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Subscriber’s copy #183 13 - 19 February 2004 24 pages Rs 25 Weekly Internet Poll # 123 Q. Should foreign ownership of Nepali media be allowed? Total votes:1,062 Weekly Internet Poll # 124. To vote go to: www.nepalitimes.com Q. Do you think King Gyanendra overstepped the bounds of a constitutional monarch with the royal address in Nepalganj? 8, going on 9 Twelve-year-old Surendra Shrestha bikes in Tahachal during Thursdays bandh. KUNDA DIXIT He was four when the war started.KIRAN PANDAY s the Maoist war completes palace and the parties, and between Nepalis. These are the harshest Nepali Maoists. eight years, never has peace hawks and doves among Nepals words the Maoists have used against Officially, this sends the seemed as remote. donors. India in the recent past. message that India is no longer safe. Nepalis caught in the middle However, the biggest blow to The government hasnt been The Maoists have two options: have fled their villages by the the Maoists has been the dramatic able to hide its delight. However, give up violence and join the hundredsA of thousands. The extradition by India of senior Maoist spokesman Kamal Thapa denied political mainstream, or antagonise countrys military budget has leaders Matrika Yadav and Suresh there would be any peace overtures India further, says Shyam increased at least three times more Ale this week. An Indian embassy to the Maoists as a result. We will Shrestha, editor of the leftist than peacetime levels. Most of the official confirmed the handover and carry on with our military operations, monthly magazine Mulyankan. money has been diverted from said it was kept low key because of and strongly mobilise the security With the government development projects. Weapons are the legal implications back in forces against them, he told us. maintaining a hawkish line, the getting more sophisticated: the latest India as the Indo-Nepal bilateral Although losing safe havens in Maoists commemorating their purchases are two Indian-made extradition treaty is not yet in place. India will be a disadvantage to the anniversary with a light attack helicopters that cost Rs Maoist leader Prachanda lashed Maoists, analysts say one test of series of strikes and 3 billion each. back, saying in an online statement: whether or not attitudes have sabotage attacks Editorial p2 The Maoists have suffered By kidnapping a popular tarai changed will be Indias response to and the palace- Pawns military setbacks and desertions, but leader and a member of a a big rally planned in New Delhi on party polarisation getting worse, it have benefitted from reports of downtrodden janjati group, Indias Sunday by the Nepalese Peoples looks like the country is heading human rights abuses by the forces rulers have distanced themselves Right Protection Committee, into another spring of turmoil and as well as infighting between the even further from the hearts of the India that has close ties with instability. l 13 - 19 FEBRUARY 2004 2 EDITORIAL #183 Published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Chief Editor: Kunda Dixit Desk Editors: Trishna Gurung, Jemima Sherpa Design: Kiran Maharjan Web: Bhushan Shilpakar Advertising: Sunaina Shah [email protected] Subscription: Anil Karki, [email protected] Sanchaya Kosh Building, Block A-4th Floor, Lalitpur GPO Box 7251, Kathmandu, Nepal Tel: 01-5543333-6, Fax: 01-5521013 [email protected], www.nepalitimes.com Printed at Jagadamba Press, Hatiban: 01-5547018 Camouf laging crime AWNS Pone of the forces that lord over us these days seems to be able to WomenBARDIYA — As invictims all wars, Nepali ofexplains the one war woman fromare the weepingwar has meant silently endless trauma: utter a sentence without the word ‘people’ in it.The political parties women have been the nearby village of Kalika. losing dear ones, being forced to and their student vanguards making tyre pyres on the streets claim most vulnerable victims of the Said another woman: Even flee homes and rape. In Bhawang they want to unshackle the people from the chains of regression, while the conflict. In a country where the if it was a pretend marriage, it alone, there are now 36 women bemused public just look on from overhead bridges. NThe Maoists have even named their eight-year war after the people. status of women is already one of was still a marriage, and we with children born from rape by They close down schools and call for national bandhs—effectively telling the lowest in the world, the hope that once they hear they police who were posted here the people they are not at liberty to work, to go to school or open their Maoist conflict has made women have children they will come during