Total votes: 768

Weekly Internet Poll # 16Q. Should the Maoists now return to thenegotiating table?

#76 11 - 17 January 2002 20 pages Rs 20

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Editorial p2The morning after

Meanwhile, in the rest of Nepal...

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ear stalks the land. The army’s cordonand destroy missions are sudden anddeadly. To escape, the Maoists have

melted into the population. Governmentpresence is confined to district headquarters.

“We eat by about 4:00PM, fearing thatthe Maoists will come seeking food andshelter,” one teacher in Bajhang told us. “If welet them, the police will get us, if we don’t, theMaoists will kill us.” In Kanchanpur, villagerscower behind their windows watchingsecurity forces patrolling on vehicles by day,and the Maoists going door to door bynight. “We can’t report their activitiesbecause the Maoists have threatened to killus,” one resident whispered.

Some weeks ago troops searched Binauna,a village 24 km from Nepalgunj. When theyleft, the Maoists returned. The village eldersfled because, as one of them told us: “TheMaoists think we had called in the troops.”The bus service from Dang to Holeri remainssuspended. It has resumed from Bhalubang toLibang, and traffic has also returned on theTulsipur-Salyan-Rukum road. Work on a 16km stretch connecting Rukumkot being builtby the army has come to a halt. In Nepalgunj,the stream of people heading out for work inIndia is visibly greater, as is the exodus of ruralrefugees into Kathmandu Valley.

Things aren’t much better in the east.Crowds have thinned at the weekly markets,there are fewer buses on the roads. Thenumber of night buses plying from Biratnagarhas gone down by half. Newspaper sales aredown, says Surendra Shrestha in Lahan:“People are buying less because they find thesame news in all the papers.”

Tulasi Neupane, DDC chairman ofSankhuwasabha says: “The Maoist are stillactive in the villages, and most Congressworkers have already fled.” In Khotang, Hari

Pokhrel of the UML told us the Maoists havegone into hiding in the villages. “Securityforces do not go beyond distances from wherethey cannot return at night,” he says. InUdaypur, the combination of Maoist andKhumbuwan violence has forced residentsin some villages to flee to the relative safetyof the tarai towns.

Many parts of western Nepal, includingJomsom, are cut off because the Maoists haveblown up repeater stations. Troops stillguarding telecom towers in Salyan’s Kapurkotand Dang’s Rajakot, but Maoists have blownup 56 multi-access radio telephone systems(MARTS), and six district headquarters don’t

have phones. The Ratamate tower in Rolpa,blown up by Maoists a month ago, used toprovide connections to headquarters ofRukum, Rolpa and Jajarkot. The tower southof Baglung which was destroyed last weekhas cut phone connections to Jomsom and20 MARTS terminals. The NTC isplanning to replace towers with satellitesystems, but the purchase and installationprocess could take over a year.

The government’s development apparatushas ground to a halt, and donor-fundedprojects are either in deep freeze, or have beencurtailed. Most conscientised village leadersactive in development work are left-leaning,and have fled to the cities or to India to escapethe wrath of both the Maoists and thesecurity forces. Bishnu Buda of Ghartigaonin Sallyan crossed over into India last week.He did not want to talk much, but told us:“I had no choice. The bombs and bullets

Rural Nepalis are caught between a rock and a hard place.

cannot identify who is who.” Food-for-work, non-formal education

classes, social mobilisation for communitydevelopment, community forestry meetingshave all been affected. Villagers tend to stayaway from meetings because they are afraid ofbeing picked up.

“It is not very good, or very bad. But it isvery slow,” a frustrated donor representativebased in Kathmandu told us. “We woulddefinitely not like to work in a militaryenvironment because our projects depend onour ability to win the trust of the villagers.”

Most development projects keep skeletonstaff in the field, avoid taking unnecessary risks,

and doing the little bit they can, rather thanshut down. “It has become difficult to monitoron-going programs,” says Hirakaji Ghale, ofNamsaling in Ilam. “No one is in a state ofmind to even discuss new activities. We havenot been able to go into the villages.”

Before the army deployment and theemergency, the government had launched theIntegrated Security and Development Pro-gramme (ISDP) in seven insurgency-affecteddistricts (with plans to expand to another 30).Today, there isn’t even the ISDP. “In somesettlements we don’t have enough people tomobilise,” a development worker told us.“After the emergency, even non-Maoists thatwere active in community organisations havefled fearing arrest.” Indra Dahal, a grassrootsactivist in Butwal says: “Even the donors aretelling us let us to wait until the emergency isover to begin new projects.”

The sense of fear is fuelled by the lack of

information. Adevelopment workerin Surkhet says:“There are gunshotsat night, next morning there is no way to findout what it was all about.” Radio Nepal andthe media only give out the governmentversion of events, and the people know there isplenty else that is happening. Journalists arebeing picked up and interrogated. Sharad KC,the BBC stringer in Nepalgunj was taken awayblindfolded from his office last week and askedabout his Maoist contacts. He was releasedafter two hours. Basanta Pokhrel, anotherjournalist in Butwal wasn’t so lucky. He spent16 days in detention, no one told him why hewas arrested.

Suffering heavy casualties in the army’saction, the Maoists have changed tactics. Theyhide in the villages and ambush convoys withbooby-trap explosives along roads. The bankslooted at Ghorahi on 23 November are stillnot fully functional. Both the district jail andthe land revenue office are yet to beginbusiness. Officials say it could take another sixmonths just to compile the missing landrecords. Private helicopters have stoppedferrying vital salt and foodgrain to Kalikot andMugu ever since Maoists destroyed one of thehelicopters at Surkhet airport in November.Bajhang airport is closed. Industries in Birgunjhave cut down one shift—from three to two—because travel at night has become impossible.Overnight curfews are still in effect in manyparts of the country, in Jajarkot it is to end on13 January. In Dang, Sallyan and Jumla thecurfews will continue until further notice.

(Reported by Madhav Ghimere in Ilam, MohanBhandari in Biratnagar, Mohan Manandhar inLahan, Chandra Kishor Jha in Birgunj, MadhavNepal in Butwal, Sudarshan Risal in Dang, SaradKC in Nepalgunj and Umid Bagchand inMahendranagar.)

23 FebruaryThe state of national emergency willcome up for renewal in parliament by 23February (counting by the Nepalicalendar). The main opposition UML,now close to reuniting with the ML, andwhich has the critical votes needed forratification, won’t say yet which way it’llgo. The probable scenario is that theemergency will be lifted on the 23rd, butparliament will allow the government tokeep its anti-terrorism enforcement underthe Terrorist and Disruptive ActivitiesOrdinance. Most politicians agree thatthe army should continue fighting theMaoists, but without absolute emergencypowers. The casualties since 23November has now crossed 500, with 350of them Maoists, according to theDefence Ministry’s tally. Several thou-sands have been arrested, and 9,000Maoists have reportedly surrendered.

F

EXCLUSIVE

“Even non-Maoists who were active inthe village have fled...” —Development worker

The Great UnifierPrithvi Narayan Shah 4-5

Kathmandu ValleyPreservation Trust

10-11

3333311 - 17 JANUARY 2002 NEPALI TIMES

L E T T E R SL E T T E R SL E T T E R SL E T T E R SL E T T E R S

REGION

DON’T TALKStatements by politicians thattalks with Maoists are possi-ble if they surrender weaponsand say sorry, and by Nepaliintellectuals that such talksare the only way to resolve the“insurgency”, are a sadconfirmation of the inability ofour elite to be either coherentor consistent in thought, word,or deed.

Leaders of major politicalparties say repeatedly (when itsuits them) that the Maoistsare terrorists. When theemergency was declared theGovernment itself formallydeclared the Maoists to beterrorists. How can there be“talks” with terrorists? The onlytalks can be about how tofacilitate the surrender of anyMaoists who wish to give up,and what pardon to give themafter considering their terroristcrimes. The numerous victimsof Maoist murder, rape,maiming, looting, arson,destruction, and desecrationof religious sites and valuemust be addressed. There isno turning back.

Mithun JungNaxal

TOURISMI enjoyed the interview with

Tourism Board memberYogendra Shakya (Biz Chat, #74). There is a huge potentialin non-traditional markets.Many Americans like mewould love to retire or live partof the year in Nepal. Howeverdue to Nepal’s present visapolicies, non-Nepali citizensare allowed only 120 days percalendar year, and must trekdown to the visa office eachmonth and undergo a lengthyinterrogation to be allowedthat privilege. And eventhough I am married to aNepali, I could not apply andreceive residency statuswithout my husband person-ally making the application inKathmandu. I encouragemembers of the Nepal TouristBoard to lobby governmentauthorities to “think outsidethe box” and extend the visaallowance, which couldpotentially bring millions ofrupees into the country. Morewill come to Nepal if the visaprocess is more open andextended.

Donna Spoon RegmiChapel Hill, NC, USA

Regarding the interview withYogendra Shakya, I wasamazed you did not ask him(nor did Mr Shakya mention)

the horrible behaviour of theDepartment of Immigration stafftoward visitors. They areunwelcoming and extort moneywhen you try to extend your visa.And why does the HomeMinistry continue to overchargefor visas while at the same timediscouraging foreigners fromspending longer periods inNepal? Is it xenophobia?

Danny BirchNew York

It is very sad that the tourismindustry in Nepal is suffering butI think it is as much to do withthe people operating thetourism industry in Nepal aswith bad publicity. I visitedNepal a year ago and saw anotice at a Thamel hotel whichsaid “Nepalis not allowed”.How can tourism be revived ifyou ignore domestic tourism?

Jan DDenmark

2002Re: your poll question: “Do youthink 2002 will be a better yearfor Nepal than 2001?” (#75)One response could be: wecan only hope. But is just“hoping or wishing” enough to

make 2002 a better year forNepal? A change of numericalnumbers in the dates will hardlybring any automatic positivechanges in our lives and thenation. The effects of ourthoughts, and perception havemore serious impact in shapingour future than we convention-ally choose to accept. We mustcreate our own reality, our owndestiny by using our thoughtsand perceptions as the rawmaterials. But we are afraid toaccept this because then wecannot habitually blame anyoneor anything for our failure.Neither our education system

nor our religious culture haveever been designed to allowpeople to “strongly believe inanything”, even their ownjudgement.

Rajeeb SatyalBansbari

It was really refreshing to knowhow Nepal has progressed inthe last decade amidst all thenews of fighting, killing andfailure to deliver. “Not all gloomand doom” (#75) rightly pointsout that we have not failed on allfronts. Though the most glaringfailure is on the political front,the common Nepali is movingforward, slowly but continuously.In these troubling times, it is

by PASHUPATI SHUMSHERE JB RANACOMMENT

ilitary action alone cannot winthe hearts and minds of thepeople, and the government must

realise that the causes of the Maoistinsurgency must be addressed at its veryroots. The insurgency spread because thestate failed to deliver service and justice,because it could not free the people fromthe shackles of poverty and backward-ness. The state was unable do so becausethere was deep-seated distortion and

If all the government thinks it should do is sit back and letthe army fight the insurgents and the donors pay fordevelopment, then it is sadly mistaken.

Reform vs revolution

decay in its functioning.Unless we reform theseproblems and set out to

provide developmentthat focuses on the poor in

the affected areas, we willnot be addressing the

problem.The emergency and the

terrorism ordinance have givengreat powers to the government.There is a danger of the abuseof such sweeping authoritybecause the Nepali Congresshas a history of abuse. Theopposition must therefore

remain vigilant, it must monitorand check the use of emergency

powers to prevent theirmisuse. The Nepali Con-

gress on the other handneeds to rise to thisextraordinary occasionand set an example ofrestraint, fairness andfreedom.

Restoring lawand order willmerely treat the

symptoms, not thecause of the disease. The

emergency is an opportunity forpolitical reform. This is a war not justagainst insurgents, but against corrup-tion. Political instability has cost thecountry dearly. Vast sums need to bespent to win the numbers game inparliament. The players in this game havebecome dependent on the only source ofsuch large sums whenever needed: thesmuggling mafia which has penetrated thepolitical system. The criminalisation ofelectoral politics was a natural manifesta-

tion of this decay. Politicisation andpartisan interference have weakened moststate institutions: the bureaucracy, thepolice, the intelligence services, publiceducation, state corporations. Indeed,this is the reason why civil securityorgans of state failed in their attempts totackle the insurgency.

It is now up to the opposition to be awatchdog to ensure that the decay hasn’teaten into the core of our value-system.If we are not careful, the emergencycould actually engrain the malaise. Theconstitution provided that a two-thirdmajority must endorse the emergencythree months after its declaration. Thisclause is designed to arrest any misuse ofthe emergency provision by a majorityparty or its government.

A nation cannot remain just ageographical configuration. It is acollective expression of all ethnic groups,their cultures, religion and languages. Astate must strike an ethnic balance andmust not be the instrument ofmarginalising a caste or class. TheMaoists, for instance, have opened 21different ethnic fronts to capitalise onthese sentiments. Twelve years ofdemocracy have done precious little toresolve the grievances of the ethnicgroups of the hills and the tarai. They arenot just vote banks, and need nothingless than affirmative action or even“reservation” to address their justrepresentation in politics, the services andall areas of public education. In addition, ascited in a RPP strategy paper, the govern-ment needs to use the opportunity of theemergency to push through new initiativesin development and the political process.

As law and order is restored and theambit of the state expands in the areas

where the insurgency had forced it toretreat into isolated pockets, there mustbe impartial development, income-generating activities, job-creatingprogrammes. This is essential to winover the masses in the insurgencyaffected areas. And as the hold ofinsurgency is rolled back these securityactions will create a political vaccum.All parties must move together inconsensus to reoccupy the vaccum andrestore the democratic process.

