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#71 14 - 20 December 2001 20 pages Rs 20 Image and imagination 19 UNDER MY HAT Neither here nor there 20 10-11 Two out of 200,000 FRONTLINE IN SHIVA○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ GAUNLE GHORAHI four-month-old government-Maoist he bus journey to Ghorahi in Dang ceasefire. Several government offices were district took much longer than usual. plundered and weapons looted from the T Over a dozen checkposts had sprung up military barracks. But signs of the conflict along the highway west of Narayanghat. In can be seen even before you reach Ghorahi. addition, mobile paramilitary checkpoints also The roadside is lined by stumps of trees sprang out of nowhere. Most of the checking is felled by the rebels as roadblocks. routine. Security officials step into the vehicle Every now and then the dusty stillness and check your belongings. But there are also is shattered by the heavy roar of rotors as those that require you to step out and line up helicopters ferry supplies and troops to the for a body search. frontlines in Salyan and Rolpa districts. It feels like you’re entering a war zone Schools are slowly opening their doors but as you reach Bhalubang, the point where bewilderment is writ in the faces of SUDARSAN RIJAL you officially enter the mid-west. You get a students—a suppressed fear that echoes, thorough frisking: bags are opened, diaries like the sound of gunfire you can hear are read and telephone books scanned. You almost every night. The unseen scars are are asked where you are headed and why. deeper still. The person sitting next to you in the bus “We’re becoming used to sleeping with Near the Shamshergunj Armed Police Force camp on the Lamahi-Kohalpur section of the East-West Highway, 24 November. A tree was may not want to have a casual conversation. sounds of gunfire all around,” says a local felled by the Maoists the previous evening to prevent road traffic while the attack on Ghorahi was on. There is apprehension in the air. school teacher. “There has been fighting When I reached Ghorahi on 7 Decem- every night since the Maoist attack.” On having informed the police. This reporter replacements were yet to arrive. The The feeling of uncertainty has infected ber, this usually busy highway junction the night of 9 December, the army and was the only guest for three nights in a chief of the Land Revenue Office had left everyone, including politicians. Amar Giri, a looked like a ghost town. It was undergoing Maoists clashed at Ratmate, Rolpa. lodge with more than 60 beds. the district to inform his superiors about member of the CPN (UML)’s Rapti zonal its 13th night of dusk-to-dawn curfew that Down here in Ghorahi, the night rang Students from the local college hostel the damage caused by the Maoist attack committee, had attended an all-party meeting began even before the state of emergency with blank gunfire from the army unit have been asked to vacate their lodgings. on his office. at the district administration office. “Every was declared on 26 November. (Elsewhere nearby. The Nepal Bank Limited, which was In the absence of senior officials, no one time we asked them about arrangements in the region, an unofficial curfew is in place Life in the Dang Valley is nowhere looted by the Maoists, has not opened in the civilian administration in Ghorahi during the curfew, the civilian authorities tell after sundown, as nobody ventures outdoors near normal. The 42-km road to Holeri for business. However, the Agricultural was ready to provide information on the us ‘we’ll ask the army’,” he said. in any case.) in Rolpa district has been closed. Development Bank, also hit, is being security situation — such as the army’s Bam Bahadur DC, president of the local Ghorahi is the site of the 23 November Elsewhere, buses ply half-empty. With given a face-lift. A weekly paper close to gunning down of 11 unarmed Tharu farm Nepal Trade Union Congress, seemed as rebel attack which effectively ended the business down, wayside storekeepers laze the Maoists, Jana Ubhar, has stopped labourers. I later learnt that although all of confused: “We just don’t know what will in the sun. Locals even hesitate to talk to publishing and the editor is underground. them may not have been Maoist fighters, happen next. There’s a war going on here.” strangers, let alone discuss the insurgency The Chief District Officer and the they certainly were Maoist sympathisers, for A security official in Ghorahi probably Weekly Internet Poll # 11 and the ongoing counter-insurgency. Deputy Superintendent of the Police, the simple reason that the Maoists had summed up the post-23 November Q. Do you think the Maoists will now return to the negotiating table? Lodge-owners are scared to let out their who had been abducted in the course of enforced a new share-cropping scheme, Tri- situation best: “The Maoists have not been rooms unless they are sure of their