www.nepalitimes.com #137 21 - 27 March 2003 16 pages Rs 25

aduleration is so blatant and widespread that one survey last year showed half the diesel sold in gas stations in Kathmandu was mixed with subsidised kerosene, while the percentage of kerosene in petrol was 40 percent. Last year, the government formed a task force to look into adulteration, but hasn’t licked the problem. WAR GASP! Measurements by the Ministry of If you knew what Kathmandu air contained, Population and Environment (MoPE) show

you may want to stop breathing. benzene concentrations of nearly 80

○○○○○○○○○○○ Kathmandu’s gas stations shut ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ micrograms per cubic metre along Bush awakens the global public Kathmandu’s main streets. This gas is so

Blair gambles on war HEMLATA○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ RAI ensuing fuel shortage may show us how clean harmful that the WHO doesn’t even have a Full coverage, page 10-11 he Supreme Court this week said the Kathmandu’s air used to be. minimum safe level for it: it is dangerous in government is not doing enough to Even so, this week’s decision paves the way any concentration. Kerosene worth more than T check air pollution in Kathmandu for action to address worsening pollution. Rs 1 billion is mixed with petrol and diesel Weekly Internet Poll # 77 Valley, and ordered a ban on all vehicles 20 Besides more dust and soot particles, there are every year in Nepal. Both fuels are Q. Should the main political parties extend more years old in two years. new poisonous emissions. Carbon monoxide subsidised for the rural poor, but more than support to the peace process? Pressure from green groups and the levels on Kathmandu sidewalks are five times 70 percent of the kerosene and diesel in Supreme Court may be the last hope for higher than they were 10 years ago. The area of Nepal is used by city dwellers. Kathmandu’s citizens. But unlike New Delhi, Kathmandu Valley where suspended particulate MoPE blames lack of funds, which sounds where the Supreme Court forced the concentrations of 75 micrograms per cubic metre disingenuous considering it could easily raise government to make cleaner CNG fuel has doubled in the past five years. more than twice its entire budget if it levied a mandatory (see page 5), our courts have in the Benzene is the latest poison. This proposed pollution tax of Rs 0.50 per litre of past been uninterested or unable to enforce carcinogenic gas is a by-product of the kerosene petrol and diesel sold in Kathmandu. MIN BAJRACHARYA their own orders. In fact, the Iraq war and the used to adulterate petrol and diesel. Fuel continued p4-5

Total votes:928

Weekly Internet Poll # 78. To vote go to: www.nepalitimes.com Q. Has the government done enough after the ceasefire to revive the tourism industry? Everything on hold for two weeks ANALYSIS by

○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ RAJENDRA DAHAL a last-ditch do-or-die battle. In large parts of the country, the government is still nowhere ll important decisions on the peace process or rapprochement between the palace to be seen, and local Maoist cadre are getting impatient. They are intimidating party and the parties are on hold for two weeks. “Only after His Majesty comes back,” is the leaders and dissenters, saying, “Just you wait, we’ll fix you once the ceasefire is over.” A familiar refrain in government and palace circles. Still, there haven’t been any major violations of the truce agreement. Officially, this is an unofficial royal pilgrimage. The king is visiting various holy While the rightists are giving King Gyanendra the credit for the ceasefire, the temples revered by Hindus as sources of spiritual power. But the Nepali monarch is also Maoists are spreading the word that the army wanted a truce after it figured it couldn’t meeting sources of temporal power in New Delhi. defeat the rebel forces. This is one reason the ceasefire is still Whatever the real purpose of the visit, most Nepalis are fragile and there is residual fear. convinced that King Gyanendra’s is not just seeking divine In their talks with the parliamentary party leadership, Maoist blessings, but also that of India’s political leadership. Otherwise representatives have been eager to give the impression that they why would he go to India twice in nine months, while Indian prime are now as powerful as them. However, when talking to opinion minister Atal Behari Vajpayee hasn’t been here on a bilateral visit makers and intellectuals, the Maoists also express fears that the for five years? (He did attend the SAARC Summit two years ago.) king may be springing a trap on them, and solicit support. The royal visit also gives the Maoists breathing space to take Many of the Maoists’ internal demands have been rejected stock of the past two months. The king, the parties and the outright by the king. For instance, they had insisted that the peace government may seem at perpetual loggerheads, but they are talks be held outside the country, but sources tell us King fairly clear about what they want to achieve with the peace Gyanendra refused. Similarly, the Maoists want to deal through process. their trusted Western mediators who have been talking to them over This is not so much the case with the Maoists. Two Maoist the past three years. But Mahara and Sharma now seem suspicious representatives have been going door-to-door for the past month that the palace may slowly want to jettison the mediators. paying courtesy calls. On Wednesday Krishna Bahadur Mahara even went to the bastion India has said it doesn’t think third-party Western mediation is a good idea, and our of capitalism, the FNCCI, and assured businessmen that his group essentially supported a officials could be taking their cue from that. But what is intriguing is that in the past six free market economy. months, the mediators spent more time in New Delhi than in Kathmandu. Mahara’s main message to everyone he meets is: “Trust us this time. We really want And since King Gyanendra is also going to be in India for the next ten days, that is peace. Help us.” However, the leadership has also been telling its cadre to be prepared for perhaps where we can expect a breakthrough. 2 EDITORIAL 21 - 27 MARCH 2003 NEPALI TIMES #137 NATION 21 - 27 MARCH 2003 NEPALI TIMES #137 3 Nepali Times is published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Chief Editor: Kunda Dixit STATE OF THE STATE by CK LAL Desk Editor: Trishna Gurung, Design: Kiran Maharjan LETTERS Webmaster: Bhushan Shilpakar LETTERS [email protected], www.nepalitimes.com Advertising: Sunaina Shah [email protected] Subscription: Anil Karki [email protected] LAL AND MERTON editorial ("Terrorism vs no-holds-bared devotion to Sales: Sudan Bista [email protected] Sanchaya Kosh Building, Block A-4th Floor, Lalitpur In his excellent obituary of Tourism", #135). A country Girija Prasad Koirala, his GPO Box 7251, Kathmandu, Nepal Robert K Merton where terrorists target tourists support for the prime minister Tel: 01-5543333/ 5523845 Fax: 01-5521013 Sir Jeffrey’s mission PEACE AT ANY COST? Printed at Jagadamba Press, Hattiban: 01-5547018/17 (“Misunderestimating is able to rebound faster than in the murky Lauda Air deal History has shown that democracies with qualifiers like Merton”, #135) , CK Lal has one where tourists have never casts doubts about his So, finally we have peace. We all wanted Jumla and Rumjatar misadventures the missed the fifth and most been targetted. What else do integrity. Also, we see Pun as peace, even the Maoists. Whatever their Maoists lost a lot of their men, they were

CLEARING THE AIR “basic” or “guided’ are dangerous delusions. important of Merton’s we need to say? It’s pretty a ladder climber who jockeys stated declared aspirations, the palace, running low on ammunition, food, medicines, ○○○○○○○

th ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ categories. Merton says that clear that our tourism promotion to put himself in the corridors security forces, Maoists, political parties and recruits, morale and (most importantly) on ver since Tyrolean travellers to Nepal in the early 17 century described there are always reformers is woefully inadequate. The of power. It is clear that it is all Nepalis want peace. But before we go popularity. News of army mass recruitment, ith his haughty tone, gruff the statute based on biases from somewhere Kathmandu Valley as “the dirtiest place in the orient” we seem to be who try to change society media has made Nepal a risky not all selflessness and headlong into this process, we should stop induction of helicopters, US military advisory E trying our best to live up to that status. manners and condescending else in the world. just a moment to reflect upon what kind of personnel and weapons on regular basis through their efforts. I think place for tourists to visit. But humility that has got this man That was a time when the entire Valley had no more than a population of W attitude, Sir Jeffrey James appears The real challenge lies in finding a peace we want? Is it to be peace at any cost? cannot have made their perception of the we at the “university on the tell me is there any real “safe” to where he is today. 10,000. Today, it has swelled to nearly 1.5 million and it is clear we are now to represent the quintessence of British common ground where peaceful politics and hill” belong to that category. place left on earth? Tourists in Naresh Sharma, email Are we to hazard the future for a respite in future any rosier. Moreover the increasing reaching the limits of growth. A metropolis of this size needs either a major river colonialism. The towering stature and the unbridled ambitions of armed insurgents But to which category do Nepal have always been the present? Indeed, which side is more dominance by the security forces on the running through it to flush itself, or has to be situated near a sea. We just have aquiline nose of the newly-appointed can coexist. Maoists must not be allowed to you belong Mr Lal? Aren’t welcomed with hospitality, we Narayan Singh Pun is the desperate for a respite? Do our negotiators battlefield meant a proportional decrease of three spring-fed streams that by now have turned into sewers. British special representative for Nepal retreat to their lawless ways. But if the price you one of those innovators regard them as gods, for god’s first ethnic politician in Nepal really know what they are risking? Doubtless, their playground and freedom of action. In It is a myth that Kathmandu is a valley. Actually it is a plateau, the terrain gives him the persona of an imperious to be paid for their accommodation is a that you pretend to despise? sake. Through this letter I who is not a token official the country has suffered and a solution is simple terms, the Maoists are and ought to beyond the valley rim on all sides dips down to less than 900m. All these natural patriarch. curtailment of political liberty, the choice ìA sociologistî, would like to tell people outside handpicked by the elite in required. You cite the “lessons” we can learn be far more desperate for ceasefire. impediments pale in comparison to the human bungling that has turned one of But what really completes the picture is must be left upon us Nepalis. A donor Tribhuvan University Nepal that Nepal is peaceful, Kathmandu to be just a janjati from Sri Lanka (“Lessons from Lanka”, #135), They need a safe landing now, while the most spectacularly-located and culturally-vibrant capital cities in the world Sir Jeffrey’s barely-concealed contempt for coordinator cannot be a viceroy. grand and ready to welcome face. Pun is self-made, works but the government there is bending over they still retain a chance to get some votes. into a toilet bowl. The fact that Kathmandu’s old-world charm shines through all politicos of the nether world. Small wonder The fundamental problem in Nepal is Whoa…Mr Lal. Your brazen visitors. In fact, this is probably hard, has integrity and has just backwards to accommodate the Tamils. They know deep inside that if they miss the the grime, concrete and foul air is a tribute to our ancestors. They left us a then, that Kenyan president Daniel Arap institutionalised inequality. Graft is a arrogance and almost the best time to visit Nepal. the right dose of ambition to Has our army fought for 20 years and boat this time, they will have to come in for legacy of beauty and architectural harmony, but what legacy are we leaving for Moi heaved a sigh of relief when the time symptom of widespread social corruption, maniacal hatred for all things Razesh Thapa, Lagankhel make a difference in not just brought to its knees? Did it look like we will talks on their knees the next time around. On our grandchildren? came for Sir Jeffrey to complete his term as not its primary cause. Treating the symptom American notwithstanding, the peace process but also in never win? Are we a failed state with a that note, the army seems to have achieved It is said that the test of a civilisation is the way it treats its waste. Well, we this latest indulgence in Nepal’s future political dysfunctional military where the balance of the aim of “creating an environment for don’t treat it. On that count alone, we fail miserably to attain a civilised status. British high commissioner in Nairobi. never colonised. We Nepalis do not know may be tempting, but countering root The special rep is said to have special enough to accept our ignorance, hence Sir causes of corruption needs long-term pandering to your own NARAYAN SINGH PUN development. I wish there power reflects the reality of having to draw a talks”. So, how wise was it to surrender the The raw sewage emptying into the Bagmati, the industrial waste that makes this snobbery is disgustingly The important role played in were more people like Pun, line of control or a zone of separation? Are advantage gained through 15 months of holy river froth at Chobar, and the powerful odour of death over the bridge at rapport with the top brass of Bretton Jeffrey must get rid of his know-it-all commitment. It needs political will, Woods institutions. He is believed to have attitude if he is to succeed in his new something that can’t be dispensed by an pathetic and symptomatic of getting the peace process then we wouldn’t have to we really so desperate as a nation that we blood, sweat and toil? The code of conduct, Kopundole all remind us of our own callousness. a disturbed mind (State of started by Narayan Singh Pun worry about governance. have to allow a minister of dubious moral and even the small bits of it that have been Then there is the growing garbage crisis, each time we pass the enthusiastically supported the agenda of the assignment. outside consultant. If “one” gets too worked Washington Consensus in Africa, It is somewhat encouraging that the up about bribery, “one” wouldn’t be able to the State, #135). The (#136) must not be underesti- Susan Pradhan, email alleged family ties to the Maoist military leader leaked, contains aspects more characteristic neighbourhood heap, the stench reminds us of our inability to separate and to deal on our behalf? It is now an open secret to a ceasefire induced by insurmountable sometimes even overstepping diplomatic coordinator refers to himself in the lordly pay enough attention to urgent post- obituary for the late Merton, mated, nor undermined. He turn its organic constituents into valuable fertiliser, and the failure to stop that the announcement of the ceasefire was a stalemate—like Sri Lanka. And it is atrocious norms to promote them. That third person singular “one” rather than the insurgency relief, rehabilitation and forgotten and unknown deserves a peace award. I agree with your editroial the growth of non-biodegradables like plastic bags. genius that he was, should Finally, there is a slight ray of sentiment that the political surprise, not just to the political parties and the to even think of integrating the Maoists into acquaintance and experience should come royal plural “we”. This detachment may reconstruction. Even more shocking is our breathtaking disregard for air quality. As our have been just that and we hope for the country. It is parties are morally bankrupt. army but the cabinet itself. This implies that the the army. investigative report in this issue (page 1) makes clear, we are choking in handy for us in his new responsibility as come in handy, since an intermediary To derisively dismiss the Nepali poor ignorant souls would sickening to even remember the (“Give peace a chance”, #136) deal is actually done and the talks are just a What we need to contemplate is that when ourselves to death. The paradox here is that we know it, we know what the British special representative for Nepal. harbouring biases about party politics is administrative machinery is the done thing probably have been grateful way Nepalis were killing each They have been selfish and formality, which the minister himself has tacitly the entire mechanism of governance almost should be done about it, we have the laws in place to do it, but we still Since no other country or institution unlikely to see the crises of Nepal in their in Kathmandu’s donor circles. It’s not clear to have been educated about other till very recently. It should greedy, and have never implied. Does the palace have the legitimacy, collapsed, when even the palace had its own can’t do it. There are lessons from how New Delhi managed to turn itself has a co-ordinator for post-conflict relief, proper perspective. how immediate relief can be delivered to him and his works through not be allowed to happen thought about the people. credibility or right to gamble on our future? Do demeaning crisis, we all had in the army (for all from one of the most-polluted cities in Asia to one with one the cleanest air rehabilitation and re-construction in While it is true that elections in the past insurgency-hit districts without your column. But no, you had again. Unfortunately, the major There is a limit to everything, the sacrifices till this day have no meaning? its faults) one institution that lived together, a in three years (see page 5). Kathmandu, the haven’t succeeded in weeding out depending upon the functioning of that to launch a cynical paean to political party leaders, whom and they crossed that limit. Shouldn’t the political parties with popular pillar for the nation to lean on. Instead of Here in Nepal we have great laws, the responsibility on undesirable elements, it’s fatal to presume same bureaucracy. Steps to reform your own fountain of we voted, betrayed democracy When King Gyanendra did us representation or the army which shed blood thanking it, we are hell-bent on compromising it world’s best, in fact. Our zoning laws, the Sir Jeffrey’s that the remedy lies in contemplating some governance are necessary, but relief knowledge by showing off with misrule, exploitation of the all a favour by sacking Prime to make this day possible have a say? in the name of peace. Peace at what cost? municipality’s architectural guidelines for new shoulders is kind of a third world version of democracy measures can’t wait for that. five paragraphs on Merton, poor, illiterate and Minister Deuba, it proved that Having reached its peak during the Hopefully, we are not naïve enough to believe housing, the rules for garbage collection. We indeed onerous. with a limiting prefix. History has shown The special rep’s good offices are more spewing your disdain at disadvantaged. They put party good can triumph over bad. surprise attack on Dang, which finally that the Maoists have changed their spots. The have emission standards for vehicles, there are But he will not go that democracies with qualifiers like ‘basic’ important for the rehabilitation and those poor hardworking interest over national interest; Now, the Nepali people have to dragged the army into equation, the palace, political parties, the army and more supposed to be tariff incentives for electric very far in his new or ‘guided’ are dangerous delusions. reconstruction of infrastructure destroyed Nepali immigrants spread all patronised corruption, get up and lend a hand to Maoists, despite few measured importantly we the people should not compro- transport, and fuel adulteration is a crime. role if he takes it What we need is more democracy, not by the Maoists. Here, his close familiarity over the continental US by smuggling and mafiadom and establish peace. The political successes, were slowly but surely being mise on integrating the Maoists into the army. Yet, every 30 litres of diesel sold in dismissing them as “dish- brought this country to this parties are once more trying to pushed back militarily. Not employing the This is supposed to be a ceasefire, not a Kathmandu’s gas stations has 15 litres of up as just another less. To ensure that there is a better with multilateral funding agencies and the errand of carrying representation of all communities and more London base may come to good use. Once washers of Disneyland” and state of becoming one of the stop the process because they army when the police was being butchered surrender. kerosene mixed with it. This is kerosene of course, poking fun at all poorest in the world. Yet these want to be in power. Can I use was an unforgivable neglect. After their ìAnilî, Ohio University supposedly subsidised to make energy more out the white- participation by all classes in the governance these measures begin to be implemented, Sir man’s burden. of the country, Nepal has to forge ahead on Jeffrey will find a more receptive audience and sundry within and same “popular” leaders are the your letter column to ask them affordable for the rural poor. What is coming without Nepal. ones now who are raising the a simple question: If you can’t out of the tail pipes of the buses and cars on Kathmandu the road of political pluralism. The pause for his long-term plans of shoring up Nepal’s isn’t Kampala. If caused by the royal take-over of 4 October armed forces, reforming bureaucracy and My grouse with Mr Lal is voice that democracy is in even govern your own party, 11 attacks on the US. So far, our streets is therefore benzene, an invisible that more often than not, the danger unless (once again) how can you govern the they have been unable to find carcinogenic gas. that is not obvious has already outlived its utility. institutionalising good governance. enough inside the Before we begin to contemplate History exempted Nepal from the message in your essays they get a chance to wreck country? We cannot just throw a solid jaw to whack; Take a peek at the furnaces of the brick gets lost in the method of the everything. As you say in your away this chance for peace. attacking Iraq would satisfy “koi-hai” complex structural changes in the system, the country benefits of benign British colonialism, so we kilns on the town’s outskirts: they are burning telling. It is frequently editorial (“Give peace a Let us all support the that urge. at Lainchaur, the must return to the status quo of a are yet to learn that nothing but pure plastic trash and old tyres to bake bricks. abrasive and offensive in its chance,” #136) they are not government’s peace effort. b) The US would like to Think about that the next time you buy a lorry special rep must functioning constitution first. To move beneficence inspires British officialdom. tone, and at times averse to jeopardising the Buddhi Pant, Coventry, UK redraw the world map to suit load of bricks. Or the next time you take a remember that forward, it’s necessary to turn around and Kenyan journalists used to refer to Sir exceedingly self-indulgent. peace process for this. What its strategic goal of controlling deep breath. And then think again what we Nepal is one of face the front. Political exigency of the Jeffrey as a “straight-talking” high For heaven’s sake, get off we need is a clean, IRAQ the vast oil wealth Iraq can all do as responsible citizens. only two countries moment is restoration of people’s commissioner. What we need here is a that high horse sometimes transparent, pro-poor Re: “The bubble of American possesses. in Asia that were sovereignty, not some fanciful tinkering with sincere peace coordinator. and you’ll find how easy it is multiparty system with supremacy”, #136. No matter S Pal, email for us to listen to what you constitutional monarchy. how much we praise the self- ita is a pretty 25-year-old woman with lovely each district. Women there want this issue to be have to say. Badri Raj Pande, Bansbari appointed world police in the MAJOR INJUSTICE honey-hazel eyes. Her husband is a police guard included in the agenda for the peace process. It is T Sherpa, Seattle, USA guise of the United States of Re: “Visas and Advisories” S at a jail in western Nepal who left her to elope clear that even if the combatants on both sides could Thank you for that America, its actions in the (Letters, #136) by Chris with a Maoist prisoner. Sita came to the National not control the sexuality of their personnel, they have It is good that Prem interesting profile of Narayan recent days have shown that Lebonne. I have been bringing Commission for Women last week with her two children to own up to the fact and take responsibility for looking Chapagain (Letters, #136) Singh Pun. Here is finally one its main focus is the ever foreign groups to raft on the is that I know that those who on a local level? Do the to seek help. “Once they have children, he will after the women and children. realises the importance of man who is not a talker, but a vague “American interest”. It is Karnali River, and stay in the want to complain about this villagers now also feed the abandon her just like he left me,” says Sita. Nepal’sLove in the time war of war: legacy ofbabies seven years of conflict. Sources have told us there are several senior madhesi representation in the do-er. Not a psuedo-patriot, but not world peace which hotels at Bardia National Park gross injustice cannot. soldiers (as well as the During the last seven years, we have heard police officers who have married second or third wives national life of Nepal. He a true nationalist. We’ve been concerns USA. All that for a few years now. I was Steve England, UK Maoists)? Maybe this is harrowing tales of people killed and orphaned by the while posted in the districts. Affected wives have should also accept that the waiting for this man all these there this year, and heard a insurgency. But not much about babies born from mother who encouraged her to date the paramilitary benefits the American society, “macro-security”? I think approached the National Commission for absence of madhesi girls in years. relationships between security forces, Maoists and local officer. Women to prepare stricter legislation so is what seems to guide similar story about the local I think it’s unrealistic to things must have changed a women. Uma’s mother says, “Poor policeman, nobody of his women will think twice before marrying an Tribhuvan University Campus GB Thapa, Hong Kong American policy. army major taking “protection expect the head of security lot in the last two years since After a recent tour of the midwest, it is clear that here, chhori was kind to him.” Mother even vacated the already-married officer. is a symptom, not the cause Bhumika Ghimire, money” from each of the forces in remote areas not to I was home. Here we go Nepal’s problem of war babies is similar to the house to facilitate things. And for Uma, one thing just Some Maoist sources have also ap- of madhesi backwardness. Your fulsome praise for Lt- Kathmandu hotels there. He even called a expect some support from then, I’ll throw a couple of Amerasian children left behind in Vietnam. led to another. proached the commission to investigate cases of The political economy of Col Pun may have to be meeting of the local hotel local bodies such as hotels dimes in the pot for the In Bardia alone at least 300 security forces Many women of various ages in towns across western alleged rape and pregnancies of women prisoners Nepal is not conducive for tempered by some facets of his Daniel Lak’s “Even hawks association to make his (“Letters”, #136). They Major’s party fund. personnel have eloped in “gandharbha bibaha” with Nepal express sympathy for men in uniform. They did while in army or police custody. After an investiga- the development of the past that you have mentioned in are squirming” (#135) implies demands, all of whom meekly receive little funds, probably Sudarsan Rana, local girls. The young women don’t seem to want to not care who they were, it was almost as if they fell in tion, the commission found no cases of rape-related madhesi community in our passing, but glossed over. His that the end of the Iraqi crisis agreed to make monthly irregularly from the central Wisconsin, USA know whether the men are already married, nor do our love with the camouflage fatigues. In Rolpa, a woman pregnancy, but human rights activists say that Maoist country. It is the duty of the would be if Saddam were to payments of Rs 1-3,000. government in Kathmandu, sipais reveal their existing marital status. The lucky shopkeeper says she believes that in times of crisis it is women who have been raped or made pregnant had government to make sure go (of own will or by force). Incidentally, when the Maoists and it is for the benefit of ones are picked up by unmarried soldiers. But, even her duty to support the soldiers. “We have to be friendly not been imprisoned. In one tarai and one hill district, that equal opportunity is not then, the problem with this kind of marriage is that they and loving to men in uniform to boost their morale,” He justifies this by, among came to extort money from these local hotels that the CORRECTION two Maoist girls revealed to us that they had been just available, but is utilised can neither register with the local authorities—which in she says. If the women are willing, it seems natural that raped by their own comrades. other things, citing Saddam’s the hotels, they asked nicely army exists surely? Due to a layout most cases are non-existent or non-functional—nor can the men—lonely, afraid and homesick—fall for their In Kailali, Devi had been brutally and repeatedly by all sections of Nepali use of “poison gas on his and even gave receipts! It’s Jackie Moon-Shrestha, error, the title they have a traditional marriage. affection. raped while in military custody and then disappeared. society. That's why the own people”. Is that something about time the army seriously Kathmandu strip of “Wanted: Then, there’s always the sudden surprise when the However, there are many cases of abandoned and Devi’s parents think she is dead. These cases need to government should support worse than using atomic look at the behaviour of its Nepali Managers” girls wake up one morning to find that their secret pregnant women, and mothers left behind with their be investigated, perpetrators identified and punished. madrasas in the tarai so that bombs on others, like the US senior staff, because it needs I would like to ask a few on page 7 of lovers have been transferred during the night sans babies. It’s the same old story: as long as the girl Otherwise, there is a great danger we will have yet those Muslims who do did during WW II? the support of the people, not open questions that may #136 went missing. The consorte. Some of the women are pregnant when left doesn’t get pregnant, the relationship seems secure another set of war victims: brutalised women, heart- cannot afford to go to public Sorry to say this, but the fear and loathing they seem a bit naive from a Nepali behind, and have no idea where their husbands have and romantic. broken girls with fatherless children. This will be article was the fortnightly schools can learn to read here’s the bottom line on why currently have in Bardia. All who has been out of Nepal column, Economic Sense, by gone. Uma in Dadeldhura married a member of the Even if abandoned, the woman has the hope that another category of Nepali women needing psycho- and write in their spare time. the US (supported by its close money collected by this major for over two years now. I Armed Police Force, but he left suddenly one day. “I her soldier will return. But if she is pregnant or already Ashutosh Tiwari. – Ed. logical and legal counselling and welfare support. Mohammad Arif, Banke ally Britain) wants to go to should be returned and the don’t know where he has been transferred to,” Uma has her baby, and the “husband” is nowhere to be seen, take it that the army receives says, “all I know is that he had a police cut, was sturdy she faces stigmatisation and becomes a pariah in the (Dr Durga Pokhrel is the chairperson of the war: matter thoroughly investi- funds from the government in The correct website for and muscular and the dates he was posted here.” She village. National Commission for Women who TOUCHED a) The collective wish of the gated. I have the utmost faith Kathmandu? If not, do the SPCAN in “Holy Cow” (#136) has his name, at least the name he told her, and there There is no official count of how many abandoned recently returned from a tour of the western I was touched by the American (white Anglo-Saxon, in the people of Nepal, and the local populations now have to is www.fospcan.org.np. is no other identity she can use to chase him through women and babies there are throughout our war zones, districts. The names of women have been nationalist sentiment in your mainly) people to avenge the 9/ only reason I am writing this fundraise to support security the police bureaucracy. Surprisingly, it was Uma’s but on a brief recent visit we estimated hundreds in changed to protect their identity.) 4 NATION 21 - 27 MARCH 2003 NEPALI TIMES #137 NATION 21 - 27 MARCH 2003 NEPALI TIMES #137 5 DOMESTIC BRIEFS

Bilateral assault

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A Nepal-India joint army team will attempt to climb the Sagarmatha and MIN BAJRACHARYA Lhotse this April, to mark the golden jubilee year of Hillary and “What are we waiting for?” Tenzing’s successful ascent of the world’s highest peak in 1953. Lt How Colonel Surya Sen Thakuri of the Royal Nepali Army and Colonel - A frustrated electrical vehicle operator in Kathmandu. Ashok Abbey (see pic) of the Indian Army will jointly lead a 34- member army team, supported by 26 additional climbers. The team will climb Everest from the south-east ridge and Lhotse from the west. The government has waived its $50,000 Kathmandu’s killer kilns royalty fee for this joint expedition team.

In March 2002, the Industrial Development Board decided Radio Sagarmatha launches “Buy-a-brick” Delhi ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ to phase out obsolete kilns from Kathmandu. They also set up a committee to inspect brick kilns and take action Radio Sagarmatha, the first community FM radio station in South Asia, has launched a fund-raising drive to against illegal kilns. Well accustomed to the government’s build its own premises. Inspired by South African and Dutch delegates who took part at a recent lethargy, the owners continue to operate the units. MoPE’s international conference here of community broadcasters, the Patan-based radio is airing a fundraising own study shows that about 82 percent of the total campaign this week in which donors can pledge money to help the station to have its own building and suspended particulate in the Valley’s air comes from these did it become self-sufficient. Listeners can call in and pledge money to buy bricks. kilns. Residents of “We have already collected donations worth Rs 300,000 in the first two days of the campaign,” says At present 98 brick kilns are registered with the the station’s Bhupendra Basnet. Architect Keshab Bidari has offered to design the proposed building government, but activists have counted more than double India’s capital for free, while Oxfam Nepal donated over Rs 60,000. Sagarmatha FM 102.4 started in 1997 and now that number operating illegally. The sudden boom in real has over one million listeners in Kathmandu Valley, and has promoted public debate on governance, estate construction encourages illegal manufacture of corruption and environmental issues. Bhairab Risal, a senior journalist at the station says, “Money lobbied and should not be the problem. The challenge now is to give continuity and retain credibility.” The bricks. According to a 2001 study by Environment and campaign aims to raise Rs 2.5 million. Public Health Organisation (ENPHO) just about everyone won the right living in the vicinity of a brick kiln in Bhaktapur suffers from respiratory problems. Pension hike

to breathe ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ Another study by Clean Energy Nepal last year in All ex-British Gurkha servicemen and their widows will receive an increase of 12 percent on their current Bhaktapur’s Jhaukhel VDC found the concentration of cleaner air. pension with effect from 1 April this year, an announcement by the British government said this week. “The particulate matter in the air was three times higher in the latest increase is above the rate of inflation in Nepal and demonstrates the British government’s continued brick kiln areas than elsewhere. “Our health and livelihood commitment and concern for the welfare of its ex-servicemen in Nepal,” said the British Embassy in in NEW DELHI