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deubahas made statements ruling out anypossibility of reopening dialogue. This isan example of the government’sblinkered policy: when it was in thenegotiating mood it pursued negotia-tions with single-minded vehemence,and closed its eyes to any otherpossibilities. Now that negotiationshave broken down, it has done an aboutturn by pursuing a policy of “combatand confrontation” with the samesingle-mindedness.

The tragedy with this government isits readiness to swing from one extreme tothe other without considering options.Politics is a game which thrives onalternatives, therefore it would be foolishto set aside the option of negotiation atany stage. The Maoists indulge in terroristacts, but there is no gainsaying that theaims of their insurgency is political incharacter. The natural landing place of apolitically motivated insurgency is anegotiated settlement.

Mobilising the army againstinsurgency is an extremely expensiveaffair and this has prompted theMinister of Finance to announcediversion of funds from development tosecurity. Yet security without develop-

M

ment without reform, without arestoration of the political process willbe pointless.

How do we find the money for this,and find it now ? There has been someattempt at engaging the donors and theresponse seems positive. HoweverNepal’s extremely poor record indelivering the aid to the targetted poorand the tendency for leakage will be animpediment. The government will haveto provide iron-clad guarantees thatthe aid will reach the poor in the affectedareas. The negotiating process and thenatural time lag will also mean that aidwill take considerable time to materialise.Alternatives need to be examined.

One such alternative is debt-relief.The only reason that Nepal does notreceive debt relief is that our foreignexchange reserves have made us capableof servicing debt and repayinginstallments in time. Nepal must puther case for debt relief in the newcontext of the worldwide war onterrorism. Indeed, our capacity torepay debt is very much in doubt in thenew context. The time has also come totap the patriotism of the financial systemand of national capital-by issuing long-term “national emergency bonds”. Thiscould be an immediate means of raisingfunds for the development and reformprogrammes. If all the government isgoing to do is to sit back and hope thatthe donors will fill the gap in financing,then it is sadly mistaken. It has to show itis at least trying to mobilise internalresources.

Pashupati Shumsher JB Rana is theGeneral-Secretary of the RastriyaPrajatantra Party.

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hard to be an optimist but wehave no choice. We have tolook forward.

Sajju KhatiwadaPennsylvania.

There could be one moreaddition to “Not all gloom anddoom” (#75). The preliminaryfindings of the Nepal Demo-graphic Health Survey, 2001shows the Infant Mortality Rate(IMR) and Child Mortality Rate(CMR) to have decreasedsubstantially over the years to64.2/1000 live births and 91/1000 live births respectively.For the first time the figureshere are better than that ofIndia—and India boasts onedoctor per 5,000 citizens,while the ratio in Nepal is justover one per 20,000. Thanksto some very successfulpublic health interventionssuch as the Vitamin A pro-gramme, the distribution andconsumption of iodised salt,the diarrhoeal disease controlprogramme and the treatmentof pneumonia at the commu-nity level by the FemaleCommunity Health Volunteersamong others.

Rajendra KarkiBy email

22222 EDITORIAL 11 - 17 JANUARY 2002 NEPALI TIMES

by CK LALSTATE OF THE STATE

SUGA , MAHOTTARY- Winter in a taraivillage is not charming anymore. Gone arethe days when the fresh hay and balmy sunwarmed your heart and body. For four yearsin a row, the tarai has been gripped by amysterious winter fog. It is gloomy, blockingout the sun for days on end, and the air lacksthe characteristic crispness of early morningmist. In some ways, the gloom symbolises thefoggy state of our state.

It is easy to blame global warming orthe hole in the ozone layer for everythingthat goes wrong with the weather. But morein-depth studies are needed to explain to usexactly why the refreshing, fog-dispellingwinter drizzle has become so elusive.Anecdotal reasons are aplenty, but noconvincing explanations have been offeredfor the thick fog that grips much of theIndo-Gangetic plain, causing sheer miseryfor many and discomfort for most. Theresulting cold-wave kills the poor and thechildren by the dozen, but the South Asianbureaucratic-scientific establishmentremains preoccupied with what it considersmore pressing issues—nuclear bombs, spysatellites, and cryogenic boosters. Not justIndians, our agricultural scientists at thegrandly named Nepal Agricultural ResearchCentre (NARC) also couldn’t be bothered.

The persistent fog may have somethingto do with the intensive irrigation requiredfor the hybrid wheat of India’s GreenRevolution that has started to pusheastward. It might also be linked to thewaterlogging that has become rampant inthe flood plains due to embankments builtalong riverbanks, ostensibly to controlflooding during the monsoon. It is possiblethat the emissions from the coal-fired powerplants of Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Biharaggravate the situation. Then there is thethinning forest cover in the region, whichdoes little to help the worsening air-quality.In all probability, the fog that hangs like apall of gloom over the Ganga plains and ourtarai is a result of all these factors.

Even without the fog, life in villageshere is changing. It is less laid-back, a lotmore competitive. Despite the loud protestsyou hear in the capital over thepoliticisation, people are, if anything, notpoliticised enough. Perhaps people in thecities harp on about excessive political spiritbecause they fear the development ofpolitical solidarity in the “hinterlands”

might end up weakening their hold over theresources of the state. Clan, community,and caste still rule the roost in the villagehere, but even that is disappearing. It isbeing replaced by a frightening fragmenta-tion. At the first glance, the rural landscapelooks all calm and serene. But stay just afew more days, and the harshness of Marx’s“rural idiocy” boils over.

Remittances from West Asia andearnings from Gujarat and Punjab vie forattention as the minarets of mosques risehigher and murals in temples become moregarish. The stronger currency of West Asiatalks louder than the Indian Rupee bankdrafts. People raise the volume of their TVsets to drown out loudspeakers belching outpop bhajans non-stop. The market isinsidious. It does not leave even the non-participant unaffected. Hawkers movearound the village exchanging human hair forfistfuls of the cheap sonpapadi. Poor motherscut their locks that will probably end up astrendy black-hair wigs for chicNew Yorkers so they can feedtheir children.

With most able-bodiedmen of working age abroadmaking a living, the villages herehave become a refuge forwomen, the unemployable, theold, the sick and the very young.An unintended benefit of thishas been that women areempowered. Even so-calledhigh-caste women have comeout of purdah perforce, as theyhave to run their household inthe absence of men. Theymust go to pay land-tax, buyfertiliser from the market orsell agricultural produce totide over an emergency inbetween collecting remit-tances from the local bank.

The collapse of community life ismost visible in the drains that flood thenarrow streets of the village. Earlier,people fetched water from public wellsand used it judiciously. These days,shallow pumps are installed in almostevery house, but there are no publicdrains to safely dispose the overflow andthe sewage. The result is cleaner privatehouses surrounded by dirty public spaces.Had the state been a more effective

service provider, public water supplywould not be so cheap, and waste waterwould be managed a lot better. The marketwent for volume, individual houses optedfor convenience and there is nobody to lookafter the damage being done to the commu-nity. Another symbolic instance of the“tragedy of the commons”.

Quarrels in rural areas are vicious, butthe stakes are low and petty. People cometo blows over an argument about a goatthat strayed into a neighbour’s field ofchickpeas. Lathis are brought out to resolvethe issue of whose child relieved herself onthe door of the local priest. Brothers andcousins spend their lives fighting it out incourt to settle the ownership of a few hand-measures of fallow land.

Evening adds some more to the litany ofwoes. Firewood is expensive, at Rs 3 per kg,few can afford it. Dung-cakes—the poorman’s source of energy—are in short supply. Inthe absence of sunshine, dung doesn’t dry fast

enough to be used for fuel. The alternative isto go to bed early. Children who resist arefrightened with this admonition: “If you don’tsleep early, Maobaadis will come and get you.”At the community tap, “The army will crushthem,” is the overwhelming refrain. Anothersays: “What if they don’t?”

The fog holds us prisoner. When will wefeel the warmth of the sun again? This winter isturning out to be a rather long one for thetarai, for Nepal.

A long, cold and foggy winter in the tarai shows no sign of ending.

The sun will come out tomorrow

THE MORNING AFTERIt does feel a lot like we are hosts cleaning up the platesafter a new year’s party. And what a party it was. Nepalisshowed what we can do when we put our minds to it. Wealso exhibited our legendary capacity to leave things tillthe last minute. Our expat friends are being polite when theytell us that Nepalis work best under pressure. What they really mean isthat we couldn’t be bothered until it’s too late.

Nowhere is that more true than the way we have been dealing with ournation’s development for the past 40 years. Sorry to keep on harpingabout it on this page, but we have really messed things up big time.Despite being the darling of the donors, despite commanding tremen-dous international goodwill, and despite having enormous potential tosurge ahead with tourism and hydropower, we have failed in the onlycriteria that really matters—we have failed to raise living standards andensure equity among Nepalis. These failures are all the more glaringbecause the success stories abound (see “Not all gloom and doom” in #75). In all these cases, we see how easy it is to achieve results with asimple combination of integrity, commitment and good management.

Blaming a heartless elite, finding scapegoats, bashing donors, is allvery well and easy to do. Many of them deserve it. But that is not going toget us out of the rut we’re in. This time we have to look forward, chart out astrategy, give ourselves realistic targets and work hard to achieve them.Nepali officialdom needs to show a singlemindedness we have not seenin the past. Our elected leaders need to demonstrate vision, honesty andefficiency. Nepal’s problems are vast, and solutions are urgently needed.Before we start sounding like a minister’s speech, here is one of ourperiodic checklists for urgently-required interventions:

1. Resolve the Maoist crisis one way or the other, to2. Go hand-in-hand with a massive job-creation initiative, by3. Wooing domestic and foreign investors, and4. Concentrating on high-value, long-staying tourism.5. Launch a nationwide infrastructure drive that will create jobs and

provide a backbone for future development,6. Concentrating in the midwest and other neglected areas.7. Launch an effective anti-corruption drive to catch the big fish, and start

with the most blatant and easy-to-stop graft: fuel adulteration.8. Rescue the garment, pashmina and carpet industries with export

promotion, price stabilisation and quality control.9. Begin a result-oriented delivery of basic health and primary health

care to rural areas.10. Show us some proof that we have a government.

We got a tiny glimpse of the kind of effort required during the pastweeks of breakneck park-building, road-paving and zebra-painting inKathmandu. We had invited SAARC dignitaries for a party, and we wereashamed about what they would think when they saw the slums atTinkune, the shabby buildings and dusty roads. So we spruced them up.Somehow it doesn’t seem to matter that the asphalt is already frayed, thezebras have faded, the sidewalks have crumbled. But at least it lookedgood for a while. We showed that when push comes to shove, we can getoff our behinds. And with slightly more honesty and efficiency, we couldget much better results.

If only we showed the same sense of shame about outsiders findingout about our female literacy, which is the lowest in South Asia. If we couldbe as embarrassed by our maternal mortality rate, which is one of thehighest in the world. If we hung our heads in shame at the proportion ofNepali children who are stunted because of poor nutrition. That is whatwe should be ashamed about, not what visitors will think about the shantytown below Bagmati Bridge.

The party is over, and there have been enough speeches. Let’s get towork.

OS

KU

SH

AL

RE

GM

I

Under Bagmati Bridge

0900, 3 January 2002

Nepali Times is published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd,Chief Editor: Kunda Dixit Editor: Anagha NeelakantanDesign: Kiran Maharjaneditors@nepalitimes.com, www.nepalitimes.comAdvertising: Sunaina Shah advertising@himalmedia.comSubscription: Anil Karki subscription@himalmedia.comSales: Sudan Bista sales@himalmedia.comSanchaya Kosh Building, Block A-4th Floor, LalitpurGPO Box 7251, Kathmandu, NepalTel: 01-543333-7, Fax: 01-521013Printed at Jagadamba Press: 01-521393

55555NATION 11 - 17 JANUARY 2002 NEPALI TIMES

the people in the nation-building process, rather thanleave it to an elite class. In hisDivyopadesh, Prithvi Narayandescribes himself as king of“Magarat” and talks about theneed to involve “Pandes, Pant,Arjyal, Khanal, Rana, Bohora”(representing the major castesof the Chhetris, Brahmins andMagar people in Gorkha) instrengthening of the kingdom.“As a king, he worked towardsgaining total confidence of hissubjects,” says Uday.

Prithvi Narayan appears tohave been a born leader. Hewas crowned in 1742, buthistorical documents show thathe was involved in the affairs ofstate even as a teenager. One ofhis first decisions was to makepeace with a stronger Lamjungafter Gorkha was defeated. Infact his father Nar Bhupal Shahseemed to have begun losinginterest in the matters of stateafter facing defeat againstNuwakot in 1737, which iswhen Prithvi Narayan Shahmay have begun with the reins

of the state.Kathmandu, Patan and

Bhaktapur were all part of asingle kingdom, until ShivaSingh Malla divided thekingdom into three in 1457. Allthree states prospered. Butintra- and inter-state distrustmeant that Kathmandu Valleypolity was always weak. PrithviNarayan Shah strategicallybefriended with the rulers of theValley and nurtured therelationship his ancestors hadestablished. He extended thesphere of his influence to theMalla rulers themselves, but wasalso quick to exploit theirrelative unpopularity and thelack of clear leadership in theValley. Kathmandu, for exam-ple, had an overly whimsicalking and in Patan, between1758 and 1768, the ministerscould replace a king if theywished. Valley residents werealso slowly drawing closer to theGorkhali raja, having heardabout the reputation of hiskingdom for justice and welfare.

