#313 1 - 7 September 2006 16 pages Rs 30 JOMSOM TRAFFIC COPS: Trekkers arriving in Jomsom this week from Thorung La Weekly Internet Poll # 313 were surprised to be greeted by these two smart traffic policemen on duty, Havaldar Q. What is your opinion about the role Durga Kunwar (left) and Havaldar Raju Subedi. Even though there is no road joining of the civil society during the current the capital of Mustang district with Tibet or Baglung yet, there are 125 motorcycles political discourse in Nepal? and 16 tractors in Jomsom. Fuel is transported by mule. There are no traffic jams yet, Total votes: 3,258 you can park anywhere you want, and the main traffic offence is speeding. Jomsom had its first traffic accident earlier this year when a tractor fell into the Kali Gandaki, killing two people. Weekly Internet Poll # 314. To vote go to: www.nepalitimes.com Q. Should the king appear before the Rayamajhi Commission? SANTOSH SHERCHAN All in a day's work Not much has changed for Nepali overseas labour since 1 September 2004 DAMBAR K SHRESTHA destroyed and suffered Rs750 But an underlying reason Manpower agencies often make million in damages. Although continues to be ignored: two years dodgy deals with foreign n the evening of 31 only one person was reportedly after the mayhem, no government employers, or fleece aspiring August 2004, news broke killed, 355 offices, airlines, body is still actually responsible workers Oof the murder of 12 businesses and media houses had for the hundreds of thousands of before Editorial p2 Nepalis held hostage in Iraq by been vandalised. The Jame Masjid Nepalis who work overseas and they The vision thing the terrorist group Ansar-al- was ransacked, and smoke rose prop up the economy. even Sunna. Normally, rioting stops from burning tyres all across No one even knows for sure leave the Interview p11 when night falls. But the the city. exactly how many Nepalis work country. Japanese ambassador vandalism and attacks went on Although outrage at the abroad, or how much money they Many are late that night and resumed early murders and vendetta against send back. There is only dumped at Doha or Kuala the next morning. recruiters was blamed, it is now piecemeal legislation regulating Lumpur airport By the time curfew was clear that all kinds of political foreign employment. As the when they get imposed at 2PM, 286 of forces including the parties, the recent crisis in Lebanon showed there. Kathmandu’s 485 overseas Maoists, and the royalists were again, there is no backup for employment agencies were blamed for the organised rioting. Nepali workers overseas. Full story p4 2 EDITORIAL 1 - 7 SEPTEMBER 2006 #313 Published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Chief Editor: Kunda Dixit Editor: Sophia Tamot Associate Editor: Anagha Neelakantan Design: Kiran Maharjan Web: Bhushan Shilpakar Vicepresident Corporate Affairs: Sneh Sayami Director, Sales and Marketing: Sunaina Shah [email protected] Subscription: [email protected] Hatiban, Godavari Road, Lalitpur GPO Box 7251, Kathmandu 5543333-6, Fax: 5521013 October revolutions [email protected], www.nepalitimes.com Printed at Jagadamba Press, Hatiban: 5547018 Parallels between Russia 1917 and Nepal 2006 MOSCOW—The striking country where ‘God, Tsar and Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council THE VISION THING resemblance of contemporary Russia’ was a time-honoured the supreme authority, higher Sanduk Ruit was born in Olangchungola, an area so deprived and Nepal to the October 1917 coup formula of statecraft. However, than any constituent assembly, remote that the nearest school was a weekís walk away. There were in Russia offers insight into preventing the country from saying: “All power to the no health posts, and Ruitís sister died of TB when he was 17. Comrade Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s sliding towards anarchy after Soviets.” The Bolsheviks That painful loss convinced the young Ruit to go into medicine. talk of a ‘October Revolution’. that proved more difficult. dissolved the assembly after a With hard work and perseverance he completed medical school in Just like the Maoists, civil Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, social one-and-half day session. India and returned to Nepal. Working on the Nepal Blindness Survey society and the seven party democrats, and former royalists The system finally crumbled in 1980 brought him in touch with his Australian mentor, Fred alliance, the main demand of intensified their struggle for in 1990, but not before more Hollows. As Hollowís protÈgÈ, Ruit found his mission in life: to make Russian political parties, power targeting the constituent than 40 million people had Nepalis see again. intelligentsia and Bolsheviks ever assembly election scheduled for died in war, repression and The doctor faced resistance from the medical establishment and since World War I started in 1914 November the same year. famine. fellow eye surgeons in Kathmandu. But Ruit took that and was for a constituent