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#90 19 - 25 April 2002 16 pages Rs 20 Return of the egrets 15 Bugs everywhere 9 EXCLUSIVE Here we go again The on-again off-again bandh is on again at press time. Which means the Another post-mortem arson and explosive attacks in the capital are expected to intensify in the run-up to 23 April. The government says don’t be How many more Nepalis have to die? ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ IN SATBARIA RAGHU○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ MAINALI in buildings belonging to Minister be spared. But other wounded police survivors ive days after the attack on the police Khadka’s family. tell us that all were lined up and shot dead. bases in Dang, vultures are still circling The surprising thing is that everyone we The villagers woke up to sounds of gunfire Fover the forests of Gojena along the talked to in Satbaria said they were expecting and loud explosions at about 10:30 PM on Rapti river. Occasionally an army helicopter a Maoist attack anytime before 17 March. Thursday. Children, the elderly and the sick comes overhead, and the vultures scatter. Strangers had been passing through, and huddled in what they considered the safest Blood-stained bamboo stretchers used by rumours were rife that the APF base would be rooms in the house. Heads of households even RAM HUMAGAIN Maoists to transport their dead and the target. “We had noticed outsiders at the dictated their wills and briefed family afraid, and has offered guarantees of wounded lie along the east-west highway. tea shop talking about a possible attack,” a members on their assets and loans, fearing safety. But the Maoists have a more There is a sickly smell of rotting corpses local resident told us. Some 30 or so villagers, that they may not survive the night. powerful weapon: fear. On Wednesday, a everywhere. Villagers walk around with including VDC chairman Dilli Bahadur And it was a long and sleepless night. The policeman was killed for the first time in handkerchiefs covering their faces, fearing Khadka, fled the village a few months before sound of automatic weapons and explosives the capital. an epidemic. There are no signs of health the attack, thinking the Maoists might target went on for five hours. The Satbaria post was workers anywhere. them for allowing the base to be set up in the surrounded by hundreds of heavily-armed Via Tibet By Wednesday, security forces had dug up village. Other families living near the base Maoists. Diversionary attacks prevented The UN’s World Food Programme is more bodies—many in camouflage fatigues relocated a day before the attack. reinforcements coming in from Ghorahi and moving 250 tons of food to Hilsa to and tracksuits—taking the Maoist casualties Senior police officials in Kathmandu told Bhalubang. Residents heard a helicopter support a key road-building project in in the battle to 92. Other freshly-dug graves us all vulnerable bases are on high alert, and flying overhead several times. The gunfire SAPUT Humla. The trucks that leave Kathmandu are still being found along the Rapti. At least there was no specific threat in Satbaria. would stop for a while, and resume when in early May will cross into China at 150 people died in the Dang battles, and Satbaria is located in a relatively secure area: the helicopter flew away. A photograph of wife and child spilling out Kodari and drive west 500 km to Hilsa our post mortem reveals a tragic story of it is on the main highway and there are other By morning, when the villagers finally felt of a policeman’s belongings at Satbaria. along the Tibetan plateau. From Hilsa warnings unheeded, traumatised families, police and army bases within a 35 km radius. it safe to come out, they saw bodies and blood the food will be ferried via Taklakot to and diversionary attacks all over Dang That could have given the APF a false sense of everywhere. Five days later, the children still wake up in fright. Simikot, a three-week journey. The DDC aimed at keeping the army away. security. Still, villagers said they saw the Editorial p2 is making the trail to the Chinese border have vacant looks on their faces, they don’t There are rumours This was the first attack on the newly- armed police laying booby traps the evening Absolute Anarchy motorable. “The road will re-establish play around the houses, and they are all swirling all around, trade links with Tibet and provide vital formed Armed Police Force, and it is hard to before the attack, and also digging new indoors by dusk. Parents told us their children sometimes making access for Humla,” says