guests’ the 23 November attack and later Khandi, under which the tillers received able to rest so far, but they have been able bonafides and in any case only do so after released, had been given a transfer. Their two-thirds of the harvest. to keep the state on its toes.” India and the Maoists ○○○○○○○○○○○○ DEEPAK○○○○○○○ THAPA munist Party of India in the Central It was one of the many strikes Organisational Committee of the While Indian intelligence feeds the Indian press organised by Leftist tea garden also-undivided Communist Party of with stories of ISI support for Nepal’s Maoists, it workers just after the Gorkhaland Nepal. Total votes: 1382 Movement had ended in 1988, Contacts between the young is clear that Comrade Prachanda & and Co have when the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Nepali radicals of the Jhapa move- their links firmly south of the border. Council was just settling in. A ment of the early 1970s and the more The world’s most reliable former tea planter was managing a mature comrades of the devoting so much column space and UPS for PCs garden near the Nepal-India border CPI (Marxist-Leninist) in air time to an insurgency that it has by Recommended by Microsoft, and had his share of worker India, who were well into and large ignored for the last six IBM, NEC and Novell problems. The planter, now living in their Naxalite movement, years, it has not been able to resist Kathmandu, swears that the man is well documented. the usual Indian establishment line of who came to negotiate on behalf of Nearer to the present, espying the hand of its bete noire, his workers was none other than before the launch of the Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence today’s Maoist supremo, 1990 anti-Panchayat (ISI), in all kinds of trouble in Nepal. Prachanda. movement, Left luminar- And so, now, it is the ISI hand-in- Implausible as it may sound at ies from India, M Farooqi glove with the Maoists. Whereas, in Back-UPS 500 first, the planter may be right, for of the CPI and Harkishen fact, the historical links of Nepal’s • Compact design with surge protected exchanges between the commu- Singh Surjeet of the CPI political parties—and the Maoists are outlet for Laser printers nists of Nepal and India have a (M) were in Kathmandu to no exception—have always been with • Three battery back-up outlets long history. The first instance endorse the teaming up their southern counterparts. As put • Lightning and surge suppression • EMI/RFI filters for noise filtration would be the famous 1947 of the United Left Front succinctly by Dr Harka Gurung in a • Communication interface port (auto Biratnagar Jute Mills strike. That and the Nepali Congress. recent issue of Himal South Asian: shutdown for all major desktop OS) was when the legendary Ratan Lal The point of recounting “There is a general misconception • Quickswap™ battery replacement • Quick Recharge after power outages Brahman (better known as Mahila all this anecdotal informa- that the democratic side is seen to be • Save battery power with user Bajey, who later represented tion is the interest Nepal’s India-centric, and the Left Sino-centric. adjustable option switches Darjeeling in the Lok Sabha on a Maoist movement has In reality, both democratic and com- • Industry approval (safe & reliable) CPI-M ticket) is known to have suddenly received in the SUDHEER SHARMA munist ideologies came to Nepal Æ journeyed down in support of what Indian press with the through India. If the Nepali Congress Legendary ReliabilitySM Authorized Distributor probably was the first-ever workers’ breakdown of the ceasefire The address given for the much-talked-about RIM, 27 was nurtured in Banaras, the com- strike on Nepali soil. Later, in 1949, and imposition of emer- Old Gloucester Street in London’s Soho district is just rades of the Left opposition are Computerland Building, New Plaza, Ramshahpath, Kathmandu there was Ayodhya Singh repre- gency. While credit goes to a mail collection centre. beholden to Charu Mazumdar of Tel: 430858, 430859, 431199, 431746 Fax: 430641 senting the then-undivided Com- the Indian media now for Bengal.” E-mail: [email protected] Go to p6 The Total Solutions Company 222 EDITORIAL 14 - 20 DECEMBER 2001 NEPALI TIMES Nepali Times is published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Chief Editor: Kunda Dixit Editor: Anagha Neelakantan Design: Swosti Rajbhandari, Kiran Maharjan [email protected], www.nepalitimes.com Advertising: Sunaina Shah, Anup Adhikary [email protected] Subscription: Anil Karki [email protected] Sales: Sudan Bista [email protected] Sanchaya Kosh Building, Block A-4th Floor, Lalitpur GPO Box 7251, Kathmandu, Nepal Tel: 01-543333-7, Fax: 01-521013 Printed at Jagadamba Press: 01-521393 UNCIVIL WAR ook at it every which way and it becomes apparent that even if the Maoists are wiped out, the government will still have to tackle the L political cause that the insurgents represent.