is at stake and the government is just not interested,” says HEMLATA○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ RAI moment. As a result, when finally the much-postponed Kathmandu. Since the 100 percent increase to British Gurkha pensions in 2000, the annual pension an angry Sunil Karki, a Bhaktapur resident who has filed a Till two years ago, visitors to New Delhi used to deadline for conversion arrived on 31 March 2001, fuel increase each year has been over 10 percent, which has ensured British pensions have kept pace with public writ in the Supreme Court to shut illegal brick kilns. compare the pollution in India’s capital to the suppliers and transporters were caught unprepared. On the cost of living in Nepal, the statement said. Besides being eye sores, brick kilns affect health, flight notoriously bad air of Mexico City. No more. the first day of April, public transport ground to a halt, movement at the airport and also destroy soil fertility. A New Delhi has transformed itself in that time from with only a fourth of Delhi’s 12,000 buses having Children benefit study last year showed that agricultural production a cesspool of putrid air to a much healthier city with ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ converted to CNG. MS Nepal (Danish Association for International Cooperation) in partnership with Backward Society decreased by half once the kilns exhausted the clay and fresh air. “Clear and green” is just a slogan in Tensions boiled over by 3 April with auto and taxi moved on. (Hemlata Rai) Education (BASE) is launching a comprehensive education project for the children of former Kamaiyas Kathmandu, there they have actually gone and done it. unions going on strike, government buses were (bonded laborers) and other disadvantaged groups in the mid-western district of Bardia. The five-year MIN BAJRACHARYA And it didn’t just happen overnight, the charge was led vandalised, and rumours of sabotage did the rounds as from p1 project will cover six VDCs and Guleriya municipality to work through the existing government school “It is clearly a case of sheer popular with commuters as well entitled to unobstructed entry carry the same number of people official inaction, that residents of by an activist Supreme Court that acted because the the tanks of some CNG buses blew up. In the face of system. Approximately Rs 60 million of the funds originates from Danish high school students’ fund-raising Three years ago, the government negligence and inefficiency on the as transporters. after paying 10 percent customs over the same distance. A two- Bhaktapur last year decided to government was too afraid to. this chaos, Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit declared campaign, “Operation a Day’s Work 2002”. In 2001, MS Nepal and BASE won the bid to be the project decided to ban two-stroke vehicles, government’s part to resist the The National Transport duty. Thanks to the bungling, the wheeler is marginally less at 49 take the law into their own hands By the 1990s it was apparent that years of neglect that her government was ready to “face punishment for beneficiary in a competition with two other proposals for education projects. three-wheelers and commercial pressure from the lobby groups,” Policy emphasised the promotion duty increased 10-fold, ruining percent, and three-wheeler at 60 and demolished polluting kilns and urbanisation had finally caught up with the city. contempt of court” but would not allow citizens to

vehicles older than 20 years in says Bhushan Tuladhar of of environment-friendly vehicles, the market value of EVs. times the emission of carbon near their homes. The stacks are New Delhi’s lessons for Kathmandu is that judicial suffer. Iraq fallout Kathmandu. Minister Kamal the pressure group, Clean but once again it seems to be just The government’s failure to monoxide. arrayed along the southern intervention actually works, but it also needs civil She publicly denounced CNG as an “untried and ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ Chaulagain who promised “bold Energy Nepal. lip service. New four-wheeler EVs improve mass transit lies at the The contribution of vehicles approaches to Kathmandu society, public pressure and media. Delhi municipality untested” fuel and declared that its safety was Nepali workers eager to go to Kuwait for work will have to wait till the war clouds dissipate. The steps” when he took office six Nepal’s successful experiment are languishing in garages because heart of Kathmandu’s pollution to Kathmandu’s overall pollution airport, and air traffic controllers started by closing down polluting industries, brick kilns, “questionable”. The uncertainty continued for months. government has suspended migrant workers from going there because of the threat of an invasion of Iraq months ago, says MoPE is in with emission-free electric vehicles the government has yet to problem. When the valley’s is now overtaken by new brick report poor visibility till noon, hot mix plants and stone crushers. Then the Delhi Queues more than 2 km long formed at the roadside as by the US-led coalition. The government is also likely to ban Nepalis from visiting other Gulf countries in the the “final stages” of carrying out is also in danger of unravelling. approve of a six month trial 120,000 commuters can’t find a kilns that scar the landscape even though Kathmandu’s winter government implemented a series of environment- harried auto-rickshaw and bus drivers spent nights on event of an actual war. The estimated 300,000 Nepalis, working in the Middle East, contribute nearly Rs 30 that promise. Chinese-donated trolley buses, period. “What are they waiting reliable and cheap method of around Bhaktapur and in Lalitpur fog used to clear by mid-morning. friendly legislative and judicial directives including the end trying to get their vehicles full. Only a few stations billion annually in remittances to the country’s economy. The government’s inability to which initially served up to 88 for?” asks one frustrated EV transportation, they will use old district along the southern fringes Many flights have been re- introduction of unleaded petrol, upgrading diesel stocked the new fuel, and erratic supply meant that even stop adulteration is even more percent of the daily commuters in operator. private buses, inefficient petrol of the valley. A construction routed, or forced to make longer quality, enforcing mandatory testing of vehicular at these, it would often run out. Fishy assets glaring, it has time and again the Tripureswor-Surya Binayak Five Indian made EVs have three-wheelers, motorcycles or boom in Kathmandu has fuelled the and more expensive instrument emission and requiring public transport vehicles to run But the supply and distribution bottlenecks have ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ buckled under the pressure of the route, was shut down last year been held at Birganj customs cars. The traffic jams they cause spread of the brick kilns, which approaches. Meterological data on compressed natural gas (CNG). now been removed, and two years later Delhi’s public The properties of nearly 2,000 public servants and politicians have come under the suspicion of the high petroleum dealers’ lobby which after 25 years of profitable since last March. Confused MoPE means the engines burn fuel less bake fertile Kathmandu valley clay shows that the number of days Like in Delhi, the main culprits of air pollution in transport system is much more efficient. And cleaner. level Judicial Commission for Property Investigation (JCPI) which investigated over 30,000 records of wants to keep on adulterating operations. The number of locally experts delayed the process not efficiently and cause more by burning tyres, plastic garbage per month with visibility more Kathmandu are obsolete vehicles and adulterated fuel. “The trick is to convince the general public that it is those who held public office since 1990. petrol and diesel because it manufactured three-wheel electric knowing that “battery operated” pollution. and low-grade coal. than eight km at noon in Nepali officials individually are appalled by the threat to possible to clean the air. It will automatically create says there is no profit margin in vehicles (EV) have reached 600 in and “electric vehicles” are one A car emits 90 times more Things got so bad, and there Kathmandu has gone down to 2, public health, but always pass the buck. “The Delhi pressure for the politicians and bureaucracy to selling it pure. Kathmandu, and have become and the same, and therefore carbon monoxide than a bus to is so much frustration with compared to 22 in 1970. experience and what is happening here shows that the understand that environment is a part of good authorities will not make a move unless combined governance,” activist Sunita Narain of the Delhi-based pressure compel it to do so,” says Prakash Mani Centre for Science and Environment told us. HERE AND THERE by DANIEL LAK Sharma, a public interest lawyer and the executive Studies show that between 1980 and 2000, India’s director of the legal pressure group, Pro-Public. GDP doubled, but in the same period vehicular Even though New Delhi’s pollution levels are today pollution increased 8 times and industrial pollution was well within permissible limits, there was opposition, four times. The general population became victims. The Pirates of the past even transportation strikes, by bus and taxi cartels. World Bank estimated that air pollution kills 7,500 Factory owners and workers, carmakers, auto-rickshaw people annually in Delhi. omething that never ceases to amaze is how things rarely change, at drivers and bus-owners have all locked horns with the Another World Bank study for Kathmandu Valley least on the grandest of scales. It’s a cliché among clichés but history Spare a moment for history and Delhi government at one time or another. in 1996 calculated that the monetary impact (through S does repeat itself. One of the biggest conflagrations was over the deaths and sickness) was Rs 200 million per year— An American president who takes unilateral military action against a rogue think on how little has changed. compulsory conversion to CNG. Government excluding long-term impact on tourism and the effect of entity after failing to convince the European powers to sign on to a “coalition of the procrastination and the lackadaisical attitude of auto- leaded emissions on intelligence of children. Considering willing”? An American-led invasion of Arab territory with a slightly force society, a people to whom the past is more important than the future. rickshaw, taxi and bus operators meant that a years-old that pollution levels are today several times higher, the eventually prevailing? Sneers across “old Europe” and badly damaged trans- There’s not much to compare between Gavial Prinzip, the Serbian nationalist Supreme Court directive went ignored until the last toll would also be much higher. Atlantic relations? whose “shot heard round the world” killed Archduke Ferdinand, and the Never mind George W and Iraq. I’m talking here about President Thomas gangsters who evidently murdered Prime Minister Djindic, but both spurn Jefferson in the early years of the 19th century. At that time, American merchant what is widely assumed to be reality, and the modern age. Both yearn for the shipping on the Mediterranean Sea was in constant danger of being burnt to the battlefields of the past. Both take individual actions that plunge whole EASYEASYEASY TIMESTIMESTIMES waterline by the pirates of North Africa, the so-called Barbary Coast. US sailors societies into turmoil. Nothing since 1914 has lessened the Balkans’ were taken as slaves, something that offended the white elite of the day, most of propensity to set off larger fires. whom, including Jefferson kept legions of abducted Africans to enrich them on Finally, in a doom-laden week, I look with eerie feelings of vicarious deja vu their cotton plantations. on the latest mystery disease that’s spreading panic outward from East Asia. As I It’s never been Britannia ruled the waves in those days, and was at war with France. But write, there are at least 100 cases and several deaths being blamed on a new flu easier to London, Paris and other European capitals were paying off the Barbary pirates to from Hong Kong or Shanghai. Long haul jet aircrafts have helped spread this as both ignore their merchant shipping and to enter into dubious alliances against far afield as Canada, Slovenia and Germany. There is no cure. Yet I can’t help but subscribe each other in the latest version of perpetual Continental war. wonder if the real disease isn’t good old Orientialism, the belief that exotica, to Ever the idealist, Jefferson rejected this as immoral and short-termist and mystery and horror all come from east of Suez, as Rudyard Kipling might suggested European maritime powers join him in dealing with the pirates. With a have put it. In this case, the latter, a horrible disease, the latest in a long line Nepali Times. superior sniff, Europe declined and Jefferson ordered first the Navy, then the US of flu’s from the east. In fact the world’s worst influenza outbreak of all time, Just dial this marines into action. In 1804, an American marine lieutenant lead a 600-mile proof of the importance of history. Events there recycle themselves with nasty between 1918 and 1920, came from Spain, not quite the Orient but in those march from Alexandria in Egypt to what is now Libya. “To the shores of Tripoli” regularity. Yet outside powers rarely learn from past folly. Who cannot read days a country of almost feudal health and social standards. An Orient for the number and is the famous phrase in the Marine Corps theme song. Thus began for America a about the assassination of Zoran Djindic, the pro-Western Prime Minister of times, if you will. long and frequently troubled history of involvement in the various crises of the Serbia, redolent as it is of the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in As George W Bush, Tony Blair and Jose Maria Aznar of newly modern Spain leave your Islamic world. By the way, the US intervention eventually succeeded—in 1815— 1914, the spark that touched off World War I. It’s not so much that another face down the Babylonian Barbary pirate, Saddam Hussein, spare a moment for address. but the pirates soon came back to plunder ships that flew the Stars and Stripes. European conflagration on that scale looms now; it’s that Serbia was where the history, and think on how little has changed. Even if the “coalition of the willing”

Then there’s the deeply troubling situation in Serbia. The Balkans are living West last attempted to impose liberal democracy on an apparently unwilling ignores the past at their peril. 5543333 6 NATION 21 - 27 MARCH 2003 NEPALI TIMES #137 ECONOMY 21 - 27 MARCH 2003 NEPALI TIMES #137 7 SOMEWHERE IN NEPAL by PUSKAR BHUSAL ECONOMIC SENSE by ARTHA BEED “An Iraq war is a Friends and allies Peace jitters problem for tourism.” Indo-Nepal relations need a paradigm shift. ou can see them looking over the significance of Sharma’s deputation, Shyam Saran, despite his clear s King Gyanendra prepares as an opportunity, rather than countries should work on shoulder, under the table, Political leaders appear as clueless as the rest it’s not enough to read his latest plea reservations on the desirability of to begin his unofficial visit a threat. exploring the positive aspects of Y behind the curtain and reading for selfless contributions from the third-party mediation (Nepali A to India, there is Nepal needs to present a their relationship instead of between the lines. Our leaders appear of us when it comes to what happens next. three power centres to prevent Nepal Times interview, #136) agrees speculation among political single front with all the bemoaning a porous border and as clueless as the rest of us when it from becoming an alien nation. Nepal needs a supportive pundits of behind-the-scenes unresolved issues—exchange rate labour flow. And the private comes to current affairs. Three of the You have to recall how he went international environment. China, meetings with Indian government to refugees, exports surge to sector must look beyond lobbying four major mainstream bosses who on BBC Hindi Service last May to maintaining its characteristic officials on deadlocked bilateral hydropower, sustaining peace and for an additional ghee quota, or insisted they would accept nothing less retract Prachanda’s reported ceasefire circumspection, must have issues. In the past six weeks, the customers procedures—as part of lifting tariffs on zinc oxide. than a joint audience with King offer, arguing that the rebels would conveyed its considerations to the Nepal-India negotiations on both a one dialogue package. The India must realise that it Gyanendra opted for individual have to be crazy to do that while they concerned quarters. transportation and power did not Rastra Bank is sitting on lots of stands to gain more as Nepal’s consultations. were winning the war. Krishna Amid the confusion reigning reach any consensus. And alleged dollars received from remittances: dominant partner. It would do From reports appearing in Nepali Bahadur Mahara, who went on supreme left, right and centre, one Indian support to the Maoists is this may be a good a time as any well to mount a Congress-friendly press, it seems the CNN six months later to castigate thing stands out. When the joint facilitator was CPN-UML general world leaders for lacking ideological audience takes place, our leaders not a feverish conspiracy, if the to review the exchange blitz of goodwill secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal. His conviction, is dropping clear hints would demand a reinstatement of the Beed is to infer anything from rate between our gestures and drown us contention that rejecting one-on-one of a revision of the Maoist stance on House of Representatives and the Donald Camp’s recent speech currencies. in magnanimity. It must meetings with the monarch in the the monarchy. setting up of an all-party (Nepali Times, #135). Of late For many Indians, not mistakenly think that post-ceasefire context would be Politicos of all persuasions have government, though not necessarily even the international press has Nepal is the face of we only respect disrespectful of the crown and a been re-reading US Deputy in that order. That would effectively been drawing transboundary the simple- power. Nepalis dereliction of duty. The exhortation Assistant Secretary of State Donald rule out the possibility of the connections between the Maoist minded impressed Nepali Congress Camp’s remark that Nepal is one of Maoists’ heading the new movements in Nepal and India. president Girija Prasad Koirala and the few places in the world where government, something Comrade MIN BAJRACHARYA The Nepali economy cannot Nepal Workers and Peasants Party American, Chinese and Indian Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai Managing director of President Travels and Tours and General SIGNS OF THE TIMES: be isolated from India and the chief Narayan Man Bijukche. United interests are in perfect consonance. have been alluding to from the same holds true for politics. People’s Front leader Amik Sherchan Krishna Bahadur Mahara being (Just in case you missed it, Camp moment the truce took effect. Sales Agent of the Gulf Air in Kathmandu, Bhola Bickram Thapa, SUBHAS RAI chose to stick with the original welcomed with bouquets met Chand on 21 October to assure Having come this far for peace, they doesn’t mince words when talking about the challenges facing Despite this dependence—or stance, ostensibly because he had the at the FNCCI by Binod him of continued American support, might accept the ground realities. Nepal’s tourism, especially now that the war in Iraq has begun. He perhaps because of it—Nepalis least to lose. Shrestha and Rajendra Khetan. while the newly disenfranchised How would that affect the rebels’ also spoke to Nepali Times about things that need to be done for have never been able to look at As the trio got back together to Mahara said he supported a political class was making fun of the morale? Or Chand’s? Most Nepalis common issues with India compare notes, pro-Koirala quarters free market system. new premier’s failure to win are in favour of an all-party long-term tourism development. holistically. A preferential treaty started suggesting that Nepal had NEPALNEWS.COM international recognition.) government (Nepali Times/ and a pegged exchange rate not played a more active and less altruistic would attend. Given the the value of informality at a time positioned themselves on both camps. Considering the Bush-Blair Nepalnews.com Weekly Internet Nepali Times: What could be the impact of a Why is the tourism industry so sensitive? withstanding, we have never part in seeking a patch-up with the circumstances, Nepal’s ability to make when proximity to power equals the Through the code of conduct, they convergence on the post-9/11 world, Opinion Poll # 76). Some 13 US-led war against Iraq on our tourism The main reason is because we have not been able thought of creating a strong palace. Having tamed Khadga Prasad good on 75 percent of his pledge must real thing. Moreover, most of the have committed themselves to fostering we probably shouldn’t read too percent of the respondents want industry? to develop Nepal as a tourist destination. We are still India-focused policy body or a Sharma Oli and tormented Bam Dev have gone well with the premier. leaders who have been boycotting far-reaching change with palace much into Camp’s omission of parliament restored. Over twice that Bhola Bickram Thapa: The chief of the Gulf Air a side-trip. The focus has to be on developing Nepal division to coordinate the Gautam within the party, Nepal We shouldn’t be uncomfortable Chand’s all-party conferences representative Narayan Singh Pun. As Britain in that particular sentence. number prefer to see the Chand recently said that his airline would operate normally as a destination. If people in Europe have three ministries. evidently felt confident enough to with the ease with which the ex-leader regularly receive the premier at part of the Eleven Reds, they have In any case, Britain’s special government continue until the next even during the period of war. But it is definitely weeks holidays, they cannot fly to Nepal paying Perhaps we should look to mount another bid for the of the opposition asked the premier to home or accept his phone calls. fortified the campaign to preserve the representative for Nepal, Sir Jeffery polls. After all we’ve been through going to create problems for our tourism. After the $2,000 for a four or five day trip. We also need to premiership. Chand, too, was happy schedule an appointment with the Before we could contemplate the gains of 1990. For now, Dina Nath James, arrived to express confidence these seven years, we know for sure Bhutan for a little inspiration. In ceasefire, the Kathmandu-based embassies had capitalise on man-made resources to exploit the the past decade they benefitted by to use his good offices once he got king. Nepal may not recognise Chand mainstream’s next move, though, the Sharma is taking care of the that everyone would support the that no concern is inconsequential changed their travel advisories, from “Don’t Go” to opportunity. For this to happen, we have to focus on Nepal’s personal word that all four in his official capacity, but he knows Maoists stepped in and firmly parliamentary flank. To sense the peace process. Indian Ambassador enough to be ignored. “Use Caution”. The attitude of international two things: first, focus on trekking and second, being pragmatic about ‘Big travellers has changed a lot over the last few develop Kathmandu as a hub. For example, if tourists Brother’. Nepal continues to years, but the number of Nepal-bound tourists from visit Nepal for three weeks they can also travel to compartmentalise foreign policy bahadur gatekeeper. Babudom in will respect those who show some the US, Europe and Japan will be affected if war places like Bhutan, Sikkim and Tibet for three to four with its neighbours. The issue of Delhi has extrapolated this respect to them. The Beed breaks out. The severity of its impact will depend days and come back to Nepal. For this we need to Bhutanese refugees in Nepal is mindset further on its dealings believes if the Nepali economy is on how long it lasts. give multiple visas to tourists. Charging visa fees dealt in isolation from India with Nepal. On a day-to-day to thrive, then our relationship every time simply adds to their expenses. We also building dams on the border and basis this translates into the with India needs a bilateral Is this going to negate the gains of the need to have many airlines flying to Nepal to Indian restrictions on Nepali difficulty Nepalis encounter with paradigm shift. Piecemeal Gouging out a living in Lele’s quarries ceasefire announcement? sustain this activity. However, ground handling and exports. Bhutan played its card customs officials at various border solutions are not the answer. And That remains to be seen. But we are very optimistic other services at the airport are high, which cleverly, binding India into points. If India is concerned King Gyanendra’s visit could pave about the ceasefire and hold a positive attitude. It increases the cost for airlines. If we could