Douglas C Coutts, see why a 130-strong contingent of the trenches. Many bodies of police were found were awake throughout the night, and many it difficult to separate fact from fiction. The WFP Representative in Kathmandu. paramilitary force should be posted in the tiny the next morning piled three high inside these were too shocked to even cry. locals don’t talk to strangers unless fully (more on p5). hamlet of Satbaria, except that it is the trenches. When the base was overrun, the Said a local resident: “Every evening my assured they will not be identified. The constituency of Home Minister Khum Maoists lined up the survivors and threatened four-year-old still asks me, bua will tonight also only consolation the villagers of Satbaria Ghiu again Bahadur Khadka. The village has no to kill them if they didn’t say who the be like the other night. I tell him nothing will have is that none of their own were killed government offices, no health post, not inspector was. DSP Dhan Bahadur Basnet happen, but I am not sure myself.” The in the fighting. We thought the trade issues with India even a post office. The police were housed stepped forward, thinking the others would children all suffer from nightmares, and they Go to p3 were settled in March when the treaty was renewed. Well no. India has decided, starting 15 May, to import vegetable ghiu at fixed prices, and only through its central warehousing corporation. That effectively ends retail exports, and wipes out margins for smaller Nepali producers. Get out of theMr way, Kathmandu’s Establishment mayor is on a rebuilding spree. We caught up with the mayor during one of his forays to BINOD○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ BHATTARAI Weekly Internet Poll # 30 the Valley rim. He points at the city below and tells us: “From Q. Do you believe 2059 will be a better year for Nepal f Keshav Sthapith, mayor of the Kathmandu Metropolitan than 2058? City, had his way he would send out his bulldozers and here you see all that is still possible to do with Kathmandu. I demolish all the new concrete eyesores that have come up There is still enough greenery and open space in the Valley, in his town. and all we now need to do is manage future development His dream city is a mix of Kathmandu’s medieval glory properly.” combined with the needs of a modern and cosmopolitan Sthapith, whose name means “established” in Sanskrit, is capital. When he has his mind set on something, naysayers passionate about the need to re-inject life into Kathmandu’s better get out of the mayor’s path. The way he sent bulldoz- dying bahals and resurrect the vibrant social life of the inner ers out to Tinkune and the Maitighar intersection two weeks city. But he is also passionate about building a four-lane before the SAARC Summit in January to create an impromptu highway along the banks of the Dhobi Khola and Bishnumati to mandala garden raised eyebrows in a country where nothing relieve the congestion in the city core. ever gets done. Sthapith talks with feeling about his pet project, a special Sthapith’s critics—and there are many—point to the bicycle track from Maiti Ghar to the airport. But in the same desolate and dusty Tinkune as a symbol of his failure. Others breath he waxes eloquent about his plan for a megamall under MIN BAJRACHARYA say he is a megalomaniac in the North Korean mould. In fact, Ratna Park, an entertainment centre like Sentosa Island in Total votes: 1242 the mayor is visiting Pyongyang next week for the birthday Balaju, and a shopping complex at Tinkune with underground Weekly Internet Poll # 31. To vote go to: www.nepalitimes.com celebrations of Dear Leader Kim Il Sung. Obviously he will parking and a huge figure of Manjushree on top. Q. Is the government serious about controlling Go to p8 corruption? return with fresh inspiration. 2 EDITORIAL 19 - 25 APRIL 2002 NEPALI TIMES NATION 19 - 25 APRIL 2002 NEPALI TIMES 3 Nepali Times is published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Chief Editor: Kunda Dixit Editor: Anagha Neelakantan Design: Kiran Maharjan [email protected], www.nepalitimes.com Advertising: Sunaina Shah [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 Death in the trenches remain indoors. Meanwhile at Satbaria, the ammunition and were mercilessly gunned how many more Nepalis have to die before our politicians start finding ways first shots were being fired by the Maoists from down. The helicopter made a second over- ABSOLUTE ANARCHY to work together, showing solidarity and begin to see beyond the tips of the direction of Hattisar forests. flight, and the Maoists once more held fire.