It is clear that Prithvi

Narayan Shah recognised theimportance of keeping subjectshappy and unthreatened —andunified in their loyalties. Afterhe was enthroned inKathmandu and Patan in 1768and in Bhaktapur (Bhadgaon)in 1771, Prithvi Narayan Shahseemed to want to keep theinfrastructure already devel-oped in the kingdoms muchthe same. He respected theculture and values of the Valleyresidents, and joined them intheir worship of the Kumaris,the symbol of independentMalla kingdoms, and TalejuBhawani, the royal goddess ofthe rulers before him. What hedid expel from the Valley waswhat had not yet takenroot—the Roman Catholicmissionaries.

Prithvi Narayan Shah’sunbiased appointment of ablepublic officials, regardless ofthe claims of relation orpersonal equations is anothertrait that stands out. Forinstance, although he greatlyfavoured Biraj Bhakti, a

faithful, long-time aide, henevertheless appointed KaluPande as Kaji (the equivalent ofpresent-day prime minister).Kalu Pande had displayedsplendid diplomatic skills in thesigning of the agreement offriendship with Lamjung, andlater, in 1763, played a key rolein the defeat of that kingdom.

Prithvi Narayan Shah’sability to unify such a diversevariety of people in suchdifferent geographical locationshad as much to do with hiseconomic policy as with hisability to win the hearts andminds of the people whoserulers he defeated. He exploitedNepal’s landlocked location togreat advantage. On annexingNuwakot and Makwanpur in1762, he imposed heavy taxeson both the Tibetans and theIndians who depended on routesthrough Nepal to trade witheach other.

As documented inDivyopadesh, Prithvi Narayanstrongly advocated self-suffi-ciency, self-reliance and believedin the concepts of sustainability.He wanted settlements onfertile lands moved to make wayfor irrigation channels andagriculture. True to thoseprojectionist times, he encour-aged export but discouragedimport that would drain thecountry’s wealth.

He also discouragedextravagance and the import of“crystal, glass and other uselessluxuries”. He wanted toestablish trading houses in bothof his kingdom’s northern andsouthern borders to encouragethem to trade with the Nepalisrather than have Nepalis dealdirectly with traders beyond theborders. He was successful inmost such endeavours—what hedid not manage to do in hislifetime was convince theTibetans to accept his currency.

Prithvi Narayan Shah couldbe brutal and vindictive. Oneinstance is when he is said tohave ordered the ears and nosesof the previous rulers of Kirtipurto be cut off as punishment fortheir resolute resistance againsthis forces in 1764. Another suchincident concerns his killing of abattle commander Jayant Ranafor mutiny.

Some historians like Udaythink it was a strategic blunderfor Prithvi Narayan Shah toshift his capital to Kathmandu,and name the country he hadunified after it, rather than afterhis own kingdom. Even today,the small hill district, fromwhere the borders of modernNepal were sketched remainsneglected. And is known as thebirthplace of another more recentpolitical figure, the Maoist leaderBaburam Bhatarai.

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Nepal-IndiaIts final: India says it could extend the 1996 trade treaty with Nepalone more time. On the sidelines of the SAARC summit, Indian PrimeMinister Atal Behari Vajpayee said, “The (trade) Treaty has alreadybeen extended for three months. It the need arises it can beextended further.” There is a catch though. Foreign ministerJaswant Singh said this would be done only if the volume ofcontroversial Nepali exports remains below a certainacceptable level.

Another issue Singh touched upon was the requirement ofspecific travel documents by Indians wanting to visit Nepal, a majorreason why fewer Indian tourists are coming here. India’s “securityconcerns” is the reason Indians are required to have passports orvoter IDs. Singh said these were only “temporary” measures. “Theintention is not to harm Nepal’s tourism industry,” he added. “Thefacility of free movement…was being misused by some elements.”There was, however, no pronouncement on when and how thetemporary measure could be scrapped—maybe something for ShitalNiwas to follow up.

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New tourism regulationThis might bring a smile to the faces of mountaineering entrepre-neurs and professionals. The government is amending the 20-year-old Tourism Regulation to make the process of obtaining permissionto climb easier. The new amendment proposes allowing climbingthroughout the year instead of present arrangement of fourmountaineering seasons. The regulation also proposes that climbingpermits be issued in one day, compared to the four months theprocess can take now. Also addressed are the issues of raising theremuneration, allowances and insurance ceilings for high altitudeporters involved in mountaineering. Finally, the proposed amendmentis concerned with keeping tourism income in the villages—itproposes offering discounts on royalties to climb mountains situatedin economically disadvantaged areas.

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Hotels hit hardThe SAARCsummit was a briefrespite forKathmandu’shotels that havebeen hit by thedownturn intourism. But withthe South Asiandelegates gone,the rooms areempty again. Now the industry says it wants an immediate bailoutplan or else all hotels will shut down. The government has promisedto help out by rescheduling loans and offering new soft-loans, butthat has not been put into action. It is this delay that is threatening toblow the fuse on the industry, where the investment so far adds upto about Rs 70 billion. According to the Hotel Association of Nepal(HAN), the industry has borrowed over Rs 15 billion from banks andunpaid interest already adds up to Rs 5 billion. Says HAN PresidentNarendra Bajracharya: “We want a prompt decision, otherwise wewon’t be able to survive.” The industry directly employs about200,000 people.

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Human DevelopmentAfter 16 years of the South Asian Association for Regional Coop-eration (SAARC), South Asia remains the least integrated regioncompared with other similar regional groupings, and has the largestnumber of poor. That was the message of the Human Developmentin South Asia 2001 report, which looks at the region withglobalisation as the overarching theme. Almost half-a-million peoplein this part of the world have become poorer after the processbegan taking effect. The report, produced annually by theIslamabad-based Mahbub ul Haq Development Centre, says this isbecause of the inability of the states to develop response mecha-nisms, incomplete reforms and inadequate pro-poor policies.

Beyond the rhetoric of cooperation we heard during the 11th

summit last week, as a region South Asia has very little to show.Trade among them remains below five percent of their total exports,compared to 22 percent for ASEAN members and 55 percent forNAFTA members, and the region’s average tariffs remain very highcompared to other groupings of nations. Nepal’s consolation,articulated by Shankar Sharma, National Planning Commissionmember, is that we are doing better than the rest of South Asia inhuman development indicators. In 1975 Nepal’s Human DevelopmentIndex (HDI) was 0.29. by last year, it had shot up to 0.48, thefastest gain compared to other South Asian states. We also spendthe most on education—about 13 percent of all public spending.

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No saltInhabitants of five mountain districts in far-western Nepal havebeen hit hard by a shortage of salt. The salt that is available costsRs 40 a kg. The demand remains unmet despite a six-month-oldagreement between local representatives of the Karnali Zone andthe Salt Trading Corporation in Kathmandu. Locals of Humla, one ofthe most remote districts in the country, are further worried thatwinter snows will close down the airport and disrupt supply flights.Residents of southern Humla have been forced to travel to Bajura tobuy salt, and their northern counterparts head to Taklakot on theTibetan border.

Gorkha dominions at its widest before 1814. Shaded area is present-day Nepal.

44444 NATION 11 - 17 JANUARY 2002 NEPALI TIMES

by DANIEL LAKHERE AND THERE

o nuclear weapons work? As agents of mass destruction, Hiroshimaand Nagasaki are a constant reminder of their effectiveness at dealingdeath and destruction. No, I wonder about the nuclear arsenals of

India and Pakistan, and whether they haven’t helped keep the peacebetween two angry neighbours, beset by internal tensions and pressures and,until now, largely ignored by the rest of the world.

Like many, I went ballistic at the Indian nuclear tests in May of 1998.Pakistan’s follow-on was even more maddening. Here were twoTitans ofPoverty pouring funds—in Pakistan’s case, largely money freed up byovergenerous aid donations—into hideously dangerous weapons. They’dfought three largely pointless wars and spent the better part of six decadesfinding reasons to hate each other.

In mid-1998, they recklessly upped the ante hugely, endangering aregion that I’ve come to love and live in. Now I’m not so sure. Call meshallow, or driven by events, but I wonder if the relatively small nucleararsenals in both countries haven’t helped avoid all out war, at least twice inthe past two years. Whoa, I can hear the screams of outrage already, notleast from my abolitionist wife who marched the 1980s away protestingagainst American and Soviet nuclear weapons.

But let’s consider the evidence. The Kargil conflict in 1999 was widelydescribed as South Asia on the brink of all out nuclear war. Pakistan hadorganised an incursion into Indian-controlled territory along the line ofcontrol, India fought back fiercely, and with a little help from Bill Clinton,saw off the threat from across the line.

Hundreds of young Indian men died retaking ridges and mountainpeaks that would defy the skills of mountaineers. We’ll probably neverknow how many from the other side were killed, but my friends in Gilgitand Skardu told me that funerals went on for days after the killing stopped.

Yet it remained a largely local skirmish. Despite immense rhetorical

Blasphemy on the beachThere may be a South Asian version of Mutually Assured Destruction.But a little less madness would do us good.

pressure from fire breathing desk generals of the Indian media and thebellicose middle classes of Delhi, Atal Behari Vajpayee kept his troops onhis side of the LOC. An American diplomatic source told me afterwardthat there were credible threats from Islamabad that nuclear weapons mightbe used if the Indians crossed the line. That’s denied in public by bothIndia and Pakistan yet it makes some sense. And if it’s true, then we mustacknowledge the role of the South Asian version of mutually assureddestruction—the unwritten NATO-Moscow equation that kept the peaceduring the Cold War.

I wonder too about the current round of Delhi-Islamabad hostilities.The usual suspects in India (media, middle classes, pundits) bray for war.

Vajpayee makes all the right noises, General Musharaff regrets but talksequally tough. Meanwhile, he quietly rounds up militants while India’s wilyleader keeps the military preparations firmly within reversible limits. Warfears fade as quickly as they flared and only the frighteningly callowcommentariat in Delhi seems disappointed.

I am willing to bet both Musharaff and Vajpayee were well aware of theimmense risks they were taking, and knew how far they could go beforestarting to tone things down. The problem lies in Pakistan’s conventionalinferiority to India. As a smaller, poorer country that has been subjected toan American arms embargo for more than a decade, Pakistan is simply notable to best India in conventional battle. The Pakistani armed forces arewell trained, morale is high but they lack technology and numerical weight.

So asymmetrical strategies like nuclear weapons and support for crossborder insurgencies are a natural part of Pakistan’s arsenal. Islamabad mighthave little choice but to use its atomic bombs if invaded by Indian armourand infantry. But lest a flock of hawks gather round me, let me say I stillhate nuclear weapons. Just because they deter war in times of rhetoricalhostility doesn’t mean that defusing tensions is not imperative.

And there are other, frightening issues like the absence of command andcontrol, extremist forces in both countries, nuclear accidents and so on. Itall underlines the need to move towards regional peace and the prosperitythat will follow. Even Washington and Moscow eventually abandonedmutually assured destruction, known by its highly appropriate acronym,MAD. A little less madness in South Asia would do us all a world of good.

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HEMLAHEMLAHEMLAHEMLAHEMLATTTTTA RAIA RAIA RAIA RAIA RAIhe aggrandising propagandaof the Panchayat yearsturned Prithvi Narayan

Shah the Great into a surrealfigure. Many of his visionarystatements remain buried in examanswer sheets, or the subcon-scious self of most Nepalis.Surrounded by myths andlegends, Prithvi Narayan Shah isone of those historical figurespeople find it hard to actuallyrelate to. Even so, social analysts,political scientists and historiansall agree on two things: that hewas a brilliant leader, and that he

Prithvi Narayan Shah is more than the founder of Nepal. Many of his policiesare as relevant today as they were when he set out to make Nepal one.

was on occasion only too human.Prithvi Narayan Shah’s

birthday, 27 Poush (11 Januarythis year) is commemorated asNepal’s “National Unity Day”.For the ordinary citizen, this hasturned into yet another nationalholiday, a forced annual ritual—garlanding of his statue in frontof Singa Durbar, speechesand photo-ops for politicalpersonalities.

However, the great king’svision and policies are asrelevant today as they werewhen he set out 260 years agofrom his hilltop town of Gorkhato unify Nepal. Media com-mentator CK Lal says re-reading Prithvi Narayan Shah isstill useful. “The nationbuilding project he initiatedstill remains incomplete,”he says.

Prithvi Narayan Shahinherited the rule of the hillyGorkha kingdom in 1742, atthe age of 20. But the youngking wasn’t content and hewent on to fight—and win—thenumerous battles that in 1769resulted in the creation ofterritory we know as modernNepal.

Was it all part of agameplan, a burning desire fromthe start to conquer differentterritories and forge a newcountry called Nepal? HistorianDinesh Raj Pant brushes asidethe probability. He believesPrithvi Narayan Shah wasinspired purely by an ambitionto expand the borders of hiskingdom initially, and wasdetermined to avoid the defeathis father, Nar Bhupal Shah,had to face. He was determinedto keep his kingdom free andsafe from the British who wereacting belligerent to the south,and the restive Tibetans tothe north.

“He was an excellent ruler,strategist par excellence, andchampion of psychologicalwarfare. Moreover, he wassingle-mindedly into thebusiness of ruling a kingdom,”Professor Pant says. That was

in sharp contrast to successors,like Singh Pratap Shah andRan Bahadur Shah, who spentmore time pursuing the studyof tantra rather than rulinga nation.