KARMA○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ THATANG this is sure to be a river of mud. The hills mustard terraces in full bloom. But this silence on the refugee problem about the anti-India sentiment the way towards this. he dust is so thick it starts swirling around here are increasingly landslide- agrarian facade hides the grim hillside Out of sight and out of mind, a beautiful looks like the black clouds have finally moved away motivate airlines to market Nepal it would be better with the hydropower card. Or, as and its effect on bilateral relations inside the bus as we lurch towards prone. Quarrying by freelancers and truth: indiscriminate quarrying, and one can see rays of hope. There have been than billing them high service charges. We cannot valley is ravaged by quarrying. signs of improvement after the ceasefire. The most afford the expensive promotional activities that the Indian ambassador said in this then perhaps it’s time to do some Readers can post their

Lele. Near the Tika Bhairab shrine, contractors has become Lele’s main especially toward the eastern and paper last week (Nepali Times, damage control by respecting comments or suggestions to ○○○○○○○○○○○ T ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ we find the reason for the dust storm: industry. The incessant drone of the northern ends of Lele. important thing is that we are getting inquiries from they can. overseas. This shows foreigners are interested to #136) Nepal should look at India Nepal as a genuine partner. Both [email protected] hillsides gouged out by stone quarries. drilling and pounding carries easily across The ugliness reaches it height moreover, create dependency on the rural routes instead. The unspoken visit Nepal again. On our part, we have already How about other attractions besides The stone mining is feeding Greater this scenic valley, punctuated only straight up the road from the main externally provided temporary jobs (the development paradigm has been “dump sent messages saying that things have changed trekking? Kathmandu’s unrelenting construction occasionally by jets descending into bazar, past the water-bottling venture cursed precursor to rural-to-urban the failures of planning (if any) or any here. We are looking forward to better days ahead. We have to change our marketing strategy. We boom. The trucks transporting the rocks Kathmandu airport. aptly named “Mr Cool”. Here you find migration) and sever the eco- negative externalities in the front or But this does not imply that tourists will come back must project something new to international have destroyed an already bumpy road. From the plane, Lele is a pretty U- yourself entering a canyon-like section demographic (man-land) production backyard of the rural poor”. to Nepal in huge numbers that easily. travellers. How are we going to do this is another The ride is nauseating as the bus skids shaped valley nestled on the flanks of of Lele, which looks like Tora Bora relations that existed here for centuries This probably explains why many question. There have been a lot of trade fairs and and bounces along the narrow trail pock- Phulchoki with the idyllic Nallu river after a pounding by daisy-cutters that made Lele what it is. quarries and brick kilns have Have we been able to convey the message that other activities but we have not been able to get marked with pot holes. Come monsoon, meandering through dazzlingly yellow from a B-52. This brutally exploitative extraction conveniently relocated or even flourished Nepal is a safe destination? the right response. If we are going to market a The quarries have gutted the hills can surely be plotted in the larger scale further and further from the urban People involved in the tourism industry have been country, we need to emphasise visuals, not on either side of the dirt road, creating of Valley-periphery relations. The core—far from the carping, madding trying to convey to the world that things are not words. We always depend on natural rather than mini-caves and hollows, which could people of Lele, or any other village on crowd of enlightened elite. Whether one bad as the media portrays. A Sri Lankan on man-made resources. implode anytime. Rocks jut out from or the Valley rim, have never been likes it or not, quarrying has found a entrepreneur once told me that their media used to sit precariously on the scarred hillsides, compensated for being environmental perfect niche in Lele, as have countless carry news saying so many people got killed and How bad has the impact of insurgency been on threatening the workers, passersby and custodians. If the people of Lele had failures of national and district level the location, which was 500 km away from the tourism industry as a whole? livestock below. Dust-covered workers, been compensated in the past for development planning across much of Colombo, would be written almost as an aside. The insurgency hit hard operations that had bigger mainly Tamang, work the quarries protecting watershed functions (water the hill region of Nepal: out of the ear- Such things happen everywhere. I do not mean to infrastructures but everybody suffered to some unsupervised. Bollywood music blares flows clear and plenty even in the dry and eye-shot of the Centre. say that the media should not give facts and degree. Larger tour operators cut down working from a cheap Khasa radio placed season and is tapped by Mr Cool), they Lele is perfect for this illegal figures. They, however, should be very careful in hours and staff salaries as part of their cost-cutting strategically on a boulder. Quarrying would not have allowed the contractors extraction and trade. It does not sit on presenting the information. Every hotel and travel measures. provides a less-than-minimum-wage to come in and rape the hillsides. any major highway. It is not on the way agency in Nepal sent out information to their clients along with health hazards to the If we are not to sit in judgment over to either Nagarkot or Pokhara. It does on the improvement of the situation. Is there any way to pull RNAC out from the current mess? worker, nothing more. The whole cement plants and brick kilns and not lie on a hiking biking trail where So, what else do we need to do? There is a need to open a new, subsidiary quarrying scene on this stretch reeks of quarries we must ensure that the city development people may stumble upon At the moment Nepal is being carefully watched by company. We can rope in the private sector and illegitimacy. It’s got the feel of a “hit pays for conservation action on the it. It is the back of beyond for Valley the outside world. People will scrutinise us for float public shares. The traffic rights of RNAC are and run” or “hit and miss” fly-by-night periphery. If the centre is to continue to people. Out of sight, out of mind. three to four months to see if the ceasefire holds. an asset that can be put in as its contribution to variety. The owners and contractors are sing the song of community forestry Will a judge of the Supreme Court, The good thing is that the ceasefire was the new company. The company has to be run by nowhere to be seen. success, they must pay for every green treating this as a public interest announced at a time when tour operators were private sector management. Although regulations As more and more hillsides in Lele patch on the rim—for the effort, for the litigation, initiate suo moto action? The preparing their tour packages. Most of them had governing RNAC cannot be changed overnight, we succumb to the ravages of quarrying, abstinence that the periphery must idea is not to shut down the quarries in taken out Nepal, we had to convince them to put must be sincere in our efforts to pull the the trend increasingly threatens practice for the greater common good. typical knee-jerk reaction, but ensure Nepal back in their list. They may not have 30-day corporation out of its present mess. The main biodiversity, watersheds, human life and Whenever urban folks complain minimum wages and protection for the programs but the possibility of three to four-day problem is none of the concerned government livestock from landslides or falling about air pollution in Kathmandu workers, environmentally sensitive tours are still there. Our tourism industry has been agencies work in unison. They blow their trumpets rocks, the health of the Lele Valley (see page 1,4-5) their collective extraction and a percentage of profits constantly hit since the hijacking of the Indian without the slight consideration to national interest. communities from increasing noise and action merely has the net effect of from every truckload for the villages that Airlines flight in December 1999. But we always I believe that given a free hand, Nepalis can still

UJOL SHERCHAN dust pollution, and road safety. It will, forcing old, worn-out gas-guzzlers to ply sit precarious on the hillsides. asked ourselves, “How bad can it get?” manage our national flag carrier efficiently. 8 SPORTS 21 - 27 MARCH 2003 NEPALI TIMES #137 9

When India’s anglophobes, the man whose dislike of the Brabourne Stadium. On the Britain and all things British ran second morning of the match, while freedom fighters deeper and longer than anybody else’s, some forty thousand people crowded threw the British was the late socialist leader Dr Ram into Brabourne, a smaller but not Manohar Lohia. less intense crowd gathered in an out, they nearly Now, Lohia’s pet hates were Irani restaurant outside. This eatery threw cricket out Jawaharlal Nehru, the English had been chosen by Dr Lohia for a Wicked language, and the game of cricket, press conference. with them. The generally in that order. These To a group of assembled true story of how aversions, possibly genetic in origin, journalists, the good doctor thundered were made more concrete while Dr on about how the game of cricket cricket was Lohia studied at Berlin in the 1930s. symbolised India’s continuing Returning home with a PhD in colonisalism, and how the last saved. political science, the young leftist Englishman to rule India was keepers became the leader of the Congress complicit in this. Throw out Nehru,

Socialist Party, and a key player in the he said, and we can all happily start ○○○○○ RAMACHANDRA○○○○○○○○○○○ GUHA such as football and athletics. and Broadcasting in Nehru’s Kentucky Chicken no. And above all, Quit India movement of 1942. After playing kabaddi. ew people know that after In those days, Blitz was the vehicle cabinet, to carry out his boss’s kabaddi yes, cricket no. Independence he sat in the After the scribes departed to file World War II, when the of radical anti-establishmentarianism command and have All India Radio I recall an angry letter written to Opposition, chasing Nehru, their stories Dr Lohia walked across to F success of the Indian and the advanced guard of revolution. broadcast live ball-by-ball the Indian Express at the time of the English, and cricket in and out of the nearest paanwallah and asked: “Kya independence movement became Keskar’s challenge was picked up in commentaries of test matches. 1992 World Cup. “How long,” the Lok Sabha. Hanif out ho gaya kya?” The answer evident, another freedom struggle the pages of the only other Bombay Radio broadcasts helped expand demanded Sr M M Vyas of Jaisalmer, It was the last week of came back, “No, Hanif Mohammed is BNepali cricket wled is now within striking distance over of the big league. manifested itself. journals. “Nationalise India through the game’s reach, in deepening its “how long shall we Indians December, 1960, and India still batting.” Inside every cricket- MIN BAJRACHARYA

