipur newspaper, said: "We have lost our battle in the court. Now street protests are our last resort. The ruling has crushed hopes of the journalists."

Analysts say part of the king's agenda since his takeover has been to crack down on dissent in order, the authorities say, to quell the Maoist insurgency.

2005-11-11T09:11:00.000-06:00

Bhutanese refugees take part in a sit-in protest in front of the United Nations Office at Pulchowk in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, November 11, 2005. The refugees are protesting to attract the attention of the leaders of the South Asian countries taking part in their regional meeting in Dhaka.
REUTERS/Gopal Chitrakar

2005-11-08T06:46:00.000-06:00

The son of former Nepal prime minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand was released after being held for almost two weeks by Maoist rebels who had abducted him to press for payments to sugarcane farmers.

(AFP/File/Devendra M. Singh)

Xinhua - English | Search continues for missing climbers in Nepal

2005-11-04T08:58:00.000-06:00

www.chinaview.cn 2005-11-04 19:59:37

KATHMANDU, Nov. 4 (Xinhuanet) -- A 30-member rescue team comprising alpinists from Nepal and France and sniffer dogs continued their search Friday for the bodies of 16 climbers hit by the avalanche while attempting to climb Mt. Kanguru.

"There has not been much progress until now," said Bikram Neupane, president of the Himalayan Rescue Association.

Neupane said that all the rescue members will be returning to Kathmandu on Saturday and the meeting will decide whether to continue search operations.

On Thursday, Neupane and French Ambassador Michel Jolivet flew by helicopter in the region to take stock of the rescue mission.

Seven French and 11 Nepali climbers, during their expedition to summit the 6,981-meter Mt. Kanguru, in Narphu valley of Manang district, some 200 km west of Kathmanduwere, buried alive in the avalanche on October 20.

The rescue team last week on Wednesday recovered the body of French climber Bruno Chadrin while the second body of another French climber was retrieved on Tuesday this week.

2005-11-03T07:00:00.000-06:00

A Nepali boy watches people celebrating the Newar New Year during a parade in the capital Kathmandu November 2, 2005. Newars are the native people of Kathmandu and observe their own calendar according to which Wednesday is the first day of the year 1126. The celebrations continue throughout the day with traditional bands, dances and a motorcycle rally. REUTERS/Gopal Chitrakar

Son of former prime minister abducted in Nepal

2005-11-01T05:45:00.000-06:00

1st NOV 09:59 hrs IST
Former Nepal PM's son abducted - -
Kathmandu: Maoists have abducted Arun Chand, son of former Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand, from Kailali district of western Nepal, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said. Chand, Executive Director of Basuling Sugar Mills, was abducted from the compound of the sugar mills in Chuha village of Kailali on Thursday, according to the NHRC. A complaint to this effect was lodged at the commission by Chand's family, four days after the incident. The Commission has urged the Maoists for his unconditional and immediate release. However, Maoists have not claimed responsibility for the incident so far. Meanwhile, the Kantipur reported that a group of about ten Maoists took the ex-prime minister's son away to ''question him''. ''We did not make the incident public hoping that the Maoists would release him soon but it has already been four days and we still don't know his whereabouts,'' the daily quoted family sources as saying. Employees at the mill said the local Maoists leaders have been pressuring the management of the mill to pay outstanding dues to the farmers, the paper said.

2005-10-31T05:00:00.000-06:00

Reuters - Sun Oct 30, 6:57 AM ET

Nepali journalists from the Periodical Publications Network wear black masks during a protest rally against the government's new media ordinance in Kathmandu October 30, 2005. The new media law prohibits the criticism of the royal family and ban on the FM news broadcast. REUTERS/Gopal Chitrakar

Two dozen more journalists held in Nepal

2005-10-31T04:54:00.000-06:00

Date : 2005-10-31

Kathmandu, 31 October, (Asiantribune.com): Only a day after police arrested 16 journalists from protest rallies in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, police crackdown on media workers continued on Oct. 30 with the arrest of over two dozen journalists from demonstrations in the Himalayan kingdom’s eastern town of Dharan.

As on the previous day, these journalists were demonstrating against the recently introduced draconian media ordinance when they were rounded up. Police manhandled the journalists before rounding them up, according to reports.

Among those arrested on Oct. 30 are vice president of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists Sanjay Santoshi Rai, the federation’s Sunsari district chairman Govinda Ghimire, secretary Janak Shree Rai, Himal Rai, Jas Kumar Rai, Kishor Karki, Keshav Ghimire, Dambar Krishna Shrestha, Rimesh Shrestha, Bhim Rai, Sita Mandemba, Bhuwan Lingden, Shaligram Pandey, Raj Kumar Karki, Gopal Dewan, Ikwal Ahmad, Ravin Giri, Babu Ram Subedi, Rajen Pokhrel, Shashi Thapa Subba, Bed Raj Poudel, Harsha Subba, Arjun Pokharel and Pradip Mayongbo.

The latter four are associated with the country’s most powerful media house, Kantipur that has been the main target of Nepal’s autocratic regime in recent days.

Meanwhile, the sixteen journalists arrested on Oct. 29 have been released.