Pant prefers to call PrithviNarayan the “re-unifier” of theNepali state rather than “theunifier” school textbooksdescribe him as. According tohim, stone inscriptions fromthe time of Samundra Gupta ofAllahabad suggest that some1,500 years ago, the borders ofa proto-Nepal went as far asAssam in the east and Kumaonin the west before it broke upinto smaller kingdoms.

Whatever the case, sayshistorian KB Uday, “Theexpansion of the Nepali state(from what it was in the 18th

century) can be attributed toPrithvi Narayan Shah’s abilityto motivate and mobilisepeople.” When he ascended tothe Gorkha throne, thekingdom was weak economi-cally and militarily. Gorkhafaced constant threat ofinvasion from the powerfulneighbouring states ofLamjung, Palpa and Tanahu.

As first step in the cam-paign, Prithvi Narayan Shahwanted to strengthen his armyand so mobilised all the youthof his kingdom, regardless ofcaste. Maybe this was reasonfor his famous edict—thoughnot politically correct inpresent day Nepal—that Nepalwas a garden of “four castesand 36 ethnicities”.

Going against tradition, herecruited Rana (Magars) toincrease the participation of

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77777NATION 11 - 17 JANUARY 2002 NEPALI TIMES

by PUSKAR BHUSALSOMEWHERE IN NEPAL

FOLLOW-UP

ach time Nepali Congresspresident Girija Prasad Koiralacomes back from Biratnagar,

the political establishment inKathmandu knows he has somethingup his sleeves. The product of hislatest retreat in his hometown haselectrified the political atmosphere ata time when many Nepalis expectedtheir leaders to be enjoying a forcedthree-month vacation.

If anything, the extendeddiscussions prompted by Koirala’sproposal for a broader democraticalliance reaffirm the assertion that

A lot of people who agree with Girija Koirala’s message are notconvinced about the sanctity of his motive.

Democratic dalliance

politics is no exact science.If key leaders within the ruling

party think the idea goes against themajority-rule principle, they are onlyillustrating that they retain the probityto tell us what parliamentary politicsis all about.

But many Nepalis are stillwondering whether it is the future ofthis particular government Congressstalwarts are really worried about.Those who argue that the nation hasreached a state where no party orpower centre can expect to managethings alone are rooted in ground

realities. But, again, the people stillhave no way of knowing that this isn’tjust another ploy to rewrite thepolitical equations under theconstraints of the state of emergency.

Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP)president Surya Bahadur Thapaepitomises the nation’s currentpolitical predicament. He can’tconceal his outrage at the way histwo-year-old proposal has beenexpropriated, repackaged and sold bya faction of the ruling party. But deepdown, he must feel vindicated.

Koirala, desperate to articulatewhat has become an aspirationtranscending party lines, finds himselfengaged in episodes of linguisticlegerdemain.

After his proposition of a nationalgovernment drew criticism fromconstitutional scholars, he accused thepress of misquoting him. What hereally meant, he said, was that theprime minister could include membersof other parties on an individual basisto broaden his base. When someonereminded him that such a proposalought to be coming from SherBahadur Deuba, Koirala checked thecalendar and re-defined his appeal asan extension of the nationalreconciliation policy BP Koiralaenunciated 25 years ago whilereturning from exile in India. (See“back to Sundarijal >1, #74, and >2on p. 17 of this issue) Since we’restill at reconciling our positions,what would BP have thought of thisinterpretation, especially if he hadactually used that “h” word tocharacterise his youngest brother’spolitical acumen?

The similarities between the

two eras are hard to miss. TheNepali Congress was locked in aninternal dispute then, too. Leaderswere divided over whether theyshould continue their campaign forthe restoration of civil liberties fromthe confines of panchayati prisonsor from the freedom of the world’smost populous democracy. A stateof emergency forced the Kangresisto make a choice.

When Indira Gandhi turnedIndia into a vast dungeon for allthose who dared to disagree withher, our exiles concluded theywould have greater freedom ofmanoeuvre from Sundarijal. Theoperational strategy was to broadenthe fight for democracy to includethe defence of nationalism.

Democratic forces and thepalace had to work together ifNepal was to maintain its identityamid the subcontinental flux.

Many who believe historymoves in circles are carried away byGP’s clarion call. But a lot ofNepalis who agree with thesubstance of the Kangresi-in-chief’smessage are not so confident aboutthe sanctity of his motives. Look atthe questions we’re asking our-selves. Why does the Congresspatriarch want to return toBaluwatar after all he’s beenthrough? Or is he just playinggames to hold on to the partypresidency? On the other hand,didn’t Koirala step down as primeminister while he still had amajority in the Congress parliamen-tary party? Is there a chance thatDeuba may have reneged on a secretpledge to resign in case the peace

talks with the Maoists collapsed?(By the way, whose side is KhumBahadur Khadka on this time?)

Why this sudden flip-flop froma man who built a 50-year politicalcareer on an image of steelydetermination?

Let’s give Koirala the benefit ofthe doubt. Even then, can a broaderdemocratic alliance be conceivedwithout the Maoists?

Granted, they blew their chanceto prove they weren’t a bunch ofterrorists operating underideological cover. But theorganisation’s official nameconveys a clear political orienta-tion, even if it has strayed fromthe Great Helmsman’s path.

Why don’t we try to separatethe political and armed wings of themovement?

If the Marxist, Leninist,Workers and Peasants and all theother variants of the heavilysplintered left can be part of theplatform, can the Maoists bedenied a place?

Perhaps someone should try to

encourage the emergence of theMaoist equivalent of Sinn Fein thatcould be expected to prevail over itsversion of the IRA. After years ofambivalence, the Brits seem to havebenefited by allowing the two wingsto co-exist in Northern Ireland.Once the Maoist political commis-sars gain supremacy over theirdisarmed militia, the healingprocess could begin.

Thapa must have been devas-tated by the discovery that hisspeech in Pokhara was late by 23years. As a gesture of goodwill,perhaps he could be entrusted withbroadening Koirala’s consensuspackage. Given the RPP’s successrate in ducking the Maoists’ wrathin the past, they might consider hima more acceptable interlocutor thaneither of two bigger parties.

There’s no guarantee theMaoists would accept Thapa asprime minister. But he would havea good reason to amend the RPPcharter and serve a third consecu-tive term as president of the thirdlargest party in parliament.

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inally the Gurkha Memorial Museum has visitors. It used to be hiddenaway in a dusty corner of Lainchaur, and hardly anyone knew of itsexistence. But when it moved to Pokhara last September, tickets began

selling even before the museum was officially opened. As the Gurkha MemorialTrust, which runs the museum, had hoped, passing tourists and Nepalis saw thesignboard and walked right in.

The four-year-old museum has suffered from a chronic lack of funds andinadequate space to showcase the entire collection of memorabilia that the trust hasgathered together. Captain Yeknarain Gurung, chairman and curator of themuseum told us last March that “as this is a national asset, the governmenthelped set up the museum by providing Rs 1 million.” Donations followed fromthe Indian Embassy, the Royal Nepal Army, the British Gurkhas Nepal,Grindlays Bank and Lt Col John Cross. These donations and the yearlygovernment grants, ranging from Rs 100,000-Rs 400,000, barely covered theoverheads and it didn’t help that barely anyone visited.

Major Yambahadur Gurung says the trust realised that if this were ever towork, the museum had to move where land—preferably government-donated—was easy to find and tourists were aplenty. Pokhara was the obvious choice, and inAugust 2001, the entire collection was moved to Pokhara. The museum occupiesan old Nepali house in the compound of Hotel Nature Land. It’s a separatebuilding from the actual hotel and stands nearest to the main road, within aminute’s walk from the heart of Fewa Lake. Hotel owner WO2 DilbahadurGauchan offered the house to the Gurkha Memorial Trust free for the first year,when he heard they were looking for a place to start up until they were allocated apermanent location for the museum. “It was an old tattered building that I usedto store things in, but I just couldn’t find a reason for pulling it down. It paid offin the long run I guess,” he laughs. “We are asking for government land inPokhara so a permanent museum can be built. But these matters take time,”explains Vice Chairman, Major Judbahadur Gurung.

In the meantime, things are moving ahead and with support from the 2nd

Gurkha Rifles Association, the house was refurbished last summer, and thedisplays were set up. There are three galleries downstairs, devoted to medals,infantry regiments that were disbanded in 1994 to form the Royal Gurkha Rifles,the Gurkha Contingent of the Singapore Police Force, and corps regiments such

Preserving Gurkha historyF For anyone interested in Nepali

history, there is now a place toexplore a vital part of it in the flesh.

as engineers, transport and signals. Yet another gallery upstairs has a smallcollection from the Indian Army and Royal Nepalese Army, but is mainlydedicated to Victoria Cross winners. There are also some new items on display,such as Cross belts, old photographs, badges of rank from the Singapore Police,flags from different regiments, and old radios used for communications betweencamps from the Queens Gurkha Signals.

The museum is complete, and managed by Lalbahadur Lama, but is a littleshort-staffed. “Visitors have been walking through themselves. Of course later wehope to provide a guide explaining about each item on show”, says MajorYambahadur Gurung. Tickets are Rs 50 for tourists and Rs 10 for Nepalis withdiscounts for school children. The museum runs every day but Monday, from10AM-5PM, and visitors can browse through the museum library and use thehotel’s facilities. There is even a souvenir shop that sells khukuris, bangles cuff-links, tie-pins and brooches. With donations from individuals and institutions,the museum now has a computer and printer, and has even printed a brochure.

Close to 300 people have already visited the museum, and there are bound tobe a lot more in the peak tourist season. Finally, it appears as if Nepal’s justlyfamous Gurkhas are in the repertoire of institutional history for good.

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ANJANA SHRESTHAhe earthquake on 17 July 2001in Gorkha, which damaged 600houses, brought home yet again

that earthquakes are an unavoidablepart of Nepal’s future, just as theyhave been a part of its past. And as onemore Earthquake Safety Day ap-proaches, it looks as if we are stilllikely to be caught unprepared shoulda large trembler strike any time soon.

Every year in Nepal there are morethan 1,000 earthquakes ranging inmagnitude from 2-5 on the Richterscale.

Records going as far back as 1255CE show that Nepal has experiencednine major earthquakes over the last700 years.

Recurring earthquakes in the 20th

century claimed more than 23,000lives.

The Great Bihar earthquake of1934—which could as well have beencalled The Great Kathmandu Earth-quake—measured 8.3-8.4 on theRichter scale, claimed 8,500 lives anddestroyed 20 percent of the Valley’sbuildings, including a large numberof temples and monuments.

In 1988, a magnitude 6.6earthquake hit eastern Nepal, with theepicenter in Udayapur. More than 700people were killed, 6,500 were injuredand 22,000 houses collapsed.

“Kathmandu is the highest at-riskcity in the world today,” says AmodDixit of National Society for Earth-quake Technology-Nepal (NSET-Nepal). The Kathmandu ValleyEarthquake Risk Management Project(KVERMP) estimates that an earth-quake today similar in magnitude tothe 1934 Mahabhukampa, centred inthe densely populated KathmanduValley, would likely cause more deathsand casualties than last year’s Gujaratearthquake in India. In hard numbers,they count something like approxi-mately 40,000 dead and 95,000injured. More than 60 percent ofthe existing buildings would be

On shaky grounddestroyed leaving 600,000 to900,000 residents homeless.

It is a disaster waiting to hap-pen—with a population of 1.5 millionand growing, the Valley is seeing aspurt of uncontrolled development.Construction techniques havedeteriorated in recent decades as thedemand for cheap, fast buildingsgrows. Even scarier, the Valley’sinfrastructure barely holds up underday-to-day life, and is far from able tosupport rescue and response opera-tions such as those carried out inGujarat. One of the fundamentalsdrilled into the mind of every citizenof quake-prone countries is that

earthquakes alone do not kill as manypeople as the collapse of poorinfrastructure does. This meansbuildings, fire departments, medicalfacilities, and, if they exist, crisismanagement cells.

Nepal’s seismic record seems tosuggest that earthquakes of the 1934magnitude occur approximately every75 years. That, combined with recentseismic activity in the region, has ledmany experts to believe that a majorearthquake is almost certain to hit inthe near future. Nepal is in theseismically very active Himalayanmountain belt, with the Indian plateto the south moving burrowingagainst the Asian or Tibetan plate to

our north. (See also “Waiting for thebig one,” #25.) A seismic risk map ofNepal produced by the UnitedNations Development Programme(UNDP) and United Nations Centrefor Human Settlements (UNCHS)based on geological data, shows thatthe country’s hills are more vulnerableto earthquakes than the mountains orthe terai. And western and centralNepal—where a large percentage of thepopulation and vulnerable infrastruc-ture is concentrated-are more exposedthan the far-east.

The realisation that Nepal is asseismically active as Japan but muchmore vulnerable because of poor

infrastructure planning came only afterthe 1988 earthquake. The^Mahabhukampa, or nabbay saal kobhuichalo, could have taught Nepal alot, but public and institutionalmemory has proven to be short. Anearthquake memorial, now known asBhugol Park, was erected in 1934 toremind people of the damage thedisaster caused. Nepal was the firstAsian country to build such amonument, but it was not until 1988that attention was refocused on actualearthquake preparedness. One of theproducts of this new concern was thecreation of NSET-Nepal in 1994.

NSET-Nepal believes that withconcerted effort, Nepal can be quake

resistant by 2020. The organisationhelps people learn what “preparedness”means, in terms of how they build andorganise their structures, and whattheir immediate response should be inthe event of a quake. Still, Dixitworries. “Nepalis are very complacentand are not panicked easily,” he says.“But to withhold the knowledge so asnot to create panic is actually a crime.”Dixit cannot emphasise enough thatthe only way to deal with such adisaster is to be always prepared,which means having long-term visionand patience.