This sought to free newly- sports!” was the title of a stirring roots in a land to which it was go on spending money were playing Pakistan at baiter there is a cricket-lover struggling MUKUL○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ HUMAGAIN independent India from the polluting polemic published by the Bombay imported. More recently, the process lavishly, wasting to get out. The 2003 Asia Cup will be very possibility of qualifying for the next launch of the ICC’s World Cup special for cricket fans and players Cricket World Cup to be held in the Qualifying Series (WCQS). foreign game of cricket. Indians Chronicle on 6 November, 1946. has been carried forward by the spread precious time for the here is new euphoria in the air for Nepali cricket, and in Nepal. For the first time, local Caribbean in 2007. The question is WCQS starts in 2003 with 27 wanted to make sure that when the The writer, Janaki Das, had been the of satellite television which has maintenance of this (Ramachandra that is not just because of talent will be pitched against the whether we will be able to maintain nations taking part in four different white man left, he took his pastimes country’s representative to the World effectively bridged the divide between monument of Guha is an Indian T the World Cup. A series of likes of Sanath Jayasuriya, Shoaib steady growth and success and get tournaments between July and back with him. It is a measure of how Cycling Championships in Zurich. city and country, between the sexes, slavery called cricket historian outstanding victories in the under- Akthar and Sachin Tendulkar. No one-day status. “We’re hopeful that October that are based on merit, ambitious this movement was that it There he met sympathetic anti- with both peasant men and upper- cricket?” The and author of 19 World Cup and the Asian one had dreamt of such an Nepal can qualify for the next World not geographical location. The top first announced itself in Mumbai, a colonialists who urged him to lead the class women numbered among the greatest of Savaging the Cricket Council Trophy got our lads achievement when Nepal began its Cup,” says Jaya Kumar Nath Shah, three divisions each have six teams city that was then, as it is now, the campaign to cleanse India of cricket. fanatical followers of India’s Test side. Indian Civilised and noticed in the international arena international cricket campaign in president of CAN. He takes heart and there will be promotion and place in India most closely identified The Irish representative to the For all this, some Indians still Environmentalism: A last year. Then last week, Nepal 1996. from Kenya, Namibia and Holland’s relegation between the first and with cricket and cricketers. Zurich congress reminded Das that remain resolute in their opposition to Global History.) showed vigorous performance in Cricket has come a long way positive achievements in this year’s last team of each division. Division The opening salvo of the second the game of bat and ball was “infested cricket. These moles under the wicket the Emerging Nations Cup in since the anglophile Ranas World Cup. Four is different in that there will freedom movement was fired in the with all the elements of Imperialism”. fall into two distinct categories: Kathmandu. Experts now rate the introduced cricket to Nepal in the But he says only a continued initially be nine teams and, nd 1920s. The game was brought out of and consolidated effort can ensure significantly, the bottom six teams columns of the crusading weekly, Nepali team 2 among non-test Reporting these conversations in the playing nations in Asia. The UAE, the high walls after democracy. But Nepal's cricket growth. If Nepal is to will have to re-qualify for the 2005 Blitz. It took the form of an essay Bombay Chronicle, the Indian cyclist 1. Economists, who worry about the number one on the list, relies the sport still didn’t click here as it play competitively and successfully World Group by beating the called “Will Cricket quit India with urged that this “black spot stamped impact on productivity of wholesale heavily on imported players from did in the former British colonies of in the international arena, we must Affiliate nations within their region. the British?” by the well-known by British imperialism on the face absenteeism from the office (and the India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. With the subcontinent. move on from one-day cricket. The The inaugural World Group Congressite, Dr Balkrishna Keskar. of India be wiped out”, to be kitchen) whenever India plays a proper training and infrastructure, The greatest disadvantage International Cricket Council (ICC) tournaments will take place He had a PhD from the University of replaced by games “which build match. With Sachin Tendullkar on the there seems to be no reason why we faced by Nepali cricket has been the has changed its qualification between July and October 2003 in Heidelberg, where he learnt, with the health and character and cost little”, box a hundred days in a year, cricket- can’t be up there with the greats. lack of infrastructure. The absence process for non-test playing nations Kenya, USA, Malaysia and Italy. Germans, to admire more manly such as athletics, swimming, cycling watching is having an ever greater, and The Cricket Association of of grounds and proper practice with regard to the World Cup. For Nepal is in division two where it has sports such as football and wrestling. and kabaddi. always negative, impact on our GNP. Nepal (CAN) is trying to build more pitches has meant a lot of cricket the first time the ICC’s 27 affiliate to fight Ireland, Denmark, USA, Cricket, he wrote, was a game “purely Unlike the first freedom One pro-bomb analyst at the Delhi cricket venues with turf wickets in talent has gone fallow or unnoticed. members and 47 associate Bermuda and Uganda. In October, International matches are played on members have been guaranteed a the Nepali team will travel to Los English in culture and spirit” which movement, however, the second one School of Economics has in fact Birganj, Pokhara and possibly Biratnagar. The one in Birgunj will grass or turf wickets whereas in regular program of competitive Angeles for its World Group could “only thrive in the atmosphere has been spectacularly unsuccessful. computed that the impact of Western be the biggest in Nepal. CAN is Nepal, practice sessions are held on international cricket through the tournaments. of English culture, English language After 50 years of political sanctions will be neutralised by the also negotiating maintenance of a mats and cement wickets. This and English rule”. independence, cricket is more popular simple act of abolishing cricket. local school ground in Rajbiraj. leaves Nepali players unprepared to He dismissed cricket in India as a than ever before, patronised as much Hopefully this will result in year- play on proper turf, and this is “game patronised mostly by the by the maharaja as by the milkman, 2. Cultural Nationalists, the round tournaments. apparent in weak batting displays. Maharaja, the rich and the snobs”. by the snob as well as by the socialist. Anglophobe swadeshi-ist who will be CAN recently brought out its Ideally, players must have access to Keskar was confident that the game It certainly was no hindrance forever suspicious of anything that was first cricket calendar. It organised all three types of wickets to prepare would never be able to survive the that Jawaharlal Nehru was a keen not invented in the Indo-Gangetic the Emerging Nations Cup where them for different bowling and shock of the disappearance of British follower of the game. Indeed, it was plain. Dhoti, yes, patloon no, says this national teams from the Maldives batting conditions. rule and would rapidly yield in Dr Balkrishna Keskar’s melancholy fellow. Roti yes, dabal roti no. Sanskrit and Bhutan participated. Thanks to Professional cricket, with it’s various lucrative perks, has yet to popularity to working class sports a tie-up with Bombay-based event duty, as Minister of Information yes, English no, tandoori chicken yes, management company, Percept take off. At present there are too few D’Mark, Nepal can now play against incentives to keep players motivated international teams on home to play for the country. CAN has territory. The Ranji Trophy been unable to attract sponsors like champions from India will be Gorkha Brewery which was the first to visiting Kathmandu for three officially sponsor the Nepali cricket matches. The legendary team under the Carlsberg banner. It Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) has provided significant financial from Australia are already here to assistance to the Birendra National play four matches and take part in League and made arrangements for a training scheme for coaches. The memberships at well-equipped Pakistani team led by former test health clubs. But Nepali cricket player, Majid Khan, will also visit needs more than one corporate Nepal this year. A significant step sponsor and the ICC grant to play taken by CAN has been the world class cricket. introduction of the under-13 Everyone is convinced that league. This will ensure an upward Nepali cricket has the potential to flow of talent from young players to go far. From cricket administrators to wood-fired pizza seasoned cricketers. fans, everyone is abuzz with the thamel, tel 4260187, 4265497

Can KenyaTheir win? fans certainly think so.

in NAIROBI ○○○○

KATY○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ SALMON victory. Soi believes the success is not a fluke, but the Every time Kenya has played, the Blue Spirit Bar in Nairobi pay off for a lot of hard work by the Kenyan cricket city centre has been packed to capacity with noisy fans, team. “What guys did not notice is that Kenya has enjoying a beer while they cheer on their home team. improved in the recent past. They got the exposure and Kenyan cricket fans are pretty confident of success. Their acquired good experience to actually take the World team has already become the first non-test team to reach Cup,” he explains. Cricket fan Richard Nyariaro has the semi-finals. John Nyambuga, the barman, says, “They another theory as to why his countrymen have been didn’t expect us to reach that point. Once we are at that performing so well. He puts it down to the large sums point we are out to give them that morale to win. And we are they have been earning. “Everyone is talking about two going to the final.” million shillings ($26,316) each. Hey, that’s a good price. Across town, the Nairobi Sports House is also doing Most of them are, you know, just ordinary people like us a brisk trade in Kenya’s official World Cup merchandise. here. Getting two million, that’s a hell of a lot of money,” Marketing manager Baadal Shah says, “It has created he says. history and definitely there’s a lot of awareness of So far, Kenya’s team has bagged $500,000 as a cricket right now in Kenya.” Another person who has been result of their extraordinary run. They have already watching Kenya’s progress is Television Network sports defeated three test nations—Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and reporter Robert Soi. He is coolly confident of a Kenyan 1996 champions Sri Lanka. (IPS) 10 WORLD 21 - 27 MARCH 2003 NEPALI TIMES #137 21 - 27 MARCH 2003 NEPALI TIMES #137 11

OPINION by MARK SOMMER ANALYSIS by FAWAZ A GERGES Garland canal detractors

○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ NEW DELHI – India’s ambitious, $112 billion project to link together its major river systems has its critics. Linking the northern Ganga, Can Iraq be “won”? Indus and Brahmaputra with the peninsular rivers, Krishna, Godavari and Kaveri is expected to irrigate 150 million hectares Nepal hit n moving to topple Saddam Hussein's regime, the Bush The Second Superpower and generate 3,500 MW of electricity. America may win the

administration stakes its case on two critical arguments. Although China was the inspiration behind the project, BHAGIRATH○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ YOGI ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ BERKELEY – The morning after citizen leaders alike come and go, I First, President Bush and his senior aides insist that the military battle, but lose the hydrology experts are sceptical about the feasibility of replicating lthough our own conflict is on hold, Nepal will feel the the world’s largest-ever but bureaucracies endure with an coming Iraq war is an extension of the military campaign By taking the world to their achievements—either topographically or in its political economic impact of the American war on Iraq that simultaneous demonstrations against innate institutional bias against against terrorism. It would spare America and the world, in the political war. organisation. A began with a dramatic cruise missile raid on Baghdad war—ten million people in six war, Bush has woken reform. words of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, "the Inter-state and inter-country dissentions are likely to surface Thursday morning. hundred cities on six continents—a Today’s global consensus danger that Iraq's weapons of mass terror could fall into the up the global public. hands of terrorists." according to Sudhirendar Sharma, at the Delhi-based Ecological The war couldn’t have come at a worse time for Nepal. front-page news analysis in The against Bush administration policies Second, the Bush team is pledging to bring democracy to Foundation. Tourism, which was just beginning to pick up after the ceasefire, New York Times made a startling has been triggered by the Iraq, a transformation that—it is hoped—will spur Already, Pakistan has threatened war if the current status quo had started seeing cancellations as fears of war mounted in the assertion: There are now two monumentally inept execution of the democratisation across the region. A peaceful, democratic regarding the Indus is not maintained, and neither India nor past weeks. Most flights from Europe to Kathmandu have Superpowers, the United States and agenda of a global elite that until dawn in Iraq, they assert, would soon break over other Bangladesh are satisfied with the treaty to divert the Ganga at the stopovers in the Gulf or overfly west Asia. The Nepali travel world opinion. recently has been highly disciplined authoritarian Arab states as well. By transforming the political Farakka barrage. Meanwhile, the states of Karnataka and Tamil industry is in deep gloom, and is only hoping that the war will be “President Bush appears to be in its exploitation techniques. If landscape of the Middle East, American officials hope to Nadu are tussling over sharing of the waters of the Kaveri river. short and decisive. (See interview, p 7) eyeball to eyeball with a tenacious cleverer minds ultimately prevail strike at the root causes of Islamic extremism. Messrs Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz like to Professor Syed Iqbal Hasnain, an internationally-known A much-graver impact would be on overseas remittances from new adversary—a new power in the and depose the reckless Texans, they pose as realists, but just how realistic is such thinking? Is it glaciologist, said the whole project is being undertaken without Nepali workers. There are an estimated 300,000 Nepalis in the streets.” Even in their headiest could well adopt more based on a sober assessment of the complex realities in Iraq adequate understanding of the Himalayan glaciers, which feed the moments, citizen activists have never accommodating rhetoric and mollify Gulf region, with 6,000 workers in Kuwait which is now a and the region? Or is it driven by ideology and wishful Ganges, Indus and Brahmaputra and could turn into an economical imagined that their shoestring many of those alarmed by Bush and thinking? Will a war against Iraq help the US in its fight frontline state in the war. There are another 85,000 Nepalis in and environmental disaster. The garland canal is a “waste of efforts would ever confer on them Co. At the same time, the leaderless against terrorists, or will it make Americans more vulnerable? Saudi Arabia, 65,000 in Qatar and nearly 4,000 in Bahrain. money” and a “political gimmick,” says Medha Patkar of the Together, these Nepalis remit an estimated Rs 30 billion back home the status of a superpower. If George spontaneity of the early days of Despair and alienation have taken hold of the younger through their military misadventures. Monitored and generation of Arabs, who represent over 50 percent of the oppressed for 45 years, Iraqis have lost faith in the political Narmada Bachao Andolan. (IPS) every year. W Bush has achieved no other social movements may soon be region's population. Political repression and the silence of system and turned inward, to tribalism, and religious and Officials from the ministries of foreign affairs, supply, home constructive act in his calamitous supplanted by the emergence of Arab public opinion should worry America and its Arab allies, ethnic factionalism. Civil society has been crushed and the

and transport met all day Thursday in an emergency session, but two-year tenure, he has unwittingly citizen leaders who could themselves not reassure them, because it means that there is no way for middle class decimated—thanks in no small part to the UN- Reinventing Beijing ○○○○○○○○○○○○ triggered a global tectonic shift. A become entrenched elites. the public to channel its interests, demands and frustrations led economic sanctions that have been enforced since 1991. ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ there was no question of being able to evacuate all Nepali BEIJING – As the Chinese government has stated its goal of workers in case of a full-scale war. “It would not be possible to new citizen superpower is emerging Sustaining a democratic and peacefully. Of course, reforming and democratising the Iraqi A US invasion of Iraq, with large numbers of civilian political system is not impossible. On the contrary, the “integrating the 2008 Olympics with Chinese characteristics and bring back all the Nepalis from the Gulf and provide them to challenge the primacy of global peoples and expropriating the “Another world is possible”. ethnicity and ideology. We are enduring “citizen superpower” elite. By threatening virtually wealth created by their labour, these Despite overwhelming seeing a phenomenon heretofore capable of tempering the excesses of casualties, would deepen the sense of victimisation and Iraqis have suffered more than most and have learned spiritual civilisation”, its choice of mainly foreign architects alternative employment,” admitted Yuba Raj Khatiwada, member of defeat felt by Arab youths and make them inclined to join al- the hard way the perils of authoritarianism and entrusted with the search for Beijing’s new architectural identity the National Planning Commission. everyone and plundering everything elite are rapidly exhausting their opposition from their own unprecedented in human affairs: the the elite superpower will require Qaeda-style holy war cells. Far from undermining militancy oppression. They recognise their vested interest in still of value in this diminished most precious resource: what little electorates, the governments of emergence of a global public interest steady effort, clarity of purpose, and remains puzzling to many. A cabinet meeting on Thursday was expected to decide on a and combatting terror, a war will likely play into the hands of overcoming their divisions and rebuilding their political What is dubbed Beijing’s first European-style skyscraper is on world, President Bush has remains of their peoples’ faith in Britain, Italy, Spain, Australia, with a capacity to contend on equal eternal vigilance against a totalitarian al-Qaeda, giving it a new lease on life. community. range of options from fuel rationing to odd-even rules on vehicles the drawing boards of Dutch architects from the Office for so as to reduce consumption. Nepal Oil Corporation depots in quickened the pulse of our collective their good will. Eastern Europe and US client terms with the great powers of the temptation arising from within as Indeed, militant Islamists, hoping to recover from the Iraq also possesses human and material resources passion for what still matters to us. The global argument over regimes in the Arab world have earth. well as without. It will also require a devastating blows they have absorbed since the war on terror that should work in favor of democracy in the long term. Metropolitan Architecture. German architect, Albert Speer Jr, will Thankot and Amlekhganj are said to have enough storage capacity began, are already positioning themselves to capitalise on the But democracy cannot be delivered to Iraq by an build a north-south axis across the city that will connect the new to last only one month of normal consumption. This sudden ascendancy to whether to allow the Bush capitulated to Washington’s Yet before they celebrate this true partnership between leaders superpower status did not occur administration to attack Iraq is mercenary “coalition of the killing” breakthrough moment, citizen and citizens in place of the coming war with Iraq. In the last few weeks, al-Qaeda's outside power. Only Iraqis, with international assistance, Olympic Park with the Imperial Forbidden City. The headquarters Government spokesman Ramesh Nath Pandey said propaganda messages have pointed increasingly at the can transform their country. This task requires time, overnight. A fundamental accelerating citizen alienation from in sordid political deals enforced by activists must confront the domination and manipulation that for the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country’s Wednesday “all necessary steps would be taken if war broke Iraqi crisis. The organisation seeks to reinvent itself as a patience, hard work and luck. It will likely take one or two realignment of interests and identity leadership elite and triggering a massive bribery and brutal continuing weaknesses in their new- have historically characterised their largest, was assigned to the US firm Skidmore Owens & Merrill. out”. Some gas retailers took this to mean that the government defender of the Iraqi people. decades, not just a year or two, the proposed time frame has been underway for two decades. historic realignment. The nation- intimidation. The machinations of found strength. The spontaneous relationship. In this, al-Qaeda finds a receptive audience. The of American military presence in Iraq after the expected The preference for foreign talent to remake Beijing has been would hike the price, and shut shop to hoard their stock. This Global governmental and corporate state that for several hundred years the global elite, on behalf of a emergence of street demonstrations The version of globalisation that dominant Arab-Muslim narrative stresses that the coming ouster of Hussein. so evident that plenty of cultural friction has arisen. The spread panic-buying, and led to most gas stations to close by elite have increasingly aligned held the allegiance of citizens to narrow class interest not only in this and shoestring social movements, if emerged since the end of the Cold war has nothing to do with fighting terror. Rather, it is Unless America is willing to police the new order for construction of China’s Grand National Theatre, awarded to the noon Thursday. themselves with one another rather “God and country” is being replaced particular war but in closed-door fuelled by unrealistic expectations, War has been fatally flawed by its intended to settle old scores and make Washington the many years and invest vast political and economic French architect Paul Andreu in 2000, has been criticised as too Officials told us there was nothing to worry about. “The could all too easily be deflated by anti-democratic nature. The version arbiter of Arab destiny and resources, particularly oil. By resources in assisting, not imposing, the reconstruction of expensive, too alien to Chinese culture and has been repeatedly than their nations of origin. by a new identification between negotiations that consistently trade attacking Iraq, the US could win the armed confrontation state and society, Iraq will fracture and descend into supply of fuel is regular and there is no need to introduce At the same time, they have ordinary citizens and their ad hoc off the public interest for private the grinding struggle required for now emerging to replace it must be stalled by an avalanche of objections. provisions like rationing at the moment,” NP Sanjel, from the with Hussein, but probably lose the broader—and more chaos. Its neighbours will be destabilised. New jihadi Foreign architects however, are lined up to satisfy the rapidly accumulated an ever larger social movements across all national gain, have opened up a yawning gulf long-term social transformation. driven by a democratic process in vital—political struggle for the future of the country. groups will arise. Not only will there be no peace and Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies told us. Even without share of wealth and power at the and ethnic boundaries, most often between leaders and peoples. The lack of resources and self- which the interests of ordinary American officials do not seem to recognise how democracy in Iraq, but the West's security interests will needs of China’s building boom, undaunted by the clamour of the war, the government was reviewing the price of kerosene and expense of the middle classes and in opposition to the policies of their What a coercive Communist discipline to sustain a steady, citizens—those most affected by its difficult, costly and prolonged the task of creating a be endangered further. Sadly, this worst case scenario is a nationalist lobby that wants to see China’s skylines mapped diesel to check adulteration and smuggling across the border. the poor. Wealth and income own governments. International could never achieve effective presence leads to policies—are fully represented. peaceful order and a viable democracy in Iraq will be. hardly entertained by American officials, who now seem by Chinese. (IPS) There is a lack of appreciation of how deeply entrenched The Nepali economy is going to take a direct hit. “The Iraq war inequality both within and between The anti-globalisation through conspiracy, the global disenchantment and burnout. (IPS) to be prisoners of their own rhetoric. will have a multiple effect on the Nepali economy,” says economist are Iraq's sectarian, tribal and ethnic loyalties. A sense of