assembly. The Bolsheviks had a The Russian experience government inefficiency as givens. He asked himself: what can I do despite the government, how can I bypass the naysayers? King Nicholas II was unpopular strategic advantage as the shows that with careful Hollows taught Ruit the latest cataract micro-surgery technique workers and soldiers’ councils application of land, peace and had the local governments local government any using implanted intraocular lenses. But Ruit also learnt a sense of GUEST COLUMN service, and decided to take his knowledge to the poorest of the Jugal Bhurtel under control. spontaneous revolution is poor. He walked across the remotest regions of Nepal conducting The central government was possible as long the urban eye camps, restoring the sights of tens of thousands of people. weak, local governance lay in presence is strong. Just as Often, elderly cataract patients would burst into tears when they after he dissolved the State Duma tatters. On the eve of the October workers and soldiers councils, saw their children again after many years. Ruit was innovating all in 1906 and during the war, coup, an impatient Lenin asked Maoists have local jana sarkars the time, trying to reduce infections and invented a suture-less protests over food shortages his comrades to recognise that to implement their agenda. procedure that made surgery and recovery quicker. turned into a full-fledged anti- “an armed people’s struggle is The seven party alliance’s He opened the Tilganga Eye Centre in 1994 and this has monarchy revolt. Ignoring the the only remaining option left vacillation on the status of the become the primary eye-care facility in Nepal, managing six centres across the country. In Kathmandu, Tilganga treats 3,000 patients a Tsar, the Duma chose a to achieve our goal or else defunct monarchy must have week and surgery fees are waived for the neediest. At the nearby provisional government disappear into political further encouraged Dahal. Civil Pashupati cremation site, Tilganga runs an eye collection centre for represented by middle class oblivion”. Then with Trotsky, society street protests provide retinal transplants from donors. liberals while worker councils (or he organised a spontaneous the Maoists a much-needed Tilganga manufactures high-quality intraocular lenses and has Soviets) dominated mainly by storming of the Winter Palace urban platform. Kathmandu is exported over 1.5 million of them all over the world. Ruit himself is Bolsheviks took over local which housed the provisional fetooned with Maoist banners now better known outside Nepal than here, having taken cataract governance. In March 1917, with government. this week that read ‘Sampurna camps to North Korea, Tibet, Cambodia, Ethiopia and Bangladesh. the Tsar’s abdication, the three- The Soviet of Workers and shakti krantikari jana parishad On Thursday, Ruit received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for century reign of the Romanov Soldiers Deputies set about ma” similar to Lenin’s ‘all 2006 in Manila from the Philippines president. In its citation, the dynasty came to an end. nationalising land and replacing power to the Soviets’. Magsaysay Foundation said Ruit was recognised for placing Nepal Dethroning an unpopular the old judiciary with people’s Nevertheless, Russia in 1917 at the forefront of developing safe, effective, and economical procedures for cataract surgery, enabling the needlessly blind in king was surprisingly easy in a tribunals. A flurry of laws did not have mass-based even the poorest countries to see again. designed to tame the national political parties like the Nepali If sometimes we feel hopeless about our army were passed. But the Congress which is able to resist countryís future we just need to look at the work of Bolsheviks needed to legitimise the extreme left despite being visionary Nepalis like Ruit. They didnít sit around their coup and the constituent targetted in the past 10 years. and complain about getting no help from assembly election offered a Hence, despite Dahal’s repeated government, or just talk about injustice, order favourable opportunity. Their threats of an Oktober kranti people around and pontificate about how things initial reluctance to consider political parties and the NC in should be. peasants as ‘proletariat’ and the particular will continue to There are many Sanduk Ruits in Nepal, and image of being led by workers remain the biggest deterrent. we often feature them in these pages: people who undermined their position. The Russian experience proves work quietly and selflessly with their only reward being a sense of inner fulfilment that their work They won only 25 percent of that democratic forces and has improved the lives of neediest Nepalis. the seats, while liberal especially the two factions of We are glad Sanduk Ruitís work was democrats and moderate the NC must strive for lasting recognised abroad, and hope it will inspire socialists had a majority in the unity. z Nepalis in other fields to become like him.