One of the ways to do that is to seeto it that quakes are never too far fromthe public mind. Which is why,though NSET-Nepal, with thesupport from the government declaredMagh 2 (this year 15 January) everyyear as Earthquake Safety Day, theywork around the year with institutionsand communities to make the Valley asafer place, should there be a quake.

Probably their biggest success

story has been the four-year-old SchoolEarthquake Safety Project (SESP).Shocked to find that none ofKathmandu Valley’s 643 publicschools complied with even thenominal building code in place now,NSET-Nepal decided to strengthen thebuildings by a process known asseismic retrofitting, by which evenpoorly-built structures can bestabilised to withstand quakes. Today,SESP is so popular that it is beingreplicated in India, Indonesia andother countries. Ram Hari Sharma,principal of Bal Bikas MadhyamikVidhyalaya, one of the schools that hasbeen retrofitted says, “I agreed whenthey selected my school, and now thereare four or five houses in the area thathave replicated what we did.”

Starting 12 January, when Nepal’sfourth annual Earthquake Safety Weekbegins, different organisations andexperts will come together in publicforums to raise awareness and discussthe problems raised by quakes.

Lalitpur is the focus this year, and theweek will kick off with the hand-over ofthe earthquake resistant KaversthaliSchool to the community. This will befollowed by programmes such as a masscasualty drill at Machhendra bahal, aseminar on improving buildingstandards, a symposium in disaster riskmanagement, messages over radio and adiscussion of the role of media inearthquake disaster management.Lalitpur’s mayor Buddhi RajBajracharya says he plans to conductawareness programmes in every ward ofLalitpur. “My aim is to bring downcasualties when such a disaster occurs,”he says. The municipality plans tomake the approval of two design plans arequirement for any new construction,and already hands out a set of bookletson constructing for earthquake safetywhen it approves plans.

The UN is also doing its bit. TheUN Disaster Management Team(UNDMT), reactivated in 1999, hascome up with the first UN DisasterResponse Preparedness Plan in theworld. Man Bahadur Thapa of the UNDisaster Management Programme, saysthe team has trained 47 governmentofficials at the ministry level in disastermanagement and over 100 members ofthe larger community. The team alsoprovides technical support to the threegroups that, should a quake hit, willwork on food and agriculture, health,and logistics.

Kathmandu grandparents, whenasked about the 1934 quake, often say,“Mother Earth shuddered with angerbecause we insulted her by our sins. Soshe took people’s lives and destroyedbuildings and religious shrines.” Thesins of Nepal may bring on quakes,but the sin of under-preparation willonly magnify the damage on anunforgivable scale.

Nepal is still inadequately prepared for the nextbig quake which, like it or not, will happen.

Seismic Risk in Nepal

The seismic zoning of the country is shown onmap, where z=1.1 and z=1.0 represent the highestearthquake risk zones.

T

Destruction from the 1934 earthquake to Darbar Square around the Taleju Bell

The Bal Vikas Madhyamik Vidyalaya before and after being retrofitted for earthquake resistance

99999ECONOMY 11 - 17 JANUARY 2002 NEPALI TIMES

SUH-KYUNG YOON

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IN HONG KONG

or a hip hi-tech company,Palm Corp’s marketingstrategy in Asia is as low-tech

and Old Economy as you can get.No digital blips and interactiveclicks for its latest Palm Pilotlaunch. Just some good old-fashioned paint and paper in theform of billboards.

It is in good company. Nokia’spitch for its sleek new phone isright next to Palm’s board by theentrance of the Cross-HarbourTunnel on Hong Kong Island.Opposite are ads for Cathay PacificAirways, Citibank and PacificCentury CyberWorks.

Forget banner ads and shortmessaging service (SMS) marketing.The hottest things in advertising

Outdoor is in

these days are billboards, bus panelsand flyers pasted on newsstands andbenches. Outdoor advertising isabout the only thing advertisers aresplurging on. According to market-research company ACNielsen,spending on outdoor media in Asiarose by 20 percent during the firstnine months of 2001—even whiletotal ad expenditure was up lessthan 5 percent in the same period.“Everybody was talking about ‘newmedia, new media’ in 2000,” saysPhilip Rich, ACNielsen’s executivedirector for Hong Kong and China.“Well, the new media have turnedout to be outdoor, the oldestadvertising form around.”

Old, but by no means dull. Atleast not these days in Asia.Creative directors have gone all outin the outdoor medium, coming up

with innovative displays and eye-catching visuals. Local companiesspecialising in transit and billboardadvertising are getting stock marketlistings and winning venturecapital, while multinationals arepiling into the region. As foradvertisers, they’re waking up tothe fact that Asia’s crowded citiesguarantee more eyeballs than anywebsite or TV spot.

What a turnaround. Outdooradvertising has been dying out inthe region over the past decade. In1990, these media took up about14 percent of total ad expenditurein Asia. But as economic develop-ment brought televisions and radiosinto almost every home andnewspapers and magazines prolifer-ated, outdoor lost its cachet. Whyadvertise on a plain old billboard

when you can buy a flashy 30-second television spot? By 1997,advertisers in Asia were spendingonly 9 percent of their budgets onoutdoor ads.

Then came the financial crisis in1997. While the rest of theadvertising industry suffered, cheapand easy outdoor ads flourished.They’ve been on an upswing eversince, growing more than 10percent throughout the region in2000-2001—the largest increasesince 1990.

China is growing fastest—nosurprise. Hong Kong-based market-research company Zenith Mediapredicts that the China marketexpanded 15 percent last year.Advertisers there spend about 16spend of their budget on outdoormedia, significantly more than inother countries. One reason fortheir popularity is the relative lackof regulation. “Unlike TV or thepress, outdoor is totally deregulatedin China,” says Adrian King,director of media research andstrategic planning in Hong Kong forUS-based media plannerMediaCom. “The government’sinvolvement is virtually negligible.You can basically do anything youlike in the outdoor medium.”

That means it is also one of thefew media avenues that is open toforeign investors. One companythat is exploiting this is tom.com.Launched as a portal in 2000 at theheight of Hong Kong’s dotcommania, its stock price jumped 335percent on its stock market debut.But like other dotcoms, its on-lineoperations failed to make money.So now it’s turning to OldEconomy tricks to tap into thebooming Chinese advertisingmarket and pad its bottom line.Earlier this year, tom.com boughtseven companies for $97 million tocreate the largest outdoor-media

network in the mainland.The hefty investment has

already paid-off—tom.com’srevenues jumped from $1.6 millionin the third quarter of 2000 to$20.4 million in 2001. Its outdoor-media network alone turned oversome $45 million last year.

One tom.com acquisition,Tianming Advertising Company,which places ads on double-deckerbuses and billboards in Henanprovince, in central China, has a netprofit margin of 40 percent. And thecompany is growing at more than 30percent a year. “We’re looking forhigh growth and strong cash flow,”says Sing Wang, tom.com’s chiefexecutive. “The outdoor business inChina right now gives us both.”

That’s true for the rest of theregion as well. Even in the mostdeveloped markets, like HongKong, Singapore and Korea, profitmargins are in double digits. So thecosts of building an outdoornetwork can be recouped in justthree years, says Kam Ling, chiefexecutive of Media Nation, a HongKong-based transit-advertisingcompany. “Once you’ve invested inthe infrastructure, you can startreaping the results right away.”

Media Nation plans to list onHong Kong’s Growth EnterpriseMarket before the end of the year.In June, the Kowloon Motor BusCompany listed its advertisingsubsidiary, Roadshow, for close to$41 million on Hong Kong’s GEMin an offering that was 16 timesoversubscribed.

But even well-funded localplayers like these won’t be able tocorner the outdoor market. First, itis massive—worth over $1 billion ayear. But it is also extremelyfragmented. Tom.com’s Wang saysover 80 percent of outdoor assets inChina are controlled by smallplayers that each have less than a 1percent market share. Most otheroutdoor ad markets in Asia are justas ripe for consolidation. Eyeing anopportunity, savvy multinationalmedia companies like Clear Channelof the United States and APN Newsand Media of Australia are aggres-sively expanding in the region.

That’s the supply side. But isthere sufficient demand for outdoorad space? Depleting ad revenueshave forced newspapers andmagazines throughout the region tocut costs. But companies still needto advertise. And put bluntly,outdoor is cheap. An ad on the sideof a bus in Hong Kong costs just$385 a month while a full-pagesplash in a local newspaper can costclose to $13,000 a day. “There’s nodoubt that people are trying to findways to stretch their money thesedays and outdoor provides goodvalue during tough times likethese,” says John Smallwood, headof Singapore-based Asia Posters,APN’s venture in the region.

Outdoor may be cheap, butdon’t discount its impact. Usedproperly, it can effectively raisebrand awareness. “Outdoor can’tbuild a brand by itself,” says ChrisWalton, chief executive of media-buyer Mindshare in China. “But itcan be used to increase andmaintain awareness levels for anextended period of time.”

Forced to cut costs, manybrands are rejigging their mediabudgets to throw more outdoor intothe mix. US conglomerate Procterand Gamble, for one, has tradition-ally shunned the medium but is nowtesting the waters with its HugoBoss perfume, which has beensplashed onto billboards throughout

Hong Kong. “We’ve been trying toopen their eyes for the last 30 yearsto the potential of outdoor andnothing has worked,” saysMediaCom’s King. “But they’vefinally cottoned on to the fact thatoutdoor is perfect for the kinds ofproducts in their portfolio.”

Shrewd entrepreneurs arejumping in to make outdoorofferings more palatable to morehigh-profile advertisers. Through-out the region, they’ve consolidatedassets into networks that are sold toadvertisers in bulk.

Four years ago, when Nikewanted to launch a Shanghai-wideoutdoor campaign, it had toconvince 20 different municipalbodies and talk to a handful ofbillboard owners to seal the deal.Earlier this year Walton arranged a30-city outdoor marketing pushwith just one phone call to a MediaNation subsidiary. With 22,000buses in China, another 3,000 inHong Kong and 23,500 advertisingdisplays in Beijing and Shanghai,Media Nation is fast becoming theWalmart of China’s outdooradvertising industry. “A few yearsago, if you wanted a country-widecampaign, there was no choice butTV,” says Media Nation’s Ling.“But today outdoor is a realalternative since China has one ofthe most developed outdoornetworks in the world.” Tom.comis building a network in China aswell, providing one-stop shoppingfor billboards, bus shelters andstreet furniture.

Vendors aren’t just expandingtheir reach, they’re diversifying theirofferings as well. In Hong Kong,thousands of new bus shelters havebeen set up with more eye-catchingdisplays and billboards and signshave been placed on everythingfrom the cross-harbour Star Ferryto a driving-range net.

But the most cutting-edgeinnovations are coming from themost unlikely sources—HongKong’s listed public-transportcompanies. The Kowloon-CantonRailway Corp, the Mass TransitRailway Corp. and the city’s threebus companies have all gone onan LCD binge, fitting their trains,buses and stations with flat-screen TVs.

These screens are used bycompanies like Roadshow tobroadcast ads to a literally captiveaudience. “With three millionpassengers a day, we have thelargest audience in town,” says thecompany’s chief marketing officer,Nancy Pang. “And we know they’rewatching the screens—what elsewould they do on the buses?” Thespin-off reported revenues of$8.85 million for the first sixmonths of this year.

The outdoor media work betterin Asia than anywhere else in theworld. “Most of the cities in theregion have lots of people packedinto a tiny territory,” says ClaraLiao, Palm’s marketing manager.“That means a lot more people aregoing to see outdoor ads here.”Palm’s billboards by the Cross-Harbour Tunnel in Hong Konghave certainly caught consumers’eyes. “Everyone seems to havenoticed them,” she says. “We’ve allbeen stuck in traffic around thetunnel at one point or another.”

As Asia Poster’s Smallwoodsays, “It’s the last true massmedium around. Not everyonewatches TV, reads the papers orsurfs the web. Outdoor gets toeveryone who leaves theirhomes.” (FEER)

Forget banner ads and TV slots. Old-fashioned billboardsguarantee maximum impact for minimum spend

F

88888 NEPALI ECONOMY 11 - 17 JANUARY 2002 NEPALI TIMES

BIZ NEWS FEEDBACK

INTERVIEW

ne is getting sick and tired ofhearing the same regurgitatedgarbage from each and every

industry, in particular from Nepalitourism “entrepreneurs”. The 11September attacks are only partiallyresponsible for the present crisis inour industry.

Our “entrepreneurs” havebrought this situation upon them-selves by not devising creativesolutions in marketting. And I don’tblame them: they know not what theydo, for they jumped blindly onto thetourism bandwagon.

The lack of operational aptitudeand integrity towards tourism, andself-indulgence were their hallmark.They garnered ego-satisfying duty freefour wheel drives with green plates,and the social respectability conse-quent of the construction of a starhotel.

They cared not that their valuedgod-like (atithi devo bhava) guestsarrived in ramshackle cattle cartscalled taxis spewing smoke insiderather than outside. They cared notthat hygiene in both the kitchen andguest toilets were essential, or that thebed sheets and table cloths werestained. They wallowed in their ownprescribed levels of mediocrity.

It was so easy to accept thischalta hai mentality because wethought: “We are a poor country andour revenues are just not enough tolook after these trivial requirements ofthe guests.” Few hotels are a plannedexercise, most evolved on the whimsand fancies of the landlord who justmade alterations to his home. Fewworry about waste disposal, parkingor other infrastructure. Hotels inPokhara pump their sewage tanksinto the lake on which they dependfor their own water supply.