the early part of the businesses. even more susceptible to abuse. back. But I wonder. Many of conflict in 1996. At Nepalganj on Sunday, King Gyanendra used the word ‘janata’ and Increasingly, there are reports of the mothers dont even know Senior army officers I have ‘desh basi’ more than two dozen times. He said a modern monarch couldn’t stand aside when the people have tears in their eyes. where to begin looking for their spoken to in Dang admit there Ultimately, all three forces know they need to gain the legitimacy and GUEST COLUMN men. have been some instances of rape the trust of the people. That is a good sign: at least the people still seem to Durga Pokhrel Even if the men deserted and, whenever uncovered, the matter. But for the parties, the procedure with which that legitimacy is the women, one could argue guilty soldiers have been gained seems more important than actual fulfillment of the mandate. For forced liaison and rape leading to that the relationship was punished. But aside from the their part, the Maoist ideologues say they are so fed up with patronage and the problem of war babies who consensual. But there are now question of bringing the corruption that passes for democracy that they want a new people’s democracy—and so what if a few thousand people die in the process of have been abandoned by fathers many cases of rape by security perpetrators to justice, there is being liberated? King Gyanendra sees his role as a knight in shining in uniform. forces. They were the lucky now the problem of finding armour who wants to rescue the people from the clutches of corrupt On a recent visit to mid- and ones, one woman in support for Nepals war babies. politicians and ruthless rebels by redefining the role of a monarch within a far-western Nepal, I came across a Thakurdwara whispers to me, Without fathers, the children multiparty polity. number of women who thought referring to the abandoned cant even register to attend The people have reacted to these promises with stoic skepticism. They have heard it all before and they have learnt to get on with their lives the men in uniform had married wives. I was raped. The school and are unable to apply for best they can. In fact, as this tripartite power struggle strangles the nation, them, only to see their husbands security forces men entered her citizenship. Even unmarried the people have shown remarkable patience and forbearance even though vanish. Throughout the Maoist- house saying they were looking mothers cant have their own the leaders have always punished the people when they want to get back at affected districts, there are many for Maoists, she relates to me. citizenship papers without a their rivals. cases of marriages where the When they saw only women husband. Nepalis have endured the Maoist violence of the past eight years, soldier or policeman husband has inside, they raped them. Worse, Nepali law denies a suffering greatly. Some believe the Maoists when they say violence is a necessary sacrifice they have to make for a better tomorrow, others are too disappeared. It is a phenomenon Another 28-year-old takes womans right to motherhood. scared to disagree. The political parties have drifted from anti-regression to that needs urgent attention. me aside and tells me her story. The state must now remedy the pro-republic, but the people see it as just another slogan. Increasingly In Sanusri village of Bardiya Some soldiers entered her house laws so these forgotten victims of doubtful about the intentions of the king they may be, but Nepalis are still district, only one in every four of and dragged away her husband, the war are rehabilitated and crowding to see him in Simikot and Jumla. the 80 women who got married to but four others stayed behind. cared for even if it cant find and Longsuffering Nepalis are waiting to be heard through their elected representatives, and their patience is wearing thin. If only those who locally-posted security force They eyed her and the baby punish the guilty. Just talking presently control their destiny could agree on the mechanism of how to let personnel were taken by their she was nursing. I just turned about this in Kathmandu is not that happen. Throughout all this, it is only the people who are showing any husbands when reposted. These towards the wall and sat still, going to help: we need to sanity or a sense of responsibility. The tragedy is they don’t trust any of the honest security men were the she recalls in a low voice. They document these cases, change the above anymore. armed police, not the military, tore off her blouse and dhoti, laws, set up systems to identify grabbed her breast and bit it till and take care of the women. it bled.