countries, especially within the most movement has joined with global leadership elite through egregiously Governments and corporations humility and skepticism is missing. (© Project Syndicate) Solar power leader ○○○○○○○○○○○○ Biswombher Pyakuryal. “It will not only reduce remittances sent by advanced industrial nations, has antiwar sentiment to become a self-serving policies have succeeded equipped with a retinue of lawyers (Mark Sommer, journalist and The building blocks and institutions necessary for a ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ Nepalis working in the Gulf countries, but could also have an reached levels formerly seen only in pandemic of citizen resistance—and in stimulating among disparate and publicists are paid handsomely director of the Mainstream functioning polity, let alone a democracy, do not exist. Since (Fawaz A Gerges is Professor of Middle Eastern Studies BANGKOK – When Thailand’s largest solar power plant begins adverse impact on Nepal’s exports to the US and its allies.” banana republics. By brazenly an embrace of the credo of Porto publics worldwide: a supranational to outflank, outlast and co-opt Media Project, a syndicated the advent of army rule in 1958, successive regimes have at Sarah Lawrence College, and author of the producing energy in March next year, it will make this country a betraying the interests of their own Alegre’s World Social Forum, that solidarity that transcends geography, citizen movements. Politicians and radio program.) terrorised Iraqis into submission and bled the country white forthcoming The Islamists and the West. ) leader of this form of alternative energy in South-east Asia. What impresses local environmentalists is that achievement comes courtesy of the government—the plant being built in northern ANALYSIS by EDWARD N LUTTWAK COMMENT by RALF DAHRENDORF Mae Hong Son province is the work of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT). The plant will have the capacity to generate only 5 MW, bringing the country’s total solar energy capacity to 10 MW by 2004. Currently, renewable energy, which includes biomass, small-scale hydroelectric Saddam’s strategy plants and solar power, contributes above only one percent of Thailand’s energy mix. (IPS) xpert in internal repression unlikely that Saddam’s elite forces but utterly incompetent in will be caught in well-identified Why defending Baghdad like another Tony Blair stakes all

military strategy, Saddam barracks. Stalingrad will not work. ven those who disagree with British Prime Minister Tony Blair's unacceptable views became the new orthodoxy accepted by most of their Soul-searching in Indian media ○○○○○○○○○○○○ E ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ Saddam’s security system for

Hussein thinks that he can fight ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ stance on the Iraq crisis rarely fail to praise his courage. US President By defying populism, Blair has citizens. In a sense, this is the definition of true leadership: to take a and win. His strategy seems to be to Baghdad includes the Special CHENNAI – Indian media should uphold standards and handle E George W Bush never faces hostile crowds in the way that Blair must. country and its people to a better future which is not yet clear to most but increasing commercial pressures on their editorial content defend Baghdad as another Republican Guard, whose 16,000 than open-field combat. Even in linking up with armoured columns shown statesmanship. Stalingrad, street by street, house men are Iraq’s most disciplined, “heroic” Stalingrad, the workers’ racing up from Kuwait. The When Blair enters Parliament for the weekly ritual of Prime Minister's that has been partly discovered and partly created by those in power who without compromising on credibility or profitability. This was by house. best equipped troops. It is not clear militia collapsed at the battle’s offensive into and around Iraq’s Questions, members of his own Labor Party heckle him and ask hostile hold an unerring sense of direction. one of the issues raised at a seminar here by the Media A war strategy that deliberately how many street-fighters Saddam beginning. second city of Basra is to questions. Outside parliament, even on television, Blair confronts groups There are those who think that this is precisely what might happen to Development Foundation last week. Editor of The Business begins the way that most wars end, can obtain from his five competing The Special Republican Guard discourage Iran from venturing that emphatically demand peace. Blair over Iraq. They foresee a short war, the rapid collapse of the Baathist Standard, TN Ninan said the palming off of advertising as with a street-fighting defence of the security forces whose 25,000- are supposedly loyal because they across the Shatt river border. Throughout it all, Blair has shown the courage of his convictions. These regime, and a new beginning for Iraq's people. Blair will then have news was the worst sin. At the same time, he said every capital city, is certainly original. It 30,000 men are distributed are recruited largely from Fighter bombers and attack are, quite simply, that Saddam Hussein is an evil ruler who potentially triumphed in almost the classical sense of that word. Along with President organisation was guilty to some degree, and there was little to is also realistic in not even trying to throughout Iraq. Saddam’s own al-Bu Nasir tribe but helicopters would be employed to threatens his neighbors and the wider world, and that he has to go. Bush, he would be acclaimed as a great leader, while voices of dissent and be gained by pointing fingers. defend Iraq’s borders against “Fedayeen Saddam” with more they are also a true Praetorian intercept any counter-attacks Blair's posture is all the more remarkable at a time when political opposition would be silenced. His re-election would hardly be an issue; on Executive Editor of The Hindu, Malini Parthasarathy, said American air power. But it is fantasy 15,000 men recruited from trusted Guard, like their Roman against the flanks of the advancing leaders depend on opinion polls and the views expressed by so-called “focus the contrary, those who opposed him will be in trouble. the identity crisis facing the Indian media was partly due to the to think that the people of tribes will provide strength in predecessors. Many officers are too columns and to break up blocking groups” to tell them what to think. Many politicians try to stay as close to However, other scenarios loom, not so much of defeat as of confusion anxiety not to rock the boat because of the fear of dipping numbers. For really big numbers, close to the intrigues of Iraq’s forces. Baghdad will defend Saddam’s prevailing majority views as possible. They regard this as “democratic” and and the impossibility of creating sustainable peace. But what is at stake in circulation figures. regime. It will have to be done by the Jaysh al-Sha’abi Popular Army, palace politics to remain blindly In 1991 less than 150 aircraft “We are also facing an identity crisis because we are lazy Saddam’s elite troops. a party militia, has 150,000 men devoted to Saddam. A few have were equipped to launch the hope that such fidelity to the popular will guarantee them re-election. the Iraq debate is not so much a vision of the future as a moral principle. It Fortunately, such populism—for it is just that—is not ubiquitous. really is a matter of conviction. Blair, at least, is pursuing his Iraq in the pursuit of our own intrinsically enjoined obligation to Whether they will fight after and women in Baghdad alone. But been executed over the years for precision weapons that did 90 pursue the truth,” she said. Warning against confusion of street-fighting requires even more plotting against Saddam. Not all of percent of the useful bombing. Now Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar of Spain is not far behind Blair in showing policy because he is deeply convinced that he is right. He will still heavy bombing depends on the patriotism and nationalism with loyalty to the government, she success of the air campaign. It is training, cohesion and leadership them were innocent. all US and British strike aircraft use the courage of his convictions. President Jacques Chirac of France has the retain that conviction even if he fails, although the price he will pay is Recently, Saddam moved the precision weapons. The number of support of his people, but he also has an agenda that appears to be certain to be high. Unlike Adenauer, Brandt and de Gaulle, Blair may said “very few question the authenticity of government versions on terrorist incidents.” Cruise missiles explode Republican Guard into Baghdad. separate targets that can be concerned as much with French grandeur as with mere popular acclaim. jeopardising West Germany's European and Atlantic destiny, which by this really be going against the grain of his people rather than anticipating a in Baghdad on Thursday Its 10 divisions, with at least attacked in the first 48 hours should Managing editor of Malayala Manorama, Philip Mathew, The most flagrant absence of leadership on display today, in the name point had become generally accepted. changing general view. said that newspapers could play a positive role in carrying out morning, marking the 100,000 men, are better trained be five times as great as in 1991. of following the apparent majority view of the people, is that of Chancellor Both leaders prevailed and in the end won elections. Other leaders have Blair knows all this, which is why he has hinted more than once that he beginning of the Iraq war. and armed than the regular army, More than 900 ship-launched cruise campaigns for the development of a region. Columnist Sucheta Gerhard Schröder in Germany. He not only probably won his last election proved the same point. Charles de Gaulle prevailed politically after ending has put his political career and his position as prime minister on the line. Dalal warned that if the Indian media did not police which is now weaker than in the first missiles—triple the number in by openly opposing military action in Iraq, but he continues to behave as if French colonial rule in Algeria. Mikhail Gorbachev did not, but he remains He is a true conviction politician, inspired less by a sense of the future as by Gulf War of 1991, when it scarcely 1991—will double the impact of the themselves, then regulators might step in. Indian Express resisted before surrendering. initial air strikes. (© Project Syndicate) he were heading a peace march rather than a country. a prophet without honour in Russia for the policies of glasnost and a sense of morality. Such leaders risk a great deal—and not just for editor, Shekhar Gupta, said there was no contradiction The main offensive from Perhaps Schröder should spare a thought for his two great predecessors, perestroika that led to the demise of the Soviet Union and the rise of themselves. Perhaps they risk more than can be justified. In today's crisis, between good journalism and the marketplace. Vinod Mehta, Kuwait must advance 500km to (Edward N Luttwak is one of Konrad Adenauer and Willy Brandt. When Adenauer took Germany firmly democratic Russia. anyone who believes in Western values must hope that such politicians Editor-in-chief of Outlook magazine, said that editors of reach Baghdad. It is for this reason Americaís leading military into the Western alliance, he was not only opposed in parliament (by the There is a point in all these cases that cannot be overlooked. Each emerge victorious. newspapers and magazines should respond to new readers, that the lighter forces centred on strategists. He is a Senior Fellow at Social Democrats), but also by a popular majority that thought his policy political leader espoused ideas, policies or principles that were far ahead of new aspirations and ideas, without undermining the social the 101st Airborne division and the the Centre for Strategic and would make reunification with Soviet-controlled East Germany impossible. their peoples. They had, as it were, only history on their side. (Ralf Dahrendorf, the author of numerous acclaimed books, is a member obligation or credibility of the media. “Change does not mean a British 16th Air Assault brigade will International Studies, Similarly, when Chancellor Brandt launched his Ostpolitik two decades These leaders seemed to be working against the grain, but the grain of the British House of Lords, a former Rector of the London School of sell-out,” he insisted. fly directly into the Baghdad area, Washington DC.) later, he was widely accused of selling out to the Communists and itself was about to change direction. Initially heterodox and apparently Economics and also a former Warden of St Anthony's College, Oxford.) 12 FROM THE NEPALI PRESS THIS PAGE CONTAINS MATERIAL SELECTED FROM THE NEPALI PRESS 21 - 27 MARCH 2003 NEPALI TIMES #137 HISTORY AND CULTURE 21 - 27 MARCH 2003 NEPALI TIMES #137 13

Trial-and-error mutually agreed upon. For this ○○○○○○○○○○○

○○○○○ purpose, monitoring groups of brave Excerpts from an article by Dr Surya and honest people should be formed The safest way Dhungel, a constitutional expert. immediately. If one side tries to use Deshanter, 16 March the peace process to hoodwink the Excerpts of an interview with other for the second time, that spark Subash Nemwang, central “The roots of the present constitutional will engulf the entire country. Such an committee member of the CPN crisis date back to the recommendation act would be a betrayal towards the (UML) and constitutional expert. to postpone parliamentary polls by nation. It would be wise to realise now Budhabar, 19 March major political parties to then premier that nobody stands to gain when the Sher Bahadur Deuba. That was a country is reduced to rubble. last few days. What are they doing? My hunch is that a courtroom is The political parties seem constitutional error. The royal move of 22 March, 1977 being constructed where our trial will take place. GM doesn’t accept 4 October to assume executive powers, reluctant to involve Dalits’ plight Sundarijal this, and feels that this establishment being a military one, is

too, is an unconstitutional move. ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ enlarging and improving the grounds for routine work. But why this themselves in the peace All the activities undertaken ever process. Sanghu, 17 March Dr Bhattarai came in the afternoon with a cardiogram machine—he feverish construction work which can be done routinely? since have been unconstitutional. In monitored the occasional missing of my heart beat. He examined It must not be forgotten that fact the present crisis is not a Maoist party affiliated Dalit Mukti Hat: George W Bush me very carefully, and said that this symptom may not be an when the government was set constitutional one. It is an outcome of Morcha (Dalit Liberation Front) has Jacket: Saddam indication of serious heart trouble. There are many extra causes 23 March against a peaceful solution, we the failure of the political forces to released data that shows more than Balloon: “Don’t you know you’re not allowed to carry such a destructive that point to this symptom; and in my case tension and anxiety may Sundarijal launched an all-party campaign manage political problems within the 500 dalit leaders and workers were weapon? Throw it away immediately…” be the cause. He also said people have however [managed] to live and pressurised the government sphere of the constitution. Now, only a killed during the seven-year long with this type of [affliction] for a very long time. I am greatly GM was in a less optimistic mood today—I will not say that he was in to be more amenable. In the political solution can be sought to “people’s war” by the security forces. Budhabar, 19 March relieved. I did have this symptom for some time, which has only a mood of frustration. His optimism has been constant, even when I same vein, we also called upon resolve the present crisis. In order to been aggravated by my present condition here. Dr Bhattarai said sometimes felt that the king could decide not to respond to our MIN BAJRACHARYA President Tilak Pariyar, accused the the Maoists to give up violence make the constitution functional, government of spreading terror in positions have remained vacant for were unrelated to mandates given to that I could take normal exercise and forget about this trouble gesture and thereby nullify the objective of our return (ie, and join mainstream politics. political parties should go to the polls. dalit villages by mass executions and years and doing away with these his team. Shankar Raj Baral, a altogether. A dental doctor also came for GM who got his teeth national unity) proving our decision to be wrong. He used to filling. I also needed this service, but since it was getting late I told Now, we are pressurising both The constitutional process can torching dalit huts in various villages permanently would cut team member, said most brush aside my doubts and was convinced that there was no way them that I would send for him later. sides to make the talks resume only after a new government is at Kalikot, Bajura and Dang during administrative costs. The steps complaints were related to land out for the king, in his own interest. GM always…advised me that It has been a good day from other point of view also. The I should start thinking of the time when we talk with the king transparent so nobody can back formed. The new parliament can also the state of emergency 2000-2001. would be in line with the disputes, land distribution to work as the ‘constituent assembly’. The election results of India’s General Election for the Parliament so rather than worry my mind with doubts… out of negotiations in an irresponsible way. The injustice inflicted on the recommendation of a commission squatters and Kamaiyas. far—according to the Gorkhapatra of today—have gone in favour of political parties can approach the matter On the last occasion when we were prisoners under King dalits by the Maoists was not included formed two years ago for administrative An evaluation paper prepared the Janata Party which has a large [number] of my friends and of a constitutional amendment as well. Mahendra, GM once said he was not hopeful because the situation Why are the parties against the constituent assembly? in the report. The Maoists may have reforms in the civil service. The by the team revealed an order of supporters of our cause. Its spiritual leader is JP [Jayaprakash favoured the king, but now the situation didn’t favour him and he is There has been an external influence The recent statements and activities from the Maoists also executed many dalits for their positions to be cancelled would mostly continuance to the Irrigation Narayan]. Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay have been defeated. in a tight-corner. Hence GM is hopeful this time. He is even suggest they are in favour of formulating a constitution that behind every constitutional upheaval in political beliefs. Pariyar said dalits be the lower level non-gazetted Division at Doti despite the absence These results have demonstrated the strength of democratic ideal categorical that we shouldn’t be put on trial and that the publicity includes the representation of the king. If that is the case they Nepal and our political leaders over the have been victimised for demanding positions like drivers and peons. of the office chief Umesh Chandra that has prevailed over moves to be supplanted with authoritarian given to our projected trial is free propaganda and allows the king should make clear what they want to achieve outside what last 12 years failed to mange these fundamental human rights denied to Government sources said that Jha, who has been asked to settle all ideals centering around Indira Gandhi who wanted to be equated to make up his mind and also propitiates hardliners in the palace, elements diplomatically. If they don’t amending the present constitution can’t do. This would be the them by traditional values imposed since keeping these positions vacant his pending accounts. The local with India itself. Her defeat is a very happy news for those who pine etc. Today, however, he was less optimistic. He said that Nepal’s fate take lessons from such experiences we by the caste system. The National had no effect on performance, it was prison was directed to make for democracy. Moreover, her politics was wholly diverted to the was not propitious, it would take both its sovereignty and the BP Koirala, into his third month in jail, safest way to end the present crisis. We have no wish to see can’t expect reforms in the the country pass through another state of indecision and Dalit Commission formed by the proof that they are irrelevant and arrangements for efficient food promotion of her son’s status, ultimately to have him succeed her. people’s objective of democracy. When I told him that if the king writes in this serialised jail diary that constitutional process.” Her whole edifice based on chicanery and falsehood has tumbled. I confusion like that of 1950-59 in the name of the constituent government last year has demanded could be cancelled. The cabinet has supplies, toilet facilities and security. saw light and an understanding was reached between him and us, reservations for dalits and the Maoist already endorsed the decision. A Baral said the team unearthed am happy for this reason also. I don’t know whether the Janata Party then we could save both, but the obduracy of the king could bring Ganesh Man Singh has suddenly lost assembly. affiliated Dalit Mukti Morcha has study showed it will save the cases of long absent employees, will obtain enough seats in the parliament to be able to form the about the gloomy prospect envisaged by GM. He said the situation his optimism and feels that democracy

Honour the code government, even if it does succeed with the support of other ○○○○○○○○○○○

○○○○○ been raising the issue for special government Rs 10.6 million in unsettled accounts at the district had gone far beyond repair and nothing could save Nepal. I said Can the king scrap the present constitution? and peoples’ sovereignty in Nepal are Manju Thapa rights to the dalit communities. salaries, pensions and other welfare education office and the selling of splinter groups, whether it can hold all of them together since it we should make our last effort to save it. It may be a matter of touch The Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal 1990 recognises is a hurriedly composed party of divurgent elements—some kind and go, but we have no other choice but to make the effort. As far Kantipur, 17 March Pariyar opined that as long as Nepal facilities. A government employee is expired medication at the public doomed. For his part, BP is in a slightly people as the source of the country’s sovereignty. People can remains a Hindu nation, the state- entitled to monthly salary, medical health office in Baitadi. They also of a League of Nations than a party. My anticipation is that as I am concerned, knowing fully well that the situation is really better frame of mind after a visit from a exercise their sovereign right through this constitution. Jagjivan Ram will again go back to the Congress Party to head desperate, I am making an effort—a national total effort—to raise The code of conduct to be followed sponsored discrimination and facilities and a provident fund. found bad debts, unpaid AgDB Nobody can annul a constitution that was formulated by the injustice against the dalits would Government data shows that loans, expenditures totalling Rs it—his quarrel being wholly with Indira Gandhi her removal from the country out from the political, economic and diplomatic morass doctor. He is happy about the defeat of during the ceasefire has already been the scene could induce him to rejoin his old party which is in popular will. What will those people who say the 1990 continue. His organisation believes presently the bureaucracy has 57,000 without proper accounting that 17 years of the king's dictatorial rule has led her into. At my made public. When the ceasefire was need of a man of some stature to head it. My friend Barma has Indira Gandhi in India, and is constitution can be scrapped do when a similar situation only a secular state authority can 106,000 positions, out of which from the district development age, I have no other choice. That is why I am keen on meeting the announced in late January, people had won, but he doesn’t have sufficient support in the party to enable king even just once to convince him that national efforts can’t be determined more than ever to work to arises in the future? ensure dalit liberation. only 86,000 are filled. committee and a huge number of raised questions about whether the him to assume its leadership, although he is currently the mobilised by the total centralisation of political authority solely in “lift Nepal out of the political, Maoists really wanted peace, or if this Tilak Pariyar said that affirmative undecided cases at district forest president of the party. his own hand. If I could succeed in this then I will have personal The government argues that the root of the bad governance was just another excuse to prepare for action for dalits is an illusion as it office in Darchula. Sunuwar said Today the security guards put up a very powerful searchlight at satisfaction, and the sacrifices of so many men will be relevant and economic and diplomatic morass”. depends on the discretion of the Inspections all the lapses were noted and

is the present constitution. yet another onslaught of violence. But ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ the gate and frenzied commotion has been going on outside in the won’t go in vain. Certainly there have been weaknesses in governance during now suspicions are being expressed if regime, and only a handful would Laxmi Prasad Upadhaya immediate steps to redressal had the last 12 years and there is a need to move forward by the government itself is not in favour of have access to such an arrangement. Space Time, 19 March been made. Importantly, district correcting those mistakes. We have a system and the lasting peace. The recent activities Citing the failure of the Indian education offices in Bajhang, mechanism within this constitution to correct such that have violated the code have given government in providing reservation After an exhaustive first month of Achham and Bajura were asked to aberrations. We already have a mechanism to punish the rise to such suspicions although there for their dalit communities, Pariyar investigating inefficiency and graft in make arrangement for teachers to corrupt and book anybody indulging in irregular activities, have been some reports of violations by claimed they need special rights until administration in the far western return to their appointed schools. even if it is the prime minister. Those who point at the so- the Maoists, too. The primary they reach the social, economical and zones of Seti and Mahakali, the Most teachers were found living in called bad governance of the past should ask themselves responsibility for both the government political status of other advantaged mobile team only offered directives. district headquarters though they whether the Panchayat system had mechanisms other than and the Maoists is to respect and caste groups. “Reservation would Government offices in Doti, Baitadi, received salaries from schools in oppression. honour the code of conduct that they actually support the continuation of Darchula, Dadeldhura, Kailali and remote areas. The functions of land the caste system. Therefore, to achieve Kanchanpur received dozens of revenue employees were genuine changes and equality, dalits instructions to streamline their unsatisfactory in Kanchanpur and ASomething new community radio station wins heartsin and mindsthe in western air Nepal. QUOTE OF THE WEEK and women need to be protected by functions for efficiency and abuse of authority in land special rights,” he said. promptness. Although complaints distribution to squatters in Kailali Kathmandu’s Sagarmatha FM. who also owns a radio shop, says, against various NGOs were filed, the were also noted. Nepali journalism has made Other programs include Sanjavani “Since Swargadwari came along, strides but hasn’t been able mobile team did not initiate any The team has yet to decide what Spring cleaning action will be taken. They have (Elixir of life) and Saha-astitwa radio sets have been selling like

○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ action against them. to break away from the (Coexistence) which are aimed at hot cakes. It’s good for business.” periphery of political Bimal Gautam Coordinator Champak Sunuwar made a written request to the home minister to reconsider its decision raising the status of women. Scratchy broadcasts from Radio fraternities…if rural Rajdhani, 18 march said the team aimed at immediate improvement in services they found to establish a DIG office of armed The fact that Swargadwari has Nepal are being replaced by the journalism is promoted it police in the Uttariya area on behalf survived even a year in the clarity and rising popularity of The government is preparing to lacking during their office visits. He can defeat the politicisation of the locals. The team was unable scrap more than 7,500 positions also said more than 90 percent of polarised and tense atmosphere Swargadwari. of journalism. to visit the remote areas of Bajhang, from the bureaucracy. Most of the complaints filed with the team during the worst part of the However, the station which is during their visits to the six districts Bajura and Achham. insurgency in the heartland of the named after a popular ashram in RAM HARI JOSHI -Bharat Dutta Koirala conflict is already proof of the Pyuthan, cannot survive from was awarded the Ramon power of its message. The commercials and depends on Magsaysay Award for station’s listeners include grants from donors. Listenership journalism last year for his villagers, local civil service and is estimated at 700,000 in Dang contribution to the even the Maoists. “Swargadwari and parts of Salyan, Rolpa, development of journalism, No more killing gives the most authentic and Pyuthan and Banke. Once its not just in Nepali but in regional country. FM has won the people’s in Chhalphal on 16 March. Kantipur, 14 March reliable news,” wrote one transmission capacity is increased dialects as well. trust by being reliable with news, anonymous Maoist listener from to 300 watts listeners as far away The station has special and not being a purely As the representatives of the government and the Maoists neighbouring Rolpa. During the as Nepalganj will be able to programs for Dang’s indigenous commercial station.” made public the code of conduct in the capital last Thursday, a RAM HARI JOSHI emergency, the Maoists cadre access the station. Tharu people. Said one elderly Despite the immense

in DANG ○○○○○○○○○ family scarred by violence prayed for peace. Addressing a RAM○○○○○○○ HARI JOSHI compassion. Last month, depended heavily on Swargadwari Listenership zoomed after Tharu farmer: “It’s wonderful to popularity of Swargadwari FM— function to mark the first death anniversary of her father, Ram ne year after it started Swargadwari (the name means and the BBC Nepali Service for Swargadwari started relaying hear our own language directly judging from the deluge of heart- Mani Gyawali (right), his youngest daughter Anita wished no broadcasting, Dang’s first “heaven’s gate” after an ashram in news of what was happening in the newspaper headlines from Radio relate to our day-to-day life. We warming letters from listeners— Nepali should go through what her family had suffered in the and only community Pyuthan) was the local host for country, according to KL Peedit, Sagarmatha in Kathmandu at learn so many things, from the station is plagued by problems name of the “people’s war”. O radio, Swargadwari FM the Travelling Peace Concert ex-editor of the now-banned Jana 6AM. This program now has the improving crops to health tips.” like the lack of local and national She also demanded the rehabilitation of orphaned children 102.8, has already become a which saw a record-breaking Ubhar weekly. highest ratings. The management Station manager Dadhiram level advertisers, initial threats should be on the agenda of the peace talks. The Maoists fixture in every home in this 60,000 people flocking to One indication of the at Swargadwari FM encourages Subedi (pic, above), who switched from the Maoists, and lack of murdered Gyawali, a member of the Nepali Congress general conflict-torn district. Tulsipur to listen to famous popularity of the station is the local artists, and does not feature from to broadcasting after 15 years stand-by broadcasting equipment. Newspaper: Peace talks convention from western district of Arghakhanchi, in February The station is functioning as a Nepali singers. soaring sales of FM radio sets in any Hindi or English songs. This as a print journalist, told us, “We Subedi doesn’t mind admitting that Reader: Zzzzzz 2002. “Even after a year, we are still haunted by his loss,” says true public service broadcaster, Its Shanti Abhiyan (Campaign Dang district. Retailers of tiny has resulted in a surge of singers were very concerned about the Swargadwari is deep in the red Binita, another of his daughters. A well-known social activist, with news people can use, for Peace) program present Chinese and Indian made FM sets and musicians recording their Tharus who have been marginalised despite all staff being voluntary. But Gyawali was killed while at home with his family members at information relevant to their daily discussions on conflict resolution, in Ghorahi and Tulsipur bazar songs in the FM-compatible for so long. Our sole objective is he is not worried, “It is not easy, Kantipur, 15 March Kerunga. lives and with music and religious peace building with studio guests, can barely meet the demand. digital format. They are churning to inform, educate and entertain but our popularity means that we programs that promote peace and and is rebroadcast from Durgesh Yogi, a health worker out folk, modern and pop songs people living in this part of the are in it for the long haul.” 14 CITY 21 - 27 MARCH 2003 NEPALI TIMES #137 PROFILE 21 - 27 MARCH 2003 NEPALI TIMES #137 15

BOOKWORM In the March Himal The magic of astral voyages: the art of interdimensional travel Dr Bruce Goldberg New Age Books, 2002 Karna’s karma The Shroud: Rs 250 An investiga- Out-of-body experiences are as natural to our functioning as breathing suggests the author. At 60, the man who “discovered” tion into Indus- Goldberg presents dozens of time-tested techniques that train a person to safely leave their Thamel, is turning to heritage Ganga fog physical body and explore other dimensions. Special feature tourism. on HIV/AIDS