Much like the carpet, garment,pashmina, airline, banking, taxi, or the

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Fasten seat beltsThe insurgency and emergency of the past months has slowed not just the government’sspending, but has curbed spending in general. The Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) says thedetedriorating law and order situation kept government spending slow in the first fourmonths of this fiscal year (until mid-October). Recurrent expenses grew by about sevenpercent and development spending by six percent, while there was a sharp growth infreeze expenditure—money that has to be spent during the fiscal year—up by 46 percent toRs 1.5 billion.

This growth partly reflects spending brought forward by the different ministries to pay forthe preparations for the SAARC summit. Government spending may have got worse since,because the central bank figures do not take into account the developments since the 23November Maoist attacks and the declaration of the state of emergency three days later.

Resource mobilisation grew by just seven percent, compared to 31 percent growth inthe same period last year. Revenue grew by a mere nine percent compared to 22 percentgrowth in the last fiscal year, hit by a slowdown in imports and sluggish industrial produc-tion. The budget deficit in mid-November was Rs 4.2 billion, which was plugged withforeign loans (Rs 1.5 billion) and over-drawing Rs 2.7 billion from the central bank. Inflationis still under three percent, despite a rise in food and beverage prices. The price rise offruits, vegetables, sugar and oil offset the reduction in the price of rice.

The bank had no good news on the external front: exports are down by about eightpercent compared with 42 percent growth in the same period last year. Exports to Indiagrew much more slowly than last year, while there was a slide in Nepal’s main overseasexports—carpets (down 15 percent), readymade garments (down by 34 percent) andpashmina (down by a whopping 78 percent). Imports also dropped by 3.5 percent, com-pared to the 13 percent by which it grew in the same period last year.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, a Rastra Bank researcher told us we can expect more badnews. “Every sector seems to be going from bad to worse,” he said.

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Banking on reformistsThe World Bank’s deadline to the government for initiating financial reforms expires next month,and it is uncertain whether Nepal will get another extension. If it does, it will be the fifth extension.

Employee unions of the two banks have decided to team up to protest the proposed re-forms, essentially the handing over ofNepal Bank Ltd and Rastriya BanijyaBank to external management teams.The unions say that hiring highly paidconsultants using a World Bank loanwas not the solution. They say the illscan be addressed if there is nopolitical interference. Reformersargue that foreign managers willhave the independence to sever linksbetween politicians, businessgroups and bank employees—identified as a major reason for thecrisis. A study based on 1998 datahad said both the banks are insolvent, even though they have substantial liquid funds. Theliquidity has resulted from their nationwide reach, and is not because they have recovered theirinvestments. Nearly half of the loans at the two banks are said to be non-performing.

trekking industry, most tourismentrepreneurs plunged in to rake inthe tourist dollar like there was notomorrow. The quality controllersand the government’s licensingauthorities moved with the flow. Theresulting degradation is evident.

There have been no creative ideasand approach to marketing many ofthese hotels and destinations. Theonly marketing tool applied is rateaxing. Even the “two percent” NepalTourism Board has not determinedfor itself the level of quality, orapplied any effort to repackage theNepal product. The opening of morepeaks lacks creative inputs and is theknee-jerk reaction of file-pushingfinger-pointing bureaucrats. The

height of creativity was locking theBuddha in by erecting a brick wallaround his birthplace in Lumbini.

For a lesson in marketing, weneed to look at the Indian state ofHaryana. It had nothing going for it,but it taught other states rich indestinations, like Rajasthan andOrissa, how to make an impact. Whycan’t Nepal, which is so rich in thediversity of its tourism product, do asimilar repackaging? Just sheddingtears, pumping out vaguestatistical reports and organisinginteraction programmes will nothelp. Stop crying and pointingfingers, take responsibility.

SanjayBaneswor

O

Nepali Times: People are waiting for your mobile service to belaunched. Whatís holding things up?Rajendra Khetan: We completed all the legal and joint venture proce-dures in September. We applied to the Nepal TelecommunicationAuthority for frequency allocation and other such matters on whichapproval is needed. We are waiting to hear back from the NTA. The projectis very much ready, we only need to be given the go ahead.

Rajendra Khetan is executive director in theKhetan Group, which is involved in producingeverything from instant noodles to beer, frominsurance to banking. He is also a vice presidentat the Federation of the Nepalese Chambers ofCommerce and Industries (FNCCI) and HonoraryConsul of Portugal. We spoke to Khetan to findout what was happening to his mobile telephoneproject, and also about other issues affectingbusiness in Nepal.

This delay must be costing you and the exchequer. Does this say somethingabout the governmentís attitude to privatisation of this sector?It is definitely costing us heavily. The money we have committed is lyingidle in the bank. We have also lined up many people to work on the project,all are waiting for the green signal. The losses on the government’s side arefor the NTA to tell.

The privatisation of mobile telephony is a test for the government. Thiswill show how serious it is about privatisation of the telecommunicationsector. The initiative has opened a new avenue for Nepali business and Iam hopeful the government will support the project and see it through. Itmakes sense in every way—we will generate employment and bring incompetition, which is best for the customer, and there is extra revenue to beearned by the state in the form of royalties, taxes, etc. We all stand to gainfrom this.

If you get your frequency sorted out, how much longer will it take?After we get all clearances from the Authority, it will take another 12 to 14weeks for us to launch the mobile service.

What extra services will you provide and what company-specifictechnology will you use?We’ll provide all the essential components of mobile telephony, such asshort messaging (SMS), email, Internet, and maybe new services such asnews alerts, weather forecasts and the like. We are also looking at offeringthe other possibilities in telephony, such as roaming services, and the otherdata communication facilities possible under the GMS mobile technology.Mobile phones can also be used as a security tool, and we’re exploring thepossibilities of that too. We will be using the latest technology. We arecurrently negotiating with a few technology suppliers. Spice Cell has a wideknowledge of the business and their experts are already assessing thedifferent options.

Mobiles can leapfrog the expensive copper wire technology required forrural telephony and to connect the highways. Do you see a marketthere?Our plan is to provide the service along the highway and all hubs andmarkets to make our coverage as wide as possible. Mobiles are definitely abetter communication option than wire connections. Like in Bangladesh, weare also eyeing rural markets.

What about affordability?We will price our product to make it competitive, because in anybusiness volume and reach are crucial. The further we are able toreach, the higher our revenues. I cannot talk about specific pricing atthis point.

How is your joint venture incorporated? How much money areyou and your partner putting in?We have tied up with Spice Cell owned by Modis from India. Theyhave 60 percent stock and we have 40 percent equity. The projectcost is around $13 million. The debt-equity ratio is still being workedout.

Son a different note, what do you see as the basic problems ofdoing business in Nepal today?Government officials do not implement laws and policies in the spiritthat an investor would desire. But then, even the laws are verytraditional. There are problems with the labour law, which favourlabour unions. Revenue officials still have discretionary powers andbecause the new law has made them more powerful, businessremains at their mercy. Businesses are also affected locally by thewhims of local administrators. Of course, the major concern at thispoint is industrial security. We have discussed these issues with theMinister for Commerce and Industry, Purna Bahadur Khadka, who hasassured us he will do his best. The newly constituted Board ofInvestment should also help resolve some of these problems.

What exactly is the problem with the labour law?We in business think wages should be linked with productivity toenhance competitiveness. People should not be paid simplybecause they are there. Industries, particularly those concerned withseasonal products and businesses, should be free to use contractlabour, that would help us keep production in tune with demand. Howcan we ensure productivity and discipline when we can’t hire and fireworkers? We need to re-think the rights of employers and employees,where industrial disputes are concerned. Any disruption at aworkplace affects everyone—owners, workers and labourers. Why can’twe agree on a minimum code of conduct to ensure that production isnot disrupted, whatever the differences.

MIN

BA

JRA

CH

AR

YA

“We need to agree on a minimum code of conduct.”

MIN

BA

JRA

CH

AR

YA

11 - 17 JANUARY 2002 NEPALI TIMES 111111111111 - 17 JANUARY 2002 NEPALI TIMESHERITAGE1010101010 HERITAGE

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ALOK TUMBAHANGPHEYhey have called Patan theFlorence of the East.Bhaktapur has been

compared to Seville. While thetall temples and the elegantDarbar Squares of these townsstand out, what gives them theirunique urban ambience is thearchitecture of the individualbuildings, the sidewalk temples,the rest houses and the harmonyof space and colour.

Heritage conservation effortsin Kathmandu Valley over thepast 30 years have focussed ontrying to restore the monuments,but the march of modernisation

While high profile monuments get all the attention, Kathmandu Valley’s old-world architecture is equally in peril.A conservation trust is racing against time to save these forgotten treasures.

has eroded the character ofKathmandu Valley towns, asconcrete blocks replace old-worldarchitecture. Many invaluable,but less highlighted, monumentsbuilt by our ancestors within thedepths of the dark alleys and bahalsare crumbling away.

Thankfully, city planners andarchaeologists and architects arenow taking notice. The KathmanduValley Preservation Trust (KVPT)is now working to renovate the pati,pauwa, matha and mandir of theinner city. “If it weren’t for non-profit groups like the KVPT, muchof the Valley’s architectural heritagewould already have been lost. The

work it does is commendable, but ithas received far less media attentionand promotion than it deserves,”says Keshav Raj Jha, former Nepaliambassador to France and long-timeconsultant to the UNESCO WorldHeritage office Nepal.

The KVPT has been aroundfor ten years, doing its workquietly, without too muchfanfare. It has rescued over adozen monuments of culturalvalue, mostly in Patan, but also inKathmandu. It selects simpleroadside structures such as theMani Gufa temple that lieshidden beside the temple ofKrishan Mandir in Patan Darbar

Square, and restores it painstak-ingly to its previous beauty. It hasalso rebuilt entire temples thathave been ravaged by time andweather, like the 18th centuryKulima Narayan nearBagalamukhi. “The KVPT has seta standard for building conserva-tion in Neoal which is unri-valled,” says Peter Laws, acultural heritage expert withUNESCO.

But it has not been easy forthe KVPT and its director,American architect Eric GTheophile. They have had to faceall sorts of problems, from fund-raising to even securing the right

to restore a site. “Renovatingfalling structures is only oneaspect of our work, we need toovercome a lot of challengesbefore we can even reach to thatpart,” says KVPT’s ImranaRashid. For instance, the trusthad to fight legal battles for nineyears to renovate the AyuguthiSatal in Patan. In 1992, theKVPT obtained funds to repairthe crumbling satal, initially aplace where the faithful sangreligious hymns and pilgrimsspent their nights, now longovertaken by squatters unwillingto let the Trust in. But work isnow underway and renovation

Before and after in Kathmandu Valley

will be completed in March.“Once the work is done the satalwill be turned into a resource andeducational centre for touristsand scholars,” says Rashid.

Fund-raising may be aproblem, but sometimes a biggerobstacle is lack of help from thelocal community. Many commu-nities have helped support therenovation by contributinglabour, wood or even money. Butthese are exceptions. The apathyis puzzling, and is probably dueto the fragmentation of clans,guthi and communities in theformerly closely-knit urbanenvironment. Renovation of

Ayuguthi Satal, before and in the process of being renovated.

Kulihma Narayan before and after restoration completed in 1998.

13th century Sulima Ratneswara after restoration

Khalkhu pati (rest house) restored

Uma Maheswori restored and made safer.

T

Radha Krishna Mandir restoration period 1991 -1993

Radha Krishna temple in Patanended in 1993, but the localsshowed little enthusiasm to lookafter the rebuilt temple.

The 13th century SulimaRatneswara is another temple inPatan that KVPT helped renovate.Manager Raju Roka partly blamesthe temple priests for the temples’disrepair. “There are more reasonsfor temples and old structures tofall apart than just old age,” saysRoka. He says buildings crumblebecause the traditional managementsystems designed for their upkeephave fallen apart. “The mainproblem with conservation here, aselsewhere,” says Laws, “is of coursethe universal one, that of the lack ofpublic awareness. People neglecttheir cultural heritage.” Lawssuggests that one way to ensure thatbuilding conservation is smoother isto give municipalities more power,so they can make the road easier fororganisations such as the KVPT.

Where KVPT’s work has beensmoother is where local bodiessuch as guthi are intact. And themost heartening impact of theTrust’s work is what some callthe “demonstration effect”

evident all over Patan today—when residents of an area see onebuilding being restored, and seethat there are often tangiblebenefits that can accrue from it,they are more receptive to doingthe same. As one reaches theKulima Narayan temple, an oldbuilding on the right, in the samestyle, is being renovated. Untilsome time ago, the owners wereplanning to destroy the decades-old building and have a concretestructure. With help and advicefrom KVPT, the owners are nowturning the building into a bedand breakfast pension wheretourists can enjoy living in anold-style Newari house withmodern comforts.

There are positive signs thatthe awareness level among thelocal community concerningarchitectural heritage is alsoincreasing. A walk around Patanreveals numerous houses beingre-built in old-style architecture,even though modern materialshave been used. Says KVPTboard member and director ofdevelopment Gautam SJB Rana:“Compared to the past, the

situation has certainly improved alot and people have begun torealise the importance of thesestructures.” Rana was the firstNepali to be elected to the boardof directors of KVPT. Rana hasbeen a longtime supporter of thetrust’s work with his own BaberMahal Revisited—an example ofcultural heritage conservation.

In Kathmandu, the Trust isworking to re-renovate theJaganath Temple which had beendestroyed by monsoon rains, anddisturbed by shoddy reconstruc-tion. There are also plans torenovate a falling Sherpa monas-tery in Junbesi in Solu Khumbu,but that has had to be shelvedbecause of the counter-insurgencyoperation.

KVPT’s real seriousness isreflected by its office. It is a rentedold Newari house near PatanDurbar Square, re-vamped with astyle and grace that symbolises itspassion for conservation. With itstraditional exterior and modernoffice space, it reflects a perfectand harmonious blend of old andnew. They certainly practice whatthey preach.

The Trust’s office, an old Newari house in Patan re-vamped in style.

The 16th century Tum Baha Narayan in ruins in 1994 and after restoration in 2000

Lakhe Agam renovated in 1996

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or those on the right, the trouble with CNN is its alleged liberal bias.“Clinton News Network” was the sneering tag conservatives slapped on it inthe late ’90s, helping to fuel the rise of the right-leaning Fox News

Channel. This perception has been so damaging that Walter Isaacson, sincebecoming head of CNN last year, has gone so far as to have a chitchat withRepublican members of Congress, explore a talk show for right-wing icon RushLimbaugh, and recently remind his troops that they shouldn’t dwell on civiliancasualties in the Afghan war without reminding viewers about 11 September.(Gee, Walter, do you think we’ve forgotten?)

On the left, CNN looks very different. Immediately after 9/11, a false reportstarted zipping around the Net that a CNN tape of Palestinians celebrating theattacks was file footage from the Gulf War. This fit perfectly with the antiwar left’spreconceived notions. After the bombing started, some leftists started calling it“CMN,” for “Cable Military Network,” referring to its alleged unquestioningembrace of US efforts in Afghanistan.

That such a resolutely centrist news organisation could be the subject of theseideological passions says something interesting about CNN’s place in Americanculture. But CNN today is in real danger—not from such critics, but fromrelentless corporate pressures to squeeze out higher and higher profits with fewerand fewer people. The last few years have not been kind to CNN. When itrocketed to prominence during the Gulf War in 1990 and ’91, and when LarryKing served as a virtual media consultant for Ross Perot in 1992, CNN had the

by DAN KENNEDYCOMMENT

The left and the right alike hate CNN.

24-hour all-news cable audience to itself. Founder Ted Turner took theopportunity presented by this fortuitous lack of competition to build up hisnetwork to become one of the more respected international electronic newsorganisations—no BBC, but a lot better than the Big Three broadcastnetworks, which spent the decade closing foreign bureaus and dumbingdown their products.

In the mid ’90s, other players decided to grab a piece of the action. Microsoftand NBC formed MSNBC, a younger, hipper alternative. Rupert Murdochstarted the Fox News Channel to peel off conservatives. With the tiny all-newsaudience split three ways, CNN’s forte—on-the-ground reporting—became tooexpensive, especially compared to Fox’s lineup of boneheaded talk shows,epitomised by the loathsome The O’Reilly Factor.

Things only got worse after the corporate owner to whom Turner sold out,Time Warner, merged with AOL last year. Time Warner head Gerald Levin maybe calling the shots, but it’s AOL that’s holding the checkbook, and its approachsuggests Visigoths pillaging Rome. Last summer, they shut down the fabledTime, Inc library, a substantive symbolic blow for an organisation renowned forits institutional memory. And CNN started emulating its downscale competition,unveiling its own lame talk shows.

After 11 September, ratings for CNN, MSNBC and Fox all soared, andCNN, with its superior journalistic resources, led again. Isaacson said CNN hadrediscovered its mission. That didn’t last. With the terrorism crisis less acutenow, ratings are down and the struggle with Fox has resumed. The Wall StreetJournal recently wrote that CNN will blow through its annual news budget insix months, even as ad revenues continue to plummet. The only solution may bea merger of newsgathering operations with ABC or CBS. But those networks arereportedly talking with each other.

Fast Company columnist John Ellis observed in the New York Press inSeptember 2000 that CNN’s problems are deep-rooted. Ellis, a veteran of NBCand the Fox News Channel (being President Bush’s cousin cost him his freelancegig at Fox during the Florida fiasco), argued that CNN’s problem is ingrained.“The CNN culture is sort of retro-Southern gothic,” Ellis wrote. “Most peoplethere have never worked anywhere else. They see themselves as Georgians doingbattle with hostile Northern forces.” That was true even after Turner sold out toTime Warner, Ellis added.

That culture apparently did in Isaacson’s predecessor, Rick Kaplan, now inexile at Harvard’s Kennedy School. Isaacson should presumably encounter lessresistance from old CNN hands—there are fewer of them around anyway. Butwill his corporate masters let him use this chance to make CNN better, or tostrip-mine it for lucre. Headline of the day. From a recent Boston Herald:“Budget Fight Could Hurt—or Help—Gov Hopefuls.” Yes, that just aboutcovers it. (MediaChannel)

Can CNN be saved?

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Gross National Happiness in RussiaMOSCOW- Russia’s economy has picked up after a decade-longdecline, but, say economists, a lot needs to be done. 2001 was asuccessful year for Russia and the average Russian would “behappy” by 2010, President Vladimir Putin said on national television24 December. By end 2001, Russia’s GDP growth reached 5.5percent, says Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin. Tough reforms by theKremlin include the introduction of a 13-percent flat income tax, newlabour and land codes, and restructuring of the country’s pensionsystem. In 2001, Russia’s foreign trade surplus exceeded $40 billion,and its gold and hard currency reserves rose to $35 billion, triplingthe 1998 level, says the Central Bank of Russia.

But experts warn that continued over-reliance on oil and gasexports might eventually push Russia into a vicious circle of debtcrises, and increasing dependence on international commodityprices. Russia’s financial health has improved significantly since the1998 crisis, largely due to high world market prices for its energyand commodity exports. Russia is a large oil producer, and theworld’s biggest natural gas producer and exporter. But many ofRussia’s oil and metal industries were sold cheap to well-connectedtycoons, who have been siphoning out as much as two-thirds of theprofits from their cheaply acquired assets offshore instead ofinvesting in production. There has also been nervousness recentlyas Russian oil hovered below $20 per barrel. Another potentialchallenge to sustaining such growth is Russia’s $150 billion foreigndebt, which represents roughly four-fifths of the country’s GDP, or$1,000 per citizen. Russia’s slowing economy could entail devalua-tion of the Ruble between 2003 and 2005, argues Mikhail Delyagin,head of the Institute of Globalisation Problems, a Moscow-basedthink-tank. (IPS)

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Flier in the ointmentWASHINGTON - US Air Force fighter pilot Martha McSally was madelieutenant colonel four years before her peers. She had flown over100 hours in her A-10, with its fast-firing Gatling gun. She was achampion triathlete with a master’s degree in public policy fromHarvard. She had patrolled the no-fly zone over Iraq and directedsearch-and-rescue missions inside Afghanistan. Then she landed atPrince Sultan Air Force Base in Saudi Arabia in November 2000. In abriefing, officers there laid down the rules for travel off base, evenon official business: All female personnel would wear the customaryhead-to-toe gown, the abaya and its matching head scarf. Theycould not drive. They would ride in the back seat and be escorted bymales at all times. Officials said the policy was to keep from offend-ing conservative Saudi leaders and protect US troops from terroristattacks. But to McSally, the directive, with its different instructionsfor men and women, “abandons American values.” Last month, shesued Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, contending that thepolicy is unconstitutional, discriminating against women and violatingtheir religious freedom. The suit seeks no monetary damages. Shehas support from an unlikely coalition of Republicans, Democratsand liberal feminists. “This is bizarre,” says Senator Bob Smith, oneof five Republican senators pushing the Defence Department to junkthe policy, “becuase we are waging a war in Afghanistan to removethose abayas.” In a letter to Rumsfeld, Democratic Rep LouiseSlaughter wrote, “It is unconscionable that our own governmentshould uphold this institutionalised disrespect of women by requiringAmericans conform to these standards.” Says McSally, “The lastthing I wanted to do was make a big deal about being a woman. Asan officer, you need to shut up and follow when an order is lawful.You need to step out when it’s unlawful.”

by WALDEN BELLOANALYSIS

MANILA - Europe is cool, there isapprehension throughout the South,and outright despondency blanketsmuch of the Arab and Muslim world.There are at least 4000 dead inAfghanistan, a large number civilians,four million refugees, a return to tribalchaos with the dismemberment ofcentral authority. What bin Laden andhis organisation did was horrific andinexcusable—but to do this to acountry in the name of justice?

And yet this victory has a widersignificance for the Pentagon. Massive,precision-guided air power can winwars, with almost no commitment ofUS ground troops, and thus almost nocasualties. With this renewedconfidence in what historian RussellWeigley called “the American Way ofWar”—massive firepower, hightechnology, total victory—Washingtonis now considering similar interven-tion in states that allegedly provide aidand comfort to the terrorists, such asYemen, Sudan, Somalia, and Iraq. Theevents in Afghanistan have likely givena boost to plans for a strong USmilitary role in the drug war inColombia. Newsweek reports thatColombian authorities seeking a moredecisive US role are now “trying toshow the parallels between the Talebanand their own guerrilla movements...”

There is also emerging a renewedrespectability in direct intervention inthe affairs of developing countries.Respect for national sovereignty andself-determination has been furthereroded in Washington and Londonsince September, with conservativeintellectuals voicing opinions powerfulstates cannot yet articulate. Oneinfluential formulation comes from

Paul Johnson, author of ModernTimes: “...the best medium-termsolution will be to revive the oldLeague of Nations Mandate System,which served well as a ‘respectable’form of colonialism between thewars... Countries that can’t live atpeace with their neighbours and wagecovert war against the internationalcommunity cannot expect totalindependence. With all the permanentmembers of the Security Councilbacking, in varying degrees, theAmerican-led initiative, it should notbe difficult to devise a new UNmandate that places terrorist statesunder supervision.”

Afghanistan is now turning intothe latest experiment in the NewTrusteeship or New Mandate System,following the failure of the first majorinitiative owing to Somalian recalci-trance in 1993. The EU is asked toprovide—under British leadership, ofcourse—a permanent occupation force,the UN is brought in to broker a“representative government” amongcompeting tribal groups to fill thepolitical vacuum. Washington is beingunilateral in military action, multilat-

eral in political engineering, thusgetting others to take the blame if thepolitical structure collapses. On thedomestic front laws and executiveorders restricting the rights to privacyand free movement have been passedwith astonishing speed and ease.Not even the Cold War waspresented in such totalistic terms asthe War against Terror.

Writing in The Nation, DavidCorn observes that a mere nine weeksinto this war, legislation had beenpassed and executive orders signed inthe US establishing secret militarytribunals to try non-US citizens,impose guilt by association onimmigrants, authorise the attorneygeneral to indefinitely lock up alienson mere suspicion, expand the use ofwiretaps and secret searches, allowsecret evidence in immigrationproceedings, destroy the secrecy of theclient-lawyer relationship, andinstitutionalise racial and ethnicprofiling. Many of the US’s Europeanallies have also tried to push through adraft of legislation waiting in the wingsbefore 11 September. In Europe,however, citizens and parliaments are

not going as gently into that goodnight—including, surprisingly, theBritish parliament, which shot downTony Blair’s draconian proposal toallow the indefinite imprisonment offoreigners suspected of terrorism.

The new US legislation institu-tionalises unilateralism: the latest lawsand executive decrees self-endowWashington with the power to doalmost anything abroad. US forcesdisplayed this recently, when, in an actindistinguishable from piracy, theyboarded without consent aSingaporean ship in the Arabian Sea,overpowered the crew, and launched afruitless search for terrorists. Had asuspect been discovered, the Pentagoncould have shipped him to a US basein, say, Germany, tried him in a secretmilitary tribunal, and had he beenfound guilty by a process significantlyless rigorous than civilian justice,transported him to be shot orimprisoned in the US, possiblyanonymously. (IPS)

(Walden Bello is ExecutiveDirector of Focus on theGlobal South.)

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F

It is again okay to intervene in theaffairs of developing countries.

The American way of warThe American way of warTECHNOLOGY 11 - 17 JANUARY 2002 NEPALI TIMES1212121212

Internet gatekeeper○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

ARIANA EUNJUNG CHAWASHINGTON - It is themodern-day equivalent of aborder sentry. When visitors tryto enter UKBetting.com, acomputer program checks theiridentification to determinewhere they’re dialing in from.Most people are waved onthrough. Those from the UnitedStates, China, Italy and othercountries where gambling lawsare muddy, however, are flasheda sign in red letters that says“ACCESS DENIED” and arelocked out of the website.

For much of its life, theInternet has been seen as a greatdemocratising force, a placewhere nobody needs know whoor where you are. But thatnotion has begun to shift inrecent months, as governmentsand private businesses increas-ingly try to draw boundariesaround what used to be aborderless Internet to deal withlegal, commercial and terrorismconcerns.

“It used to be that a person

sitting in one place could get orsend information anywhere inthe world,” said Jack Gold-smith, a professor of interna-tional law at the University ofChicago. “But now the Internetis starting to act more like realspace with all its limitations.”

These new barriers takemany forms. One method is tosimply restrict who has access tocomputers and gateways to theInternet. Another is to make allcommunications pass throughfilters that seek to weed outobjectionable content, such aspornography or informationdeemed to endanger nationalsecurity. Growing in popularityis software that attempts tomatch a computer’s uniqueInternet address with a generalgeographic location, a technol-ogy that is becoming moreprecise every day.

The debate is no longerabout if we can create thesebarriers—but whether or not weshould. Even those who supportthe idea in theory disagree on

who should erect and maintainthe electronic fences, whetherit should be done by nation-states or by the websiteoperators.