Protests against the draconian media ordinance promulgated in early October gathered steam after government served a 24-hour ultimatum to Kantipur FM, a popular radio station here last week, even while a Supreme Court verdict on a case filed by the FM station against an earlier police raid and seizure of transmission equipment from the radio station was pending.

Supreme Court begins hearing on media-related appeals

Nepal’s Supreme Court has began hearings on two different cases filed against government attempts to muzzle press freedom in the country. The cases include one seeking the annulment of the media ordinance and another seeking return of equipment seized from Kantipur FM.

A special bench of Chief Justice Dilip Kumar Poudel, Justice Kedar Prasad Giri, and Justice Sharada Prasad Pandit are hearing the cases. The hearing will continue Monday.

2005-10-29T04:29:00.000-05:00

Nepalese police watch people walking at the Durbarmarg in the capital Kathmandu October 28, 2005. Hundreds of people walked to work and most schools and businesses shut down in Kathmandu on Friday as a strike against a new law banning the media from criticizing Nepal's royal family paralyzed the capital city.

REUTERS/Gopal Chitrakar

Opposition to strike over media curbs in Nepal- The Times of India

2005-10-28T04:56:00.000-05:00

[ Thursday, October 27, 2005 01:13:15 pmIANS ]

KATHMANDU: Seven major parliamentary parties in Nepal have called for a 24 hour countrywide shutdown on Friday to protest a fresh move by King Gyanendra's government to close down the biggest private radio station in the country.

The seven parties, who formed a coalition to unitedly oppose the monarch's power grab in February, have also asked members of civil society to join them in a human chain around the office of Kantipur FM station on Thursday to prevent a possible effort by the government to close it down.

The agitating parties include the Nepali Congress, the country's oldest and largest, Nepali Congress of deposed and jailed prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and the four left parties.

The Central Mass Movement Coordination Committee of the coalition, formed after the royal coup to spearhead a public movement against it, held an emergency meeting on Wednesday evening after the government dealt a fresh blow to Kantipur FM.

The ministry of information and communication sent a letter to the broadcaster on Wednesday, giving it 24 hours to explain why it had not stopped airing news programmes or face the withdrawal of its licence.

The broadcaster, owned by Kantipur, the largest media house in the kingdom, fell foul of the royalist government after February for its opposition to it and defiance of a controversial media ordinance imposed by Gyanendra this month that imposes stringent curbs on the media.

Armed policemen raided Kantipur FM at midnight earlier this month, seizing its broadcasting equipment and preventing its programmes from being aired outside Kathmandu valley.

The US government issued a statement from Washington, condemning the raid and expressing doubts about the fairness of the civic polls to be held on Feb 8 next year in view of the absence of a free media.

The new media decree bans FM stations from broadcasting news, from airing programmes simultaneously from more than two places and any criticism of the king and the royal family.

However, Kantipur FM has challenged the decree in court, saying it violates the freedom of expression guaranteed by Nepal's constitution.

The shutdown called by the opposition comes after a long absence of such disruptions and a lull in violence following a three month unilateral ceasefire called by the Maoist insurgents from Sep 3.

2005-10-22T05:16:00.000-05:00

AFP - Sat Oct 22, 1:46 AM ET

More than 1,500 Nepalese journalists, teachers, lawyers and other professionals demonstrated in Kathmandu against a strict new press law seen as an attempt by the government to further muzzle the media.
(AFP/Devendra M. Singh)

China is our real friend, says Nepal's army chief- The Times of India

2005-10-22T05:15:00.000-05:00

[ Saturday, October 22, 2005 12:48:46 amPTI ]
BEIJING: Nepalese Chief of Staff, Pyar Jung Thapa on Friday said China is the Himalayan Kingdom's 'real friend' who respected the country's sovereignty and did not meddle in its internal affairs.

Thapa said this when he called on senior Chinese Communist Party leader, Jia Qinglin here on Friday.

He said China, as "real friend of Nepal, respects the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Nepal and never interferes in the country's internal affairs," the Xinhua news agency reported.

Jia, on his part assured Thapa that China will further promote bilateral ties with Nepal, including on the military front.

Jia, also Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the top advisory body of the nation, said China appreciates the support from Nepal on issues of Taiwan, Tibet and human rights.

Hospital roof collapses in Nepal; 10 dead

2005-10-21T05:00:00.000-05:00

(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-21 09:01

The roof of a hospital in central Nepal collapsed Thursday, killing at least 10 people and injuring nine others, an official said.

The roof, made of corrugated fiberglass sheets, fell on people who were sitting in a waiting area in a pavilion next to the seven-story Manipal Teaching Hospital in Pokhara, said Yog Raj Poudel, the area's top official.

Most of the dead were patients and their relatives, Poudel said, adding that workers were still looking for victims under the debris.

Authorities pointed to faulty construction as the reason for the collapse in Pokhara, about 125 miles west of Katmandu.

Building collapses are common in Nepal, a country where construction laws are poorly enforced.

2005-10-20T06:41:00.000-05:00

AFP/File - Thu Oct 20, 3:25 AM ET

Nepal's Election Commission has set a 30-day deadline for political parties to register for local polls early next year.
(AFP/File/Devendra M. Singh )

People's Daily Online -- Over 29 guerrillas surrender, four arrested in Nepal

2005-10-20T06:40:00.000-05:00

At least 29 anti-government guerrillas surrendered before the district administrations in mid- western Nepal on Wednesday, Radio Nepal reported.

About 25 guerrillas including some district-level leaders surrendered to the district administration in Humla district, some 700 km west of Kathmandu, on Wednesday, the state-owned radio said.

Likewise, four guerrillas surrendered before the district administration in Dailekh district, some 680 km west of Kathmandu, also on Wednesday.

Guerrillas' brigade commander Yam Bahadur Bista was among those surrendering, according to the radio.

Separately, four guerrillas have been arrested in the last two days in far-western Bajura and Achham districts.

Security forces arrested three guerrillas, who were involved in extortion and abduction in Kalagaon area of Achham district, on Tuesday.

In the same manner, a district leader of guerrillas was arrested by the security forces on Monday in Bajura district, the radio added.

Source: Xinhua"

India, While Seeking UN Security Council Status, Takes Nepali Land

2005-10-17T03:17:00.000-05:00

By Princess Shrestha, Kathmandu

Princess Shrestha writes from Kathmandu

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.

Nepal-India border dispute not limited to Susta

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.

What does Nepali Civil Society say?

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.

2005-10-16T08:44:00.000-05:00

(AFP/Devendra M. Singh)

A Nepalese soldier stands guard in Kathmandu. At least three Maoist rebels were shot dead by soldiers in a clash at the weekend, the army said, despite a unilateral three-month ceasefire by the guerillas.

Nepal Minister blasts India for criticising Press laws

2005-10-16T08:41:00.000-05:00

Kathmandu, Oct 16.(PTI): A senior minister has flayed India for issuing a statement against the Royal government's new draconian Press Ordinance, saying New Delhi should not intervene in the internal matters of Nepal.

"Government of India should not intervene in the internal matters of Nepal...It should not be India's concern what the Nepal type of ordinance Nepal government brings," Education Minister Radhakrishna Mainali said on Saturday.

Extending moral support to press freedom in Nepal, India has recently issued a statement expressing concern over the restrictive press ordinance issued by King Gyanendra's government.

Mainali also criticised the recent visit of some Indian leaders representing the United Progressive Alliance Government saying "it was a naked show of intervention in our internal affairs."

Nepal's seven agitating parties including Nepali Congress and Nepal Communist Party-UML, human rights organizations and the Federation of Nepalese Journalists have issued separate statements opposing the government's move to introduce the restrictive press ordinance.">The Hindu News Update Service: "Nepal Minister blasts India for criticising Press laws

Kathmandu, Oct 16.(PTI): A senior minister has flayed India for issuing a statement against the Royal government's new draconian Press Ordinance, saying New Delhi should not intervene in the internal matters of Nepal.

'Government of India should not intervene in the internal matters of Nepal...It should not be India's concern what the Nepal type of ordinance Nepal government brings,' Education Minister Radhakrishna Mainali said on Saturday.

Extending moral support to press freedom in Nepal, India has recently issued a statement expressing concern over the restrictive press ordinance issued by King Gyanendra's government.

Mainali also criticised the recent visit of some Indian leaders representing the United Progressive Alliance Government saying 'it was a naked show of intervention in our internal affairs.'

Nepal's seven agitating parties including Nepali Congress and Nepal Communist Party-UML, human rights organizations and the Federation of Nepalese Journalists have issued separate statements opposing the government's move to introduce the restrictive press ordinance."

The Hindu : International : Nepal King for elections in 2007

2005-10-15T10:20:00.000-05:00

KATHMANDU: Nepal's King Gyanendra has directed the Election Commission to conduct parliamentary elections by mid-April 2007.

``We have commanded the Election Commission to conduct elections to the House of Representatives within the year 2063 BS by further strengthening the favourable environment created with the holding of the municipal elections,'' the King said in a message to the nation on the occassion of Vijaya Dashami on Wednesday.

The major political parties representing over 90 per cent of the seats in the dissolved Parliament and local bodies have already said they would not accept elections under the direct rule of the King.

``Meaningful multiparty democracy is possible only by re-energising representative institutions through free and fair elections,'' the King said.

``Therefore, to honour the collective wisdom of all enfranchised Nepalese, everyone with faith in multiparty democracy must contribute to its consolidation by participating in the forthcoming municipal elections, '' he said.

The Government has already declared the election for the municipalities in February next year.

The major political parties struggling to establish "full-fledged democracy" have said the election is not possible without resolving the Maoists insurgency which has claimed over 12,000 lives since 1996.

The mainstream political forces have demanded the revival of the dissolved House and form an all-party government to hold talks with the rebels before holding the election.

2005-10-13T12:57:00.000-05:00

AP - Thu Oct 13, 6:02 AM ET

A member of the Gurkha contingent, elite Nepalese fighters who gained fame in the British armed forces, stands guard at the international Sea Cruise Center and ferry terminal, Thursday Oct. 13, 2005 in Singapore. Sea entry points into Singapore are now being guarded by Gurkhas as part of security measures following the recent Bali bombings. Singapore, a United States ally, fears it is on the list of targets of attack by regional and international terrorist groups. Experts have warned that ships could be hijacked or turned into floating weapons by terrorists.
(AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Journey from Nepal to Iraq reveals exploitation underpinning war

2005-10-13T12:51:00.000-05:00

Thu, Oct. 13, 2005

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

Xinhua - English | Nepal offers 50,000 USD in relief to Pakistan

2005-10-12T19:24:00.000-05:00

www.chinaview.cn 2005-10-12 14:47:16

KATHMANDU, Oct. 12 (Xinhuanet) -- Expressing deep sorrow over the tragic loss of lives and destruction of property caused by the earthquake that struck Pakistan on Saturday, the Nepali government has decided to provide 50,000 US dollars to Pakistan, Radio Nepal reported Wednesday.

This was stated in a press statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nepal, the state-owned Radio Nepal said.

The government also expressed solidarity with Pakistan at this moment of national anguish.

At least 41,000 people have been killed in Pakistan in the earthquake that also struck parts of India and Afghanistan.

Earlier, Nepali King Gyanendra, in separate messages to Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Afghanistani President Hamid Karzai had extended heartfelt condolences and sympathies on behalf of the Nepali government and people on Sunday.

2005-10-11T18:51:00.000-05:00

REUTERS/Gopal Chitrakar
Reuters - Tue Oct 11, 4:30 AM ET

A Nepali lady gets her palm 'traditionally tabooed' at Bhadrakali temple on the seventh day of the Dasain festival in Kathmandu, Nepal October 11, 2005. Nepalis are celebrating the Hindu festival of Dasain, depicting the victory of good over evil. Many offices, business and education centres are closed for ten days during the festival.

Nepal on the brink

2005-10-11T18:47:00.000-05:00

Its political leaders do not have much time left to come up with a plan

RHODERICK CHALMERS
Posted online: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 at 0002 hours IST

For Nepal there can be no going back. February’s royal coup, growing pro-democracy agitation and unilateral Maoist ceasefire are bringing the nine-year conflict to a head. Rapid developments of the recent past have left the 237-year-old monarchy staring into the abyss. Whatever the days ahead may bring, Nepal’s future cannot lie in a return to an earlier status quo.

It may yet be that Nepal manages to arrive at a new distribution of power peacefully: that the king sees sense and offers concessions, that the political parties build both policies and public support, that the Maoists deliver on their promise to become good mainstream democrats. But to assume any or all of these will happen easily is to be over-optimistic. The powerful political dynamics that have been unleashed are more likely to usher in dangerous contingencies for which no one, domestically or internationally, is well prepared. Apart, of course, from the Maoists.

How has a situation that many read as a bloody but nonetheless stable stalemate started unravelling so quickly? First, any sense of stalemate was illusory. The Maoists may not have decisively won but they have consistently been gaining political ground. It is no coincidence that the sea-change in popular mood over the last few years, most dramatically illustrated by the tilt of conservative mainstream parties to republicanism, has been almost entirely in the Maoists’ favour. The inability of successive governments to respond to the rebel challenge has now been exposed.

Second, many crucial actors have been blinded by wishful thinking. Otherwise sensible observers in Kathmandu reassure themselves that the Maoists will collapse. The outside world has been little better: perhaps only now, as it faces a possible collapse of royal authority, is New Delhi shaking itself out of complacency towards the precarious state of its closest neighbour. America has braved isolation with its warnings of imminent Maoist victory, but its own policy of bolstering an ineffective military loyal to an adventurist king has only hastened the slide. Third, and most crucially, history may well remember King Gyanendra as the catalyst that sparked the final denouement of Nepal’s painful drama. Among supporters of constitutional monarchy, the fear that the king himself is hastening his dynasty’s demise is palpable. As those close to the palace prepare their fall-back plans, move their assets out of Nepal and furnish their second homes abroad, a sense of quiet panic is spreading. Even the king’s closest advisers have started dropping hints that they are urging moderation and cannot be held responsible for the February gambit. It seems only those at the heart of Narayanhiti Palace are still refusing to acknowledge the urgent need to step back from the brink.

If the king does indeed insist on seeing his gamble out to the bitter end, there is little doubt which way it will go. The irony is that had he played his cards more astutely, he could almost certainly have won the international community over in the wake of his power-grab. He might even have been able to deliver some token achievements to a population yearning for peace and progress, and disillusioned with the shortcomings of elected administrations. With imagination, the palace could have turned the Maoist ceasefire to its advantage, claiming credit for having pressured the rebels into the truce and being magnanimous in victory by offering a full reciprocation.

“If the king were sensible...” is the hypothetical preface to almost every effort at second-guessing the palace’s next moves. But the monarch’s actions to date — from crushing relatively harmless mainstream dissent to presiding over an economic deterioration that is alienating the business community and international backers — leave even sympathetic observers with little hope. Others want the king to stick to his hard line so that the end is hastened. There is a further, more bitter, irony to come. Party leaders have only reluctantly turned against the monarchy. “None of us really wanted to embrace republicanism,” a standing committee member of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) told me recently, “but we couldn’t resist the pressure from society any longer.” He could have been speaking for any of the mainstream leaders who have doggedly clung to the hope that they could return to the comfortable accommodation with the palace that had served them well enough for the first dozen years of democracy.

The king himself recently compared palace-party relations with the quarrels between a husband and wife. According to a Nepali proverb, marital tiffs are like a blaze in the straw: they flare up dramatically but burn themselves out quickly. But the metaphor is better framed as one of domestic violence: the long-suffering parties have been assaulted once too often and may resist the urge to kiss and make up. The parties also have other suitors now in the Maoists. Political leaders have ridden on a brief surge in popularity and profile. Their new-found republican rhetoric if not heartfelt at least appeals to a growing section of opinion-formers and more radical young supporters. But there is also a quietly gnawing fear that in a fit of careless enthusiasm, they may have unleashed forces beyond their control. That republicanism is a fine principle but that defending their own non-violent democratic principles in the face of a disciplined insurgency may be difficult if the bulwark of the monarchy is removed. The Maoists may lack popular support but they have not lost momentum. If the monarchy is seriously weakened, the army’s behaviour will initially decide the course Nepal takes. A measured transition to an all-party interim government, backed by a democratically accountable military, is the sensible ideal. But if the army insists on tying itself to the palace, the prospects are bleak. Without political leadership it cannot maintain order, and brutally repressive moves would fuel discontent in the restive lower ranks hoping for a ceasefire.

The Maoists stand ready to fill any power vacuum, though they would be canny enough to preserve at least a pluralist facade. They may yet be brought into non-violent mainstream politics but only if the moderate forces are backed unequivocally by the outside world. And only if someone else has a better strategy than they do. For the time being, they are in the driver’s seat.

Nepal’s political leaders and external friends do not have much time left to come up with a plan. Pushing for a bilateral ceasefire would be a start: it might not resolve the central power struggle but would at least act as a brake on the accelerating slide towards further violence and instability.

The writer is a visiting fellow, Nepal’s Tribhuvan University and deputy director of the International Crisis Group’s South Asia Project

2005-10-09T11:35:00.000-05:00

REUTERS/Gopal Chitrakar

A Nepali father rings the bell with his child at Bhagawati temple in the capital Kathmandu while observing Dasain festival October 9, 2005.

Nepalis are celebrating the biggest Hindu religious festival for ten days with all the government offices, education centres and other businesses closed during this period, as they celebrate the victory over evil worshipping Goddess Durga Bhawani.

A three month unilateral ceasefire announced by the Maoist rebels has added enthusiasm among the celebrants.

2005-10-08T07:46:00.000-05:00

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

EU warned of possible Nepal collapse

2005-10-08T07:44:00.000-05:00

KATMANDU, Nepal, Oct. 6 (UPI)

Tom Phillips, leader of the delegation, told the BBC that failure of constitutional forces could lead to a breakdown of government institutions.

King Gyanendra seized direct power in February saying politicians had failed to tackle a Maoist the insurgency.

The EU team also accused the Maoists of recruiting child soldiers despite calling a cease-fire last month.

"We are greatly concerned that unless all involved move quickly to address the country's problems effectively, there is a strong risk of political collapse in Nepal," Phillips said at the end of a three-day visit.

He urged the Nepalese government to reach out to the political parties to return to multiparty democracy.

Phillips said the government and security forces must combat what they called the "culture of impunity" on human rights violations. But, he told Maoist rebels the EU rejected the use of violence.

The Hindu News | India to discuss tiger poaching with Nepal, China

2005-10-07T06:46:00.000-05:00

New Delhi, Oct 7. (PTI): Concerned over reports of sale of Indian wildlife articles like tiger and leopard skins in China and Nepal, India on Thursday decided to take up the issue with the two countries through diplomatic channels.

"The Minister of State for Environment is expected to visit China shortly to personally take up the issue with the Chinese authorities and request them to act urgently on the matter," Prime Minister's Media Advisor Sanjaya Baru said in a press statement here.

He said responding to reports from environment organisations regarding sale of tiger and leopard skins in countries along the northern border, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has "directed that the issue be taken up with the authorities in China and Nepal through diplomatic channels".

The Prime Minister has also directed that a detailed proposal for a National Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (NWCCB) be placed before the Union Cabinet by the third week of this month.

It has been decided that the Environment and Forests Ministry would immediately organize training of the staff of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), the Sashakta Suraksha Bal, the Border Security Force and Customs, who man the routes along the northern border which open into China and Nepal, for detection of cross-border trade in wildlife articles, Baru said.

73 Maoist rebels surrender in Nepal

2005-10-06T04:35:00.000-05:00

PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

Posted online: Thursday, October 06, 2005 at 0000 hours IST

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.

2005-10-05T10:03:00.000-05:00

AFP/File - Wed Oct 5, 5:35 AM ET
(AFP/File/John McHugh)

British rockstar Elton John has donated 25,000 pounds to Nepal's only gay rights group, the Blue Diamond Society, to help fight HIV in the Himalayan nation.

EU team meets political leaders in Nepal

2005-10-05T10:00:00.000-05:00

Kathmandu, Oct 5.(PTI): The visiting European Union (EU) delegation today held talks with leaders of political parties of Nepal in connection with King Gyanendra's February seizure of power and efforts to restore democracy in the Himalayan Kingdom.

The 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.

2005-10-04T03:23:00.000-05:00

AFP/File - Tue Oct 4,12:27 AM ET

Nepalese soldiers. The mother of a teenaged girl killed while in military custody in Nepal demanded the soldiers responsible be tried in a civilian court after a military tribunal sentenced them to only six months in jail.
(AFP/File/Devendra M. Singh)

Nepal govt has not fulfilled Human Rights Commitment:UN

2005-10-04T03:19:00.000-05:00

Posted on 04 Oct 2005 # UNI

Kathmandu : Nepal's government has not fulfilled its own commitments on human rights expressed at the United Nations, a senior UN official based in the country said.

''There is gap between the commitment and its implementation,'' Ian Martin, the representative of the Office of the UN Human Rights Commission said at a function here, The Kathmandu Post today reported.
The official was referring to the government's 28-point commitment to human rights and international humanitarian law.
He alleged that the government had not implemented its commitment that arrested individuals will be informed of the reasons for their arrest.
''Also no steps are being taken to informing the whereabouts of individuals in detention to their family members and allow the detainees to talk to family members and lawyers,'' he said, noting that ''the government had committed itself to respect the orders of the judiciary or other suitable orders vis-а-vis habeas corpus and effective remedies.'' ''The government has also reneged on its pledge not to torture an accused, physically and mentally in the process of investigation.Besides, as per the commitment, the government had assured that the exercise of the right to assemble peacefully without arms would be permitted in an unobstructed way,'' Mr Martin warned that '''if peaceful means failed, UN member states were ready to take collective action.'' ''It is hard to find causes for optimism looking around the world. However, the global trends of accountability, and the responsibility to protect civilians, sovereignty notwithstanding, offer hope,'' he note.He reiterated the UN stance that it is important for political conflicts to be settled peacefully rather than by taking up arms.Mr Martin quoted UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour as saying that rulers and dictators who thought themselves immune are today facing trial.

2005-10-03T05:03:00.000-05:00

AP - Sun Oct 2,11:38 AM ET

Senior Maoist leaders Suresh Ale Magar, left, and Matrika Prasad Yadav, right, come out from a court at Patan, on the outskirts of Katmandu, Nepal, Sunday, Oct. 2, 2005. A court in Nepal began taking a statement from Yadav on Sunday, 20 months after he was arrested and held in isolation. The government, under pressure from the courts and rights activists, allowed the men to appear before the Lalitpur Appellate Court. Yadav is considered one of the top leaders of the Maoist rebels, who have been fighting since 1996 for a communist state.

(AP Photo/Binod Joshi)

Guerrillas abduct 333 civilians in eastern Nepal

2005-10-03T05:00:00.000-05:00

www.chinaview.cn 2005-10-03 16:17:01

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.

Similarly, six guerrillas have surrendered in Jumla district, some 700 km west of Kathmandu.

Jet Airways bomb hoax triggers panic in Nepal

2005-10-01T11:20:00.000-05:00

Sudeshna Sarkar (IANS)

Kathmandu, September 29, 2005|00:05 IST

A 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.

2005-09-30T08:50:00.000-05:00

Reuters - Fri Sep 30, 8:41 AM ET

Communist Party of India (Marxist) member Sitaram Yechuri from India attends a news conference in Kathmandu before leaving for India September 30, 2005. The Indian politicians are in Nepal to express their solidarity with Nepal's democratic movement and assess the political situation.

REUTERS/Gopal Chitrakar

War-displaced people suffer from disease in Nepal

2005-09-30T08:48:00.000-05:00

KATHMANDU, Sept. 30 (Xinhuanet) -- Epidemics have broken out in a camp for people displaced by violence in two villages of mid-western district of Nepal, a local health worker said here Friday.

"The displaced people are suffering from diarrhea, typhoid and other water borne diseases for the past few weeks in Kiranlal and Rajhena villages of Banke district, some 600 km west of Kathmandu," said Manjan Shahi, assistant health worker, who has been providing free health service for the conflict-displaced people living at the camps.

The health of some 50-60 patients are examined everyday and many of them are found to be suffering from typhoid, fever and skin diseases, Shahi noted.

"The epidemic has mostly affected the children due to lack of cleanliness and the camp-dwellers have no money to visit a hospital located just 2 km away," according to Shahi.

"At least one member of each of the 216 families living in the camps has fallen sick," Shahi revealed.

Recently, the Himalayan Foundation, a non-government organization, had provided medicines worth 165,000 Nepali rupees (2357.14 US dollars), but there lacked of proper management, Shahi noted.

Disruption of food supply to the displaced people for a long time has further aggravated their problems, Shahi added.

2005-09-29T07:24:00.000-05:00

AFP/File - Thu Sep 29,12:28 AM ET
The death toll from landslides triggered by floods in western Nepal has risen to 51, and rescue workers fear the toll may rise further, police said.(AFP/File/Devendra M. Singh)

Indian delegation meets Nepal opposition leaders

2005-09-29T07:16:00.000-05:00

September 29, 2005 16:30 IST

The current political situation in Nepal and restoration of multi-party democracy in the Kingdom figured in talks the visiting five-party delegation led by Communist Party of India Marxist leader Sitaram Yechury had with top opposition leaders in Kathmandu on Thursday.

Nepal seeks Indian help for resuming democracy

The delegation met Nepalese Congress President Girija Prasad Koirala. The current political situation, peace initiatives and the ongoing movement for restoration of democracy mainly featured during the discussion, Nepali Congress chief office secretary Basanta Gautam said.

They also met Nepal Communist Party-UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal and other senior leaders of the party at the CPN-UML's office at Balkhu, party sources said. The discussion covered a wide range of issues, including the problems faced by both the countries, said CPN-UML standing committee member Bamdev Gautam. "Our discussions mainly focussed on the ongoing movement for restoration of democracy," he said, adding the Indian leaders extended their solidarity and full support to Nepal's democracy movement.

Victory for Nepal king at UN

The delegation was greeted with black-flag demonstrations and stone-pelting by hundreds of pro-monarchy activists upon its arrival here on Wednesday. No one was injured in the attack.

2005-09-27T16:23:00.000-05:00

Political activists belonging to the seven major political parties shout anti-monarch slogans at Chhetrapati, in the Nepali capital Kathmandu September 27, 2005. Democratic forces in Nepal have been fighting to re-establish the democracy in the country since February.

REUTERS/Gopal Chitrakar

Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Nepal's Army Says Rebels Abduct Hundreds

2005-09-27T16:21:00.000-05:00

Tuesday September 27, 2005 3:31 PM

By BINAJ GURUBACHARYA

Associated Press Writer

KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) - Communist rebels have abducted hundreds of villagers, students and teachers, apparently forcing them to attend rallies and indoctrination sessions in remote areas of the mountain kingdom, the army said Tuesday.

The fate of those abducted wasn't immediately clear, but victims of such kidnappings are usually released after spending a few days being lectured about the rebels' struggle to overthrow Nepal's constitutional monarchy.

Rebel violence in Nepal has escalated since King Gyanendra seized control of the government in February. The king said the measure was necessary to quell the communist insurgency, which has left more than 11,500 people dead since 1996.

The rebels, who claim to be inspired by Chinese communist revolutionary Mao Zedong, declared cease-fires in 2001 and 2003, but negotiations with the government failed both times.

At least 230 students and teachers were taken Sunday from the village of Himchadhari, about 375 miles northwest of Katmandu, the army said in a statement.

The same weekend, rebels kidnapped another 500 people in neighboring Gaira village and several villages in the remote mountains of Baitadi district to the south, the statement said.

``The terrorists are continuing murder, terror, kidnapping, looting and similar activities,'' the army said.

The Maoist rebels did not immediately respond to the army's statement.

The mass abductions came despite the guerrillas' promise not to go after civilians during a unilateral cease-fire they declared Sept. 3.

Rebels said the cease-fire was intended to allow for a resumption of peace talks. The insurgents said they would defend their positions during the cease-fire but not attack any government officials or civilians.

However, human rights groups have accused the insurgents of taking hostages, and the abductions are the latest sign that little has changed for the vast majority of Nepalese.

In fresh violence over the weekend, the army said soldiers killed at least eight rebels in two separate incidents - the first reported violence since the cease-fire was announced.

The rebels claimed their fighters were arrested and then executed while the army said soldiers on patrol came under attack and the rebels were killed in ensuing gun battles.

Support for Nepal's king vanishing - World - The Washington Times,

2005-09-24T20:52:00.000-05:00

WORLD BRIEFINGS
By Chitra Tiwari
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
September 24, 2005

Nearly eight months after the royal coup of Feb. 1, Nepal's King Gyanendra is increasingly losing support as major parliamentary parties turn their backs on "constitutional monarchy" and prepare for a showdown against the king in alliance with the Maoist rebels.
On Sept. 1, the Nepali Congress (NC), the country's oldest and largest political party, removed from its charter its 60-year-old written pledge to uphold constitutional monarchy, though it left room to return to the former policy if the king agreed to remain a ceremonial monarch. But the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist and Leninist (CPN-UML), which gave conditional support to monarchy in 1990, decided clearly in favor of a "democratic republic."
Maoists call cease-fire
Analysts say the countdown for the Republic of Nepal appears to have begun in earnest.
In response to a request by the parliamentary parties to stop violence to pave the way for a party-Maoist alliance, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) declared a three-month unilateral cease-fire on Sept. 3. The Maoist party spokesman, Krishna Bahadur Mahara, made it clear his party's announcement was not aimed at opening negotiations with the king.
The leaders of the seven-party alliance, including Girija Prasad Koirala of the NC and Madhav Kumar Nepal of the UML immediately welcomed the Maoist unilateral cease-fire and urged them to return to peaceful politics.
The statement by Maoist leader Prachanda declaring the truce warned of renewed hostilities if the royal regime expands its military bases and keeps up its offensive. It also endorsed an interim government and elections to a constituent assembly as the only way to establish a "democratic republic," welcomed the NC and UML moves toward republican democracy, and voiced hopes that the truce would spur political powers, including the United Nations, to take new steps for reforms in Nepal.
King urged to reciprocate
The Maoist statement, however, advised the seven-party alliance that their demand for reinstating the parliament dissolved in October 2002 would not help solve the country's problems — "It would only give the palace an opportunity to conspire."
The international community welcomed the Maoists' unilateral cease-fire and urged the royal government to reciprocate.
India, which has an important stake in neighbor Nepal, issued a statement in New Delhi Sept. 5 saying the Indian government hoped the cease-fire announced by the Maoist rebels would create an environment in which the peace process could begin.
Interestingly, the Indian government statement was silent regarding its previous emphasis on a "twin-pillar theory" designed to bring the monarchy and parliamentary parties together to fight the Maoist rebels.
World voices hope
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan welcomed the cease-fire Sept. 5 and expressed hope "all sides in Nepal will take measures which will lead to peace talks and the lasting peace the people of Nepal crave and deserve." He also repeated his offer of a United Nations role in searching for a peaceful solution, if the Nepali parties agreed.
A statement issued by the British Embassy in Katmandu in the name of the European Union on Sept. 7 welcomed the unilateral cease-fire and asked the government of Nepal to respond positively to the truce announcement in order to ensure a durable, negotiated solution.
The U.S. response to Maoist cease-fire, however, was belated and guarded.
"The United States welcomes any measures taken to reduce the violence in Nepal," said U.S. Ambassador James Moriarty on Thursday in Katmandu, but he cautioned "not to expect too much from the truce," adding that "the Maoists should show their commitment not only in words but in action."
The government of King Gyanendra, despite the overwhelming approval for the Maoists' unilateral cease-fire and calls for a similar response, did not reciprocate, saying the rebels cannot be trusted and that the cease-fire is only a ploy to regroup and rearm.
Consequences are many
The unilateral cease-fire of the Maoists killed many birds with one stone.
First, the rebels won popular appreciation for stopping the violence during the season of Hindu festivities.
Second, the rebels received a broad welcome from the political parties.
Third, many foreign governments and international organizations with stakes in Nepal welcomed the Maoist rebel move and turned their pressure on the royal government to reciprocate.
Fourth, the cease-fire spoiled King Gyanendra's plan to address the United Nations General Assembly to win favor by portraying his actions in Nepal as being for peace and against terrorism.
U.N. visit canceled
The king was to have addressed the General Assembly on Sept. 16, but his visit was abruptly canceled in view of the developing political situation in Nepal following the Maoists' unilateral cease-fire, as well as the cold shoulder the monarch was accorded by the international community.
Sources say diplomats from Katmandu's royal court failed to schedule a one-on-one meeting for King Gyanendra with President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Mr. Annan.
Adding to the international rebuff to King Gyanendra was the injury from the domestic opposition. The opposition seven-party alliance appealed to Mr. Annan on Sept. 6 not to recognize the Nepali king's legitimacy, saying he was going there to mislead the international community into thinking that he was fighting "terrorism" like Messrs. Bush and Blair, and that he deserved a lifting of the arms embargo imposed on Nepal after the Feb. 1 royal coup.
Army desertions rise
The Royal Nepal Army's ability to control the insurgency remains questionable in view of its past performance. Besides, sources close to Indian military intelligence say the RNA is suffering from desertion, if not defections to the Maoist side, of 200 to 300 soldiers per month.
The RNA suffers from a lack of ammunition because its suppliers — India, Britain and the United States — continue the arms embargo they imposed after the Feb. 1 royal coup. The Bush administration, silent about the Maoist cease-fire without asking the king to reciprocate, informed the royal government through its embassy in Katmandu early this month that $5 million worth of military assistance to Nepal proposed for fiscal year 2005-06 will not be forthcoming.
There are unsubstantiated reports that the RNA is obtaining ammunition from the Israelis and has proposed a deal with China for $22.5 million worth of arms, ammunition and other military hardware — which if true, must have raised eyebrows in New Delhi and Washington.
Charges of "terrorism," issued to ostracize the rebels, have failed to achieve their intended purpose as all political parties condemn King Gyanendra's effort to centralize power in his own hands. Analysts say the increasingly isolated royal regime is pursuing a military solution to the problem of the Maoist insurgency against the advice of many of its international backers and well wishers. The analysts also complain that the actions of the royal regime since the Feb. 1 takeover has eliminated the possibility of a peaceful solution of a deadly conflict that has already taken more than 13,000 lives.
• Chitra Tiwari, a former lecturer of political science at Nepal's Tribhuvan University, is a Washington-based freelance analyst of international affairs specializing in South Asia. He can be reached by e-mail addressed to cktiwari@verizon.net.