ABOUT TOWN in South Asia JANAKI○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ GURUNG The Gauri Shanker trekking area (including Rolwaling): A cultural tour book FESTIVAL AND EXHIBITIONS Patricia East, Susan Hoivik, Max Petrik, Sara Shneiderman, Mark Turin t was the 1970s. Freak Street was the happening place in Jochhe ‘Denizens’ of Tribal/Village Rugs and Kilims from West Asia. Exhibition and sale on 23 March from Eco Himal, 2003 for hippie tourists in Nepal, the land of the wild hash. They sat the Northeast 11AM-6PM at Sammelan Hall, Shangri-La Hotel, Lazimpat. 4432830 Rs 300 on the temple steps in Basantpur, read Allen Ginsberg and I Adivasi up- Negotiating borders contemporary Pakistani miniatures from 23 March-1 This book, written by five experts, provides detailed information on trekking routes that are watched the world go by. April at Siddhartha Art Gallery. 4411122 untouched yet easily accessible in the Gauri Shankar Trekking Area due west of the Everest A little to the north, past Asan was Thamel. There were wide open rising in Kerala 8th Annual Open House Flower Exhibition 10AM-5PM from 21-25 March at region. It also has an in-depth introduction to its rich culture and history. spaces then, only a few houses with vegetable gardens. It was a An ordinary the Standard Nursery, Bansbari, Maharajgung. backwater. Then came Karna Sakya with his Kathmandu Guest history of Nepali Landscapes exhibition of painting from 21-25 March at the Alliance House and the rest is history. migration Française, Thapathali. India 2020: A vision for the new millennium APJ Abdul Kalam with YS Rajan Today, Thamel is a brash, crowded, cosmopolitan city within a La soirée de la francophonie -The French Speaker Party 21 March at 7 PM Penguin Books, 2002 city. Visitors either love it or they hate it, but they can’t ignore it. And at Alliance Française, Thapathali. Rs 400 To subscribe: Call 5543-333 or write to The authors offer a vision of how India can be among the world’s first five economic powers in it all started with Karna’s baby, KGH. “Freak Street was a cult thing [email protected] EVENTSEVENTSEVENTS less than two decades. They cite growth rates and development trends to show that the goal of and it died a natural death,” recalls Karna, “Kathmandu Guest House Ex AVM party at AVM 1PM on 29 March Tickets Rs 300 single, Rs 500 couple. Contact a prosperous, strong nation is not an unrealistic one. was all about atmosphere. It catered to the ecological-minded AVM School mountain adventurer.” World Cup Cricket Finals at Rox Bar, Hyatt Regency Kathmandu. No cover charge. As it turned out, KGH became so popular that it developed Annual KVPT Fund-Raiser Dinner 2003 at Soaltee Crowne Plaza on 27 March. Tickets Courtesy: Mandala Book Point, Kantipath, 227711, [email protected] something of a cult following itself. Cat Stevens stayed there, as did Rs 2000 pp. Available at KPVT Patan (5546055), Soaltee Crowne Plaza (4272555), Jeremy Irons and Ricky Martin. The guidebooks wrote about it, and Chez Caroline (4263070) CLASSIFIED suddenly it was “discovered”. Then, Karna’s Law kicked in: “Everyone World Music/Fusion from Shukrabar. Prastar on 21 March. Tickets Rs 350. 4218517 wants to go some place exclusive, but once everyone starts going there,

○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ it isn’t exclusive anymore.” DRINK Visit Ground Zero Fine wines, designer bathrooms, spacious living, dining, modern candles, cards, gifts, stationery, wooden kitchen individual telephone, terrace, In true Kathmandu fashion, KGH clones sprang up, and before Splash Bar & Grill Exotic cocktails, panoramic view. Happy hour 5:30-7PM. Radisson you knew it Thamel had become a must-be for all tourists visiting Hotel, Kathmandu. 4411818 items, perfumes and more. Darbar Marg, overlooking English garden with tall trees in opposite Hotel de l’Annapurna quiet surrounding. Contact: 524389 Nepal. “The reason it clicked was because it was vibrant, urbane, and MUSICMUSICMUSIC it served as a re-entry zone for trekkers coming back from weeks of 1974 AD new singles at 7.30 PM on 21 March. Entry Rs 200. Big Screen Cricket at Training RTC IELTS courses are taught by Visit Femilines, the Exclusive Lingerie Store solitude and rough-living of the mountains.” 1.30 PM, 23 March. Free. Moksh, inside Club Hardic, Kupondole. 5528703 IELTS examiners using the very latest for ladies undergarments, nightwear, Karna Sakya is a forester-turned-hotel entrepreneur, and has Harald Eikeland and band at Jivin’ Joe’s Restaurant, Kupondole, Friday at 5PM. materials. Too good an opportunity to bathrobes and more. Ladies staff. Opposite prided himself in doing pioneering new work. He has travelled across The Steam Injuns with Abhaya on Friday at The Red Onion Bar, Lazimpat. 4416071 miss. Enroll now! Tel: 429590 Sajha Yatayat, Harihar Bhawan, Pulchowk. Tel: Nepal, working with naturalists, and was in the team that drew the Live music by Catch 22, Friday at Rum Doodle Restaurant, Thamel. 4414336 547428 boundary of the Royal Chitwan National Park. “All that travelling Rusty Nails 7.30 PM on Friday at The Fusion, Dwarika’s Hotel. 4479488 To Let In Jawalakhel near Zoo Fully changed my whole outlook about my country and about myself,” he Furnished Apartment 3 bedrooms, 2 Advertisements in all Medias: 428575 Friday Nites at Jatra with The Strings. Free entry. Thamel recalls. That is when he learnt “that tourism must not be a bird that Gaines every night at Kantipur Restaurant, Club Himalaya Nagarkot Resort. For insertions ring NT Marketing at 543333-36. fouls its own nest, it has to be a goose that keeps laying golden eggs”. 680083/ 80 He calls it “soft tourism”, or “tourism forever”—the kind of controlled sustainable tourism that has a small ecological footprint, FOOD creates employment and raises living standards while preserving the Krishnarpan 40 percent off lunch and dinner. Dwarika’s Hotel, reservations 4479488 Breakfast deal Smoked salmon, scrambled eggs and filtered coffee. Weekends in indigenous traditions, cultures and the environment. March. 9-11AM. Thomas Kilroy at 1905, Kantipath. 4225272 Karna was the architect of the Visit Nepal Year 1998, which was Chez Caroline, Baber Mahal Revisited. Weekend designer brunch. 4263070 successful in raising Nepal’s total tourist arrivals to the half-a-million Celebrate womanhood with 50 percent discount for ladies every Wednesday at Olive mark. New international airlines started flying into Kathmandu, Garden amidst. Radisson Hotel, Kathmandu. 4411818 conventional tourism got a boost, and there was a 25 percent increase Dwarika’s Hotel offers 40 percent discount in March at Krishnarpan. The 12th century in domestic tourism. styled swimming pool is open. Reservations 4479488 After his wife and daughter died of cancer within months of each Saturday Asian Brunch at The Café, Sunday European Lunch at Rox Restaurant. other in 1987, Karna devoted all his time and energy to helping Hyatt Regency Kathmandu. 4491234 Sangeeth Sivan-directed Chura Liyaa fundraise for the state-of-the-art cancer hospital that is now set up in Great Value Lunches at the China Garden. Pizza Promotion at the Alfresco. Soaltee Hai Tumne marks the acting debut of Bharatpur. Then he designed the Park Village Hotel in Crowne Plaza. 4273999 yesteryear actor Sanjay Khan’s son Budanilkantha, which is integrated to the Shivapuri National Park, Zayed Khan as Vijay. Co-starring Café Mitra goes Chinese Wednesday night with guest chef Ranjana Yonzone from and nature dominates the physical infastructure. 5 March. 4259015 another star child Esha Deol as Tina, Traditional favourites at The Sunrise Café for breakfast and lunch. Yak & Yeti Hotel. the script is a roller coaster ride of love, 4248999 trust, betrayal and the mad rush for Traditional Nepali Thali Lunch at Patan Museum Café 11AM-4PM. 5526271 money. Shot on location in Goa and Saturday BBQ Lunch at Club Himalaya Nagarkot. Rs 500 per person. 680083/ 80 Bangkok, the film is liberally punctuated with song and dance sequences. With GETAWAYSGETAWAYSGETAWAYS all the right ingredients for a mega- Shivapuri Heights Traditional cottage with modern facilities. www.escape2nepal.com masala blockbuster, Chura Liyaa Hai Club Himalaya Nagarkot Resort Packages available. 680080/83 Tumne has something for everyone in Ultimate Bungy at The Last Resort. 4439525 the family. The question is whether 12PM, 3PM, 6PM Tea House Combo Rs 700 pp at Tea House Inn, Nagarkot. 4410432 newcomer Zayed will succeed in The Great Godavari Getaway Special weekend packages. Godavari Village Resort. JAI NEPAL CINEMA Telephone booking: 442220 stealing the hearts of the audience. Online booking www.jainepal.com 5560675 Tiger Mountain Pokhara Lodge $55 pp per night. 01-361500 Jungle Base Camp Lodge, Bardia National Park. Rafting and more. 061-32112

NEPALI WEATHER by NGAMINDRA DAHAL MIN BAJRACHARYA VIS -19 -03-2003 02:30 GMT BRICK by BRICK This satellite image taken on Wednesday morning Karna’s latest project is to convert his family home in Naxal into a Hywards 5000 shows a fresh incursion of moisture from the west. bed-and-breakfast pensione called Maya Mansion (see picture above). Combined with the warming up of the north Indian Help build Kathmandu Valley’s first and only community FM This is an old Rana home designed and built by Nepal’s first civil plains, this system has the potential for generating station. The radio that cares about you, your community, your engineer, Kumar Narsingh Rana and is nearly 100 years old. The Localised thermals and thunderstorms along the family, your water, your air, your streets, your jobs. interior has been completely renovated into ten spacious and modern foothills. Expect some of these storms accompanied rooms, there is a cosy library and dining area. Often, Karna can be seen by strong winds to lash Kathmandu Valley towards sitting in the gazebo chatting with guests about the best place to go late afternoon. Mornings should be fresh and bright, Help Radio Sagarmatha move into its own premises and become a with maximum temperatures notching up a rise, and sustainable, self-sufficient station. Help us build your future bird-watching, or where the best Newari cuisine can be found. night temperatures climbing up to double-digits. through public service broadcasting. Karna hopes that others will copy his idea and turn some of the crumbling Rana palaces as well as the old bahals inside Kathmandu, KATHMANDU VALLEY Patan and Bhaktapur into b&b hotels as well. Asked about what Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Buy a brick today by pledging support for drives him, Karna says: “This is my karma. I am different from other Radio Sagarmatha businessmen, money is not my main motivation. With everything I Call: 01-5542245, 01-5528091, or do, I need the satisfaction of knowing that I am doing something 24-08 24-09 25-09 25-09 26-10 email: [email protected] /]l8of ] ;u/dfyf original, creative, and also that I am paying back the debts that I owe to my motherland.” 16 21 - 27 MARCH 2003 NEPALI TIMES #137 Under My Hat NEPALI SOCIETY by Kunda Dixit An offer you can’t refuse f all the investment opportunities available pulp any minute now by a broad multilateral today, the Iraq USD Capital Protected US-led coalition composed of Great Britain, O Growth Fund provides the highest yield Andorra, the Canaries and the Federated States of Micronesia, Daddy had asked me and earnings potential. As a new investor who ramod Lama has an entirely has just put my entire life savings into this to stash his cash at a secret vault in Zurich. However, as you may have gathered, my different way of meditating. scheme, I share with readers this email so you too To unshackle his mind, he father’s bank accounts have been frozen P skies down very steep slopes can also make big bucks: until he agrees to live in exile in Des very fast. Moines, Idaho, for the rest of his “It’s just great. Every thought natural life. leaves my mind, it is only the Due to the aforementioned reasons, I next turn that I think of when am soliciting for your humble and coming down a slope,” says the confidential assistance to take custody of 33-year-old Ohio-based FIFTY million United States Dollars software engineer who (US$50,000,000.00), and to also front for represented Nepal at the Salt the extended Hussein family in the areas of Lake Winter Olympics, and later business you deem profitable. These funds at Aomori in Japan. need to be accessed by a trustworthy proxy He didn’t win any medals, on behalf of my father, and that is why we but Pramod did become the first are approaching you because we know for Nepali ever to compete in a a fact that not only are you exceptionally slalom event, one that requires greedy, but you are also a complete idiot. 56 turns in the course of 1km So, to start with, all you need to do is with an average steepness of forward to joining the US Ski and painful, but he was back on the open a bank account in the Cayman 30 degrees. Snowboard Association, a big powder before long. Through Islands with a minimum deposit of EIGHT Pramod is into all kinds of organisation that offers summer he dreams of fresh hundred thousand United States Dollars adventure sports: mountain competitive races. With coaching snow and he couldn’t help (US$800,000.00) and give me power of biking, rock climbing and roller he will be in for tougher celebrating the unusually high From: [email protected] attorney to be the sole operator of this blading, but admits he was not competition in the coming skiing snowfall in Ohio this February. all that prepared for competition. season. His wife Moini supports his Subject: An offer you can’t refuse account. Then, using my Dad’s secret password you will transfer the US$50 “My limited skiing and the Pramod started skiing in 1995, love for skiing but would be Date: 18 March, 2003 extensive media coverage but money, school and work kept happier if he took up a less million (United States Dollars Five plus six Good Day Respectable Sir/Madam, played tricks in my head. I was him away from the slopes until adventurous sport. “Like golf,” You may be very surprised to receive this zeroes) into the same confidential account close to panicking and even 2000. But the constraints did not she says. Pramod thinks he has email since we haven’t met, but I’m sure in the Caymans, since he is not allowed to closer to quitting,” says end his fascination with the sport. become a more careful skier after you’ve heard of me. I am Uday, son of the operate it himself. Pramod. But his Japanese As soon as he could afford it he learning he was a father-to-be. president of Iraq (pronounced “eye-rack”), Dad and myself will then transfer 20 coaches persuaded him to bought mountain skis and a But it is not his skills on skis that His Excellency Saddam Hussein. percent of the fifty million to any bank persevere, and so he ended up season pass to the slopes. But he looks forward to sharing I have it in good authority that you are a account you give us. (Cross our hearts.) racing slalom on a pair of determination alone was not when he comes home to Nepal. “I reasonably greedy person who will not We will also refund any of your incidental borrowed skis. enough—ski injuries again kept want to educate Nepali children,” hesitate to grab hard cash when it is waved expenses on snacks, phone calls or taxis Pramod, now a permanent him away from the sport most of Pramod says. “It is what they under your nostrils. That is why I’m writing during the course of this Grandmother of all resident of the US, is looking the following year. Recovery was need most.” to you, so I beg your indulgence. Transactions. If you have been following CNN, you will Please, sir or madam, I need your entire know that my Dad has for some time now support and cooperation for the success of been lifting one leg to make fairly loud and this deal, your utmost confidentiality and rude reports in the general direction of secrecy is highly required due to my We take pride in Globocop Bush and his sidekick, Deputy- family’s present predicament. Since time is Sheriff Blair. He has therefore been wrongly of the essence, kindly call me as soon as accused of concealing more biological you have deposited the eight hundred jobs well done. weapons in various nooks and crannies. grand into my Caymans account. If detonated in a crowded closed space, and depending on prevailing winds, Dad’s Warmest regards, stinkers have been known to wreak mass Uday Hussein JAGADAMBA PRESS destruction in a five metre radius. PS: Anyone you know in Des Moines we can [email protected] Tel: (01) 5521393, 5543017, 5547018 Fax: (01) 5536390 Since he is going to be smashed into look up?

CDO Regd No. 194/056/57 Lalitpur, Central Region Postal Regd. No. 04/058/59