The new borders providewhat some call a neat solutionto the vexing problem of howto resolve the often-conflictingpolicies of the roughly 200independent states of the worldon matters such as gambling,commerce, copyright andspeech.

But critics fear that thebarriers will create an Internetthat is balkanised. And civilrights groups warn thatfreedom of speech will suffer,that the technology will makeit easier for oppressive govern-ments to stifle nonconformistviewpoints, and that people’sprivacy will be eroded, espe-cially because some technolo-gies can pinpoint one’s locationdown to the latitude andlongitude.

“It’s likely that the Internetof tomorrow will look radically

different from different parts ofthe world,” said Lee Tien, alawyer with the ElectronicFrontier Foundation in SanFrancisco.

Already legislatures andcourt systems around the worldhave been attempting to asserttheir country’s authority overthe World Wide Web. HongKong’s government, for instance,has been debating whether topass a law that would make it acrime for any overseas gamblingsite to offer services to itsresidents. A court in Genoa,Italy, recently found theoperator of a website in anothercountry guilty of libel. A Frenchjudge has ordered Yahoo to stopselling Nazi paraphernaliabecause a law there bans suchpractices.

Without an internationaltreaty or mediation organisation,such rulings have so far beenlargely unenforceable on partiesresiding outside a country’sborders. But that has notstopped countries from draftingrules for what is and is notpermissible online.

At least 59 nations limitfreedom of expression, accordingto Leonard R Sussman, authorof “censor.gov”. Singapore, forinstance, works with Internetaccess providers to block anymaterial that undermines publicsecurity, national defence, racialand religious harmony, andmorals. That includes pornogra-phy and hate speech.

Some analysts say thebarriers could grow with thedevelopment of “geolocation”technology, which attempts tomatch a person’s location basedon a computer’s Internet

address.Silicon Valley’s Quova Inc.,

one of the leading providers ofthis technology, claims it cancorrectly identify a computeruser’s home country 98 percentof the time and the city about85 percent of the time, butonly if it is a large city.

Independent studies havepegged the accuracy rate ofsuch programs, which also aresold by companies such asInfoSplit, Digital Envoy,Netgeo and Akami, at 70 to 90percent.

The technology also isbeing embraced by webbroadcasters, whose nascentindustry had been growingslowly because of concernsabout copyright. JumpTV isbetting its future on thistechnology. The Montreal-based venture retransmitstelevision broadcasts fromaround the world and is tryingto avoid being sued by broad-casters who claim it violatestheir broadcasting licenses. Inearly 2000, a US judgeeffectively shut down anotherCanadian company callediCraveTV by prohibiting itfrom broadcasting its signalsinto the United States for90 days.

The difficulty in recognis-ing nation-state borders on theInternet became such a concernduring the 2000 Sydney Gamesthat the International OlympicCommittee effectively bannedmost web video of the events.

Television stations had paid

Boundaries arebeing drawnall over theformerly-borderlessInternet.

enormous fees for the rights tobroadcast the games on acountry-by-country basis—NBC, for instance, shelled out$3.5 billion for the UnitedStates—and they were worriedthat piracy or even legitimateonline transmissions that wereaccessible to anyone, anywhere

might devalue the worth ofthose contracts. The IOC andmany of the owners of broad-cast rights say the accuracy ratefor geolocation technology isstill not good enough and theywon’t allow any webcasts forthe Salt Lake City games thisFebruary.

“The technology justdoesn’t pass muster yet.There’s no way to guaranteethat your broadcast would beconfined to your territory andwould not run in to someoneelse’s,” said Kevin Monaghan, avice president for NBC Sports.

Even if geolocationtechnology worked perfectly,some legal experts said it wouldnot be feasible because itwould require website opera-tors to know the applicablelaws in every country fromAfghanistan to Zimbabwe.

“Geographical locationtechnology is a red herring,”said Alan Davidson, a lawyerwith the Centre for Technologyand Democracy, a Washingtonthink tank. “It would beincredibly burdensome to tailorcontent to meet all of thedifferent laws in all of thedifferent countries everywherethe world.” (WP)

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151515151511- 17 JANUARY 2002 NEPALI TIMESFROM THE NEPALI PRESS THIS PAGE CONTAINS MATERIAL SELECTED FROM THE NEPALI PRESS

Now that SAARC is over why delay in starting our game? Come on!Jan Bhawana, 7January

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Singing for its

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supperBudhabar, 2 January

KP Oli, UML leader“The press must not beexcessively controlled… This iswhat the press has become—when it was free, it was goingoverboard, and now it isn’tbrave enough to fulfil its basicresponsibilities. The press isnow overly concerned withsaving its own skin. It is noteven writing against thecontrols on itself. It is evenscared to print what we have tosay about controls on the press.The press must not be totallyfree, it has to function within acode of conduct and withinexisting laws, and it must nevershun responsibility. Even now itis said that the emergency wasimposed with the acquiescenceof the opposition parties. Thatis not true, the emergency wasordered by the government,because it was unsure of whatother measures it could takewithout needing to impose astate of crisis. They could havediscussed it with us, or asked usabout other measures and we allcould have discussed them and

agreed or disagreed. Thegovernment preferred not to dothat and went for theemergency instead, underArticle 115 (7) of theConstitution, and suspendedcivil rights under Article 12,which again was unnecessary.Now the government needs tolook for ways to make thesituation in the country moreflexible and it needs to lift therestrictions slapped on thepress. It needs to formulate a

Sanghu, 31 December

Excerpts from an interview with Kapil Shrestha, member of the NationalHuman Rights Commission.

On the timing of the emergency anddeployment of the army:The deployment of troops was longoverdue and no one has protested it. Thegovernment was late in doing this and hadrun out of options at one stage. The armywas not mobilised even after 54 policeposts had been destroyed and police werebeing killed like sacrificial lambs—eventhen the government just stood andwatched.

Yet, why declare an emergency justbecause troops needed to be deployed?Was the emergency necessary to get thearmy out? If we have a similar situation tomorrow, does that mean wecontinue with the emergency? It is said that one tends to be addicted tobad things, not good things. If that is true, then we cannot say that wewill not have an emergency again at a later date. Should we continuewith more emergencies if tomorrow we are unable to resolve the Maoistproblem or if another insurgent group takes up arms? We need politicalefforts if we want to resolve both the problem, and also the emergency.What part of democracy remains if you do not give the people theirbasic freedoms and rights? That is why we should not give the army toomuch power… an emergency means (giving someone) absolute powers.

So the army should not be given as much power as it hasÖThat (the army getting more power) happens the moment you have anemergency. But if the forces that are charged with repressing suchmovements are given absolute powers for long, that does no one anygood. Absolute powers are absolute.

What is the response of the National Human Rights Commission?We have not been able to go outside (to the districts). We have beenunable to go to where human rights are being violated. All sources ofinformation have been controlled, we haven’t been able to do/ find outanything about that either. People are being needlessly killed andhuman rights are being violated. We have been unable to get first-handinformation. When civil rights have been usurped, what is the point oftalking about other issues?

The government says the emergency is aimed only at the MaoistsÖNo one can forward the cause of the Maoists after what they have done.Nepali Maoists resemble Pol Pot. I would like to challenge all Maoistshere, including Baburam Bhattarai, on this count. It is also mindless tothink that you can achieve something through violence now. What I wantto say is that no one should try to achieve something by violatinghuman rights. The problems we face today cannot be solved by thediscredited ideology of Baburam or Prachanda. Yet they defy theconstitution and are pressing ahead. They do not abide by thisconstitution, and so are unaffected by the emergency. Knowing this fullwell, this impotent government has wrested away from the people theirrights. It has no right to do this. The government should have beenmore sensitive about this, it should have remembered what it and itssupporters went through in the past.

Does the emergency threaten democracy?Yes, it does. Democratic forces become weak during an emergency; andpeople begin to lose hope. Because of this, there is the danger thatanti-democratic forces will begin raising their heads. The emergency hastaken away the right of citizens to protest against such forces. Thenewspapers have been controlled, and transparency suffers. When thereis no one to expose the wrongs, it is only natural that the situationbecomes more dangerous. All such developments weaken the systemfrom within.

Weakening democracycode of conduct acceptable toall that can guide its ownoperations and also those of thesecurity forces. But it isn’tdoing that yet. It talks aboutallowing rebels to surrender,but it is unclear where they cansurrender and how. The pressshould also make efforts to fulfilits responsibilities and shouldcontinue fighting for the rightto do that, the emergency doesnot disallow that. The situationwe are seeing with the press isthat if rules are not enforced,they write and say anythingthey please, but when there issome enforcement they begin tosing hymns in praise of thegovernment. The press is notbalanced. The volume of thepraises it has been singing isdeafening, it is turning the pressinto a farce.”

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Info-warGatibidhi, 29 December

Last week the Maoistspublished Janadeshclandestinely. [This is a now-banned pro-Maoistpublication.] It is not clearwhich press the paper wasprinted at, but Janadesh says itwas printed at NepalChapakhana. The police raidedthe press and the offices of theweekly Nepali Patra. KamalJoshi, editor of Nepali Patra,and the press itself says theyused to print Janadesh beforethe emergency, but has notbeen doing so since the state ofemergency was imposed. TheNepali press has also turnedanti-Maoist after theemergency. In the past it usedto engage in one-sided publicityfor the Maoists, and the rebelsalso were intolerant ofcriticism. Pro-Maoist reportshave almost stopped after theemergency and the Maoistshave been unable to get outtheir version of what is goingon. Even the foreign press hasstopped carrying stories thatcould possibly help the rebelcause. Without the press, theMaoists are like fish out ofwater.

Year-long

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emergency?Asan Bazar, 5 January

Over 500 terrorists have beenkilled since the army wasdeployed against the Maoists,and thousands more have beenarrested. Over 2,000 rebelshave surrendered and abouttwo-dozen security forces havebeen killed. Even though theMaoists have been less influen-tial during the day, they arecontinuing to loot and murderin the night in districts wherethey had influence. Because therebels rely on ambushes andnight attacks, the securityforces are finding it difficult totake control of the situation.The strategy of the Maoists isnow “strike, flee and hide”.Unlike the past, the Maoistsdon’t roam the villages duringthe day, they attack in largenumbers at night. The army ison a campaign to disarm theMaoists, and says it will shootto kill only if attacked. High-level sources say that it maytake about a year to fullydisarm the Maoists. But

different political parties,including sections of the rulingNepali Congress, want theemergency to end as soon aspossible… The government forits part wants to extend theemergency to crush theMaoists, but the politicalparties are inclined to want toend the emergency, butcontinue the deployment of thearmy to fight the rebels. EvenIndia uses the army to fight theterrorists, but it has not neededto impose an emergency. Evenso, regardless of what otherpolitical parties want, it islikely that the emergency couldstretch further.

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RIPDeshantar, 30 December

The government first decidedto close down the NepalTransportation Corporation,Orient Magnesite Limited andthe Cottage and HandicraftIndustries Sales Depot. And,recently it came up with thedecision to shut down SajhaYatayat.

These public enterpriseshave been in the red for quite along time. The hundreds ofemployees working with theseenterprises will be laid off, andthe government will end uppaying a large sum of money toformer employees of theseenterprises in the form ofaccumulated salaries andgratuities. The government hasalready spent about Rs 3 billionto pay one-year salaries to 295employees of the NepalTransportation Corporation.According to the spokesman ofthe Ministry of Labour andTransportation Dhruba KumarSharma, the government needsto cough up Rs 20 billion tocover the gratuities and otherfacilities former NTC employ-ees are entitled to. Similarly,the government needs Rs 11billion to pay off the the 226employees of Orient Magnesiteand 137 employees at theCottage and HandicraftIndustries Sales Depot. Andfinally, there are the 800 SajhaYatayat employees to deal with.

The government is adoptingthe policy of privatisation as apanacea for the structural ills ofthese enterprises, such as lackof able management, lack ofopportunities to employees toupgrade their skills, corruptionand poor performance. But theprocess has taken some time topick up speed. The Ninth Five-Year Plan envisaged theprivatisation of 30 publicenterprises by 2002, but onlythe Nepal Tea DevelopmentCorporation was privatised inthis period.

The government has calledfor technical and economicproposals from interestedparties to privatise HetaudaTextile Industries. The bid callrequires the interested partiesto deposit Rs 1.5 million forNepalis and $20,000 forforeigners. The deposit will beexpropriated if the successfulbidder fails to sign an agree-ment within four months of thegovernment’s decision.

The government has alsodecided to lay off 50 percent ofthe employees from the NepalTimber Corporation. TheFinance Ministry says that the

government is spending Rs 21billion on this, and peoplepresume that the corporationwill soon be privatised. It isalso presumed that thegovernment will soon announceits intention to privatise theLumbini Sugar Factory, BirganjSugar Factory, Himal CementFactory and Bhaktapur Brickand Tile Factory.

Baluwatar’s

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neo-RanasGhatana Ra Bichar, 2 January

No need to turn the pages ofhistory books to understand theRana aristocracy, it is verymuch alive at the BaluwatarDarbar these days. If you dontknow how to utter thearistocratic baksiyos and if youare not fluent in English, thesalute of ‘Jai Nepal’ will notallow you entry here. Theprime minister’s officialresidence is seeing a revival ofthe aristocratic practices of theRanas and the Mallas, as theyare the family that PrimeMinister Sher Bahadur Deubahas married into. His son, JaiBir Singh Deuba, is enjoyingaristocratic privileges. Mrs

[Arzoo Rana] Deuba insistedon commandeering an AssistantSub-Inspector of police as abodyguