My most recent trip to Nepal was April-May 2007. I interviewed many people including Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, (Maoist leader), out-going Ambassador Moriarty (USA), Ambassador Andrew Hall (UK), ex-Prime Minister of Nepal Sher Bahadur Deuba, the behind-the-scenes leader of the Student Activists Gagan Thapa, head of UNDP Matthew Kahane, Ambassador Graeme Lade (Australia), women's activist Arzu Rana Deuba, Human Rights activist Vijay Kant Karna, founder of the Himalaya Bank Himalaya Rana, leading television journalist and documentarian Dil Bhusan Pathaki, among others. I befriended Sam Taylor, Bureau Chief of Agence France-Press; together, we are working on a lengthy piece on the Bhutanese refugee crisis. I and my assistant Govinda Rijal traveled to the southern cities of Janakpur and Birgunj to interview numerous Madeshi activists, both moderates and extremists. I traveled with leading human rights leader Kapil Shrestra to his home village in Chautara District. I filmed orphanages, homeless rag-pickers along the filthy Bagmati River, extended members of the royal family, upper-class wedding parties, grim street demonstrations, oblivious tourists in Thamel, brutally beaten women in ICU because of their political stance--to name a few. I had lunch with Sir Edmund Hillary.
The feeling that I came away with was that, although there are some promising signs, Nepal is in for a very difficult summer.
The elections that were to be held in June have been postponed until sometime late in November. The actual date has yet to be decided. The Maoists have already struck a note of dissent. Maoist MP Dinanath Sharma told the media (after the
May 30th announcement) that his party believed free and fair elections would not be possible as
long as the monarchy remained in Nepal. The
utter abolishment of the monarchy and the proclamation of a
republic are two Maoist demands that the Seven-Party Alliance is
either reluctant or impotent to act upon. When I interviewed Maoist
leader Dr. Bhattarai, he made it quite clear that the monarchy question
is non-negotiable. Dialog between the opposing
parties is ongoing, which is vital, but headway--particularly in regard
to King Gyanendra's throne--is negligible.
Everywhere
one looks there are double-edged swords. This spring, the hotels were
full--the first time I had witnessed that during the seven trips I have
made in the last three years. The taste of foreign currency was sweet
on the lips of shopkeepers, restaurateurs, tour agencies and hoteliers.
But the United States has just issued a "stay out of Nepal" warning
and, if European countries follow suit, the streets of Kathmandu may
soon find themselves idle once again. The dread is palpable...
An organization calling themselves the Young Communist League
(YCL)--an erratic affiliate of the Maoists--long creating turmoil in
the countryside--have now inundated the capitol. The estimate is that
there is 1000 of them in Kathmandu. Their stance is that they are doing
what the established police force should be doing but wont. To a
certain extent, their actions verify this. Only last week, for
instance, they seized vehicles containing customs-evaded goods from the
Airport Cargo Department and handed them over to the proper government
authority for prosecution. But there is also a thuggish side to the
YCL. I witnessed firsthand the results of their violence toward female
students who belonged to the National Congress Party: twelve were
hospitalized, five with serious injuries and two in critical condition
because of crushed pelvises and pulverized wombs. They intimidate
non-Maoist students, local businessmen and politicians alike. Analysts
claim that the YCL is a group of highly trained Maoist commandos who,
instead of being sent to the cantonments (currently being monitored by
the UN) have been deliberately kept into the open by the party high
command--to be on hand if the declaration of a republic and the
abolishment of the monarchy fail to go into effect.
THE MADHESHI.
In the Terai (the southern plains and jungles of Nepal bordering
India), the potential for accelerated violence is even greater.
Geographically and culturally, the Terai is vastly different from the
hill and mountain regions Westerns normally associate with Nepal. It is
at near sea level. It occupies 23% of Nepal's landmass and constitutes
home for half of Nepal's population. Most of the Terai inhabitants are
Madeshis, whose religious traditions, language, caste system, food,
style of clothing and other social customs and manners more closely
resemble Indian than Nepali. Apart from the local languages, they are
more likely to speak Hindi than Nepali. Historically, the Madhesis
have been marginalized, satirized, jeered at, harassed and excluded
from central governmental politics by the hill people. Their skin is
darker than other ethnic groups; racial slurs are commonplace. Madeshis
who live under the absolute poverty line is higher than in any other
area of Nepal making poverty itself the main factor of exclusion: They
cannot afford basic education, primary health care, sanitation or
decent housing.
Many Madeshis joined the Maoists during the ten
years that the Maoists were underground. However, after the 2006
"19-Day Uprising" that successfully eliminated King Gyanendra's
dictatorship and re-opened Parliament, many Maoist Madeshis lost faith
in Maoist leadership, saying that their issues continued to be
marginalized by the Maoists. They created their own extremist
organizations, somewhat modeled after the Maoists. Violence in the
Terai has been sporadic but brutal since December 2006. Their violence
has succeeded in 1) attracting international news coverage and 2)
forcing the interim government in Kathmandu to focus on Madeshi issues.
Strategically, the Madeshis are in the position to close down the all
important trade routes going in and out of India. Kathmandu has no
choice but to listen. In the minds of many, this has played havoc with
the interim government's schedule for an orderly set-up for free
elections. How this problem will unfold during the summer is anyone's
guess.
THE BHUTANESE REFUGEES.
Also located in the Terai are seven Bhutanese refugee camps housing
over 100,000 misplaced Bhutanese--a dreadful situation that began in
the early 1990s when the king of Bhutan forced these Nepali-speaking
Bhutanese to leave their country and resettle in India or Nepal. Many
would call this ethnic cleansing but, by and large, the international
community has been smitten with the idea that Bhutan is a Shangri-la,
an image hard to dismantle in spite of hard facts to the contrary.
Recently, the United State offered to resettle 60,000 of the 107,000
refugees in America. This has created unexpected tension between those
who want to go to a third country and others who insist they be given
the right to return to Bhutan. Demands one of the refugee leaders, "We
want unconditional passage via India to return to our country or the
Indian government should try and resolve the issue through talks,
otherwise our protests will continue.
Violence erupted this week. From a report filed by Sam Taylor, Nepal's Bureau Chief of Agence France-Presse:
KATHMANDU, May 29, 2007 (AFP) - A
Bhutanese refugee was killed and 11 injured after Indian police fired on them as
they tried to cross the Nepal-India border to return to their homeland,
officials said Tuesday.
"An 18-year-old youth who was shot in
the thigh died of blood loss while being taken to hospital," Balaram Poudel,
vice-chairman of the National Front for Democracy in Bhutan, told AFP from the
border town of Kakarbhitta, 290 kilometres (180 miles) southeast of
Kathmandu.
At least 11 others were hurt in the shooting, said
Poudel and a journalist who were both at the scene.
"Around 12
refugees were injured in the Indian police firing at the Mechi bridge," that
divides Nepal and India, journalist Ujjwal Prasai said.
The
refugees, who live in camps in southeastern Nepal, were trying to cross the
narrow strip of India's West Bengal state that separates Nepal and
Bhutan.
About 7,000 refugees had gathered at the border to
attempt to cross into India's West Bengal and on to Bhutan, Indian officials
said in state capital Kolkata.
They blamed the refugees of
provoking the police action.
"The refugees threw stones and
bombs injuring 50 people including villagers after the police fired teargas and
rubber bullets," Indian police inspector general Raj Kanojia said in
Kolkata.
"But the Bhutanese ignored the warning shots and
continued their march across the Mechi river bridge," he said.
"As the Bhutanese entered the Indian side, we fired more than 100 rounds to
chase them away," he said and asserted that as many as 50 Indian securitymen
were also hurt in an ensuing clash.
Nepal declined to comment on
the incident, saying the shootings did not happen on its soil.
Two refugees have been shot dead by Nepalese police during protests at a refugee
camp in the last three days.
Last week, the top UN refugee official called
on the Bhutanese to assist in settling the fate of the refugees.
Like the Madeshi situation, it remains to be seen what the summer bodes
for the beleaguered Bhutanese...indeed, all of the citizens of Nepal.
