mikeldunham

Rescuing Nepalis from Libya

 

February 28, 2011

While the Western press focuses on American and European nationals, who, for the most part have safely retuned to their countries, nearly 50,000 migrant workers from less developed countries are in dire need of rescue from Gaddafi’s lawless regime. Nepalis are among this media-ignored group.

When the uprising began, there were an estimated 3,024 Nepalis working in Libya. As of today, 316 Nepali nationals have returned home, 527 have landed in safe place outside of the Libyan border between 1000 are believed to be trapped in Benghazi and Tripoli, and the remainder are unaccounted for. 

The floundering government in Nepal – with very few resources of its own – has asked the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (CRC) to step in. 

 The IOM has announced funds of $11 million slated to assist approximately 10,000 workers stranded in Libya – not nearly enough to take care of 50,000 migrants stuck in the ravaged country.

Nepali conservation project wins UN environmental award

 

February 25, 2011

 
 

Congratulations to Nepal: A sustainable development project in Nepal and a forest conservation initiative in Guatemala tied for this year’s Sasakawa Prize, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) announced on Tuesday.

 

The UNEP Sasakawa Prize, worth $200,000, recognizes the most innovative, groundbreaking and sustainable grassroots environmental initiatives in developing countries.

The Nepali recipient, Manahari Development Institute in Nepal (MDI-Nepal) won for recognition of “Forests for People, Forests for Green Growth”, a project in support of the 2011 International Year of Forests.

 

The theme highlights the central role of forests in the pursuit of a global ‘green economy’ as key economic resources whose real value has all too often been excluded in national accounts of profit and loss, according to UNEP.

Estimates from The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) indicate that deforestation and forest degradation are likely costing the global economy between $2.5 and $4.5 trillion a year, more than the losses of the recent and ongoing financial crisis.

To Die For: The money and murders surrounding Yarchagumba, Nepal’s “natural Viagra”

 

February 22, 2011

Yesterday, a remote Nepali court postponed its verdict on 36 men charged with murdering seven men over the right to harvest yarchagumba, a rare mushroom believed to possess aphrodisiac properties and which can sell for more than $10,000 per kilo in China.

The police initially arrest the entire Manang village of Nar, but later released the women and children. 

The court, which is a two-day’s trek from the nearest road, has already delayed the verdict several times due to absenteeism by both judge and lawyers. The new date set for the verdict is set for March 30.

THE MURDERS – JUNE 10, 2009

The incident began at night when villagers of Nar spied yarchagumba pickers from the neighboring district of Gorkha in the act of harvesting the local Manang yield of the precious mushroom.

At dawn, the male population of Nar reportedly stormed en masse the Gorkha camp armed with shovels, knives, sticks and rocks. Seven harvesters were beaten to death. Two corpses were tossed into a nearby crevasse. The other five victims were cut into small pieces, bundled in plastic and disposed of in a nearby river. 

Nepal government cracks down on Tibetan welfare election with riot gear

 

 

February 18, 2011

Nepal's "one China policy" is ever more frequently invoked by the government as justification for shutting down community activities within the Tibetan community. 

The newest crackdown took place on Sunday, when the government sent armed police -- in riot gear and wielding batons -- to shut down local elections for the leadership of the Chushi-Gangdruk, a Tibetan community group principally looking after the welfare of veterans of the Tibetan resistance force that battled the Chinese People's Liberation Army from 1958 to 1974.

What were the sinister intentions behind the Chushi Gangdruk election? 

High-level US visit shows commitment to Tibetan refugees in Nepal

 

February 15, 2011

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Under Secretary of State Maria Otero, who serves concurrently as U.S. Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, and U.S. Ambassador Scott DeLisi visited the Tibetan Refugee Transit Center in Kathmandu on February 13 as part of a high-level visit that includes meetings with government and UN officials. Her visit to Kathmandu comes as both new and long-staying Tibetan refugees feel increasingly exposed to Chinese influence in Nepal.

“Under Secretary Maria Otero expressed the United States’ continued support for the safety and welfare of Tibetan refugees in Nepal, and said she would carry their message back to Washington,” said Todd Stein, Director of Government Relations at the International Campaign for Tibet, from Kathmandu. “Her visit signals that concerns for Tibetans, both the refugees and vulnerable long-staying population, remain a key interest in U.S. relations with Nepal.”

 

Mikel Dunham interviewed by Radio Free Asia: Tibetan refugees in Nepal

 

 February 13, 2011

 

Tibetans 'Insecure' in Nepal

Reported by Richard Finney

As relations between China and Nepal grow closer, Tibetans come under greater scrutiny and pressure.

An estimated 20,000 Tibetans now live in Nepal, though accurate numbers are hard to come by. Many arrived in Nepal following a failed 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule in which thousands fled south across the Himalayas.

Many still flee Tibet each year, hoping to transit Nepal to India, home of Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

As relations between China and Nepal grow closer, though, recent agreements and meetings between the two countries “can only be regarded as bad news for Tibetans,” said Mikel Dunham, a writer and close observer of Nepalese politics and frequent visitor to the country.

Dunham noted that in November, China hosted a two-week special training for Nepalese police to help them prevent “pro-Tibet, anti-China” activities and demonstrations from occurring in Nepal.

“Then, in December 2010, Nepal and China agreed to step up security along their mutual border areas,” Dunham said. “This is an obvious move to make it more difficult for Tibetans inside Tibet to cross into Nepal.”

“The general mood of Tibetan refugees stranded in Nepal is, as it has been for many years now, one of depression,” Dunham said.

“The only difference now is that the Tibetans are beginning to understand that, whichever political party wields power in [Nepal’s capital] Kathmandu, the government of Nepal will remain resolutely pro-Chinese and therefore only marginally—if at all—sympathetic to the plight of Tibetans.”

 

Jhalanath Khanal, Nepal's New Prime Minister: Breakthrough or Trojan Horse?

 

February 8, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jhalanath Khanal, chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (UML), whose own party had unceremoniously pulled him out of the earlier elections for Prime Minister, captured a clear majority to clinch a decisive victory on February 3. This became possible only after Maoist Supremo Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda withdrew his own nomination for the post. Khanal was sworn into office on Sunday, February 6.

The international community was quick to support and, in some cases, hail the election of Khanal as a major step to complete the faltering peace process. The UN, for instance, issued a statement saying that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, commends Nepal’s parliament for this significant achievement and all Nepali Parties and leaders for their efforts to form a new government….this development will give a significant boost to efforts to fully implement their outstanding commitments under the Comprehensive Peace Accord and the interim constitution, notably the integration and rehabilitation of the Maoist combatants, democratization of the army and adoption of a new constitution.

Connectivity: The India-Bangladesh land bridge, with implications for Nepal

 

 

February 3, 2011

Kanak Mani Dixit has just published a lengthy piece (Himal February Issue) about an Indo-Bangladeshi economic plan that, if passed, would allow unrestricted access for Nepal and Bhutan to the Bangladeshi ports. This could be a great boon for Nepal and the article is well worth reading.

 

Can a formal bilateral communiqué be a ‘game changer’, foretell a ‘paradigm shift’, in a Southasian relationship? If India and Bangladesh manage to follow through on promises to open up their economies for transit and trade as set out in a memorandum of January 2010, a new era could dawn across the land borders of Southasia. The challenges are bureaucratic inertia in New Delhi and ultra-nationalist politics in Dhaka.

The political partition of the Subcontinent in 1947 did not have to lead to economic partition, but that is ultimately what happened. This did not take place right away, and many had believed that the borders of India and Pakistan’s eastern and western flanks were demarcations that would allow for the movement of people and commerce. It was as late as the India-Pakistan war of 1965 that the veins and capillaries of trade were strangulated. In the east, in what was to become Bangladesh just a few years later, the river ferries and barges that connected Kolkata with the deltaic region, and as far up as Assam, were terminated. The metre-gauge railway lines now stopped at the frontier, and through-traffic of buses and trucks came to a halt. The latest act of separation was for India to put up an elaborate barbed-wire fence along much of the 4000 km border, a project that is nearly complete. Today, what mainly passes under these wires are Bangladeshi migrants seeking survival in the faraway metropolises of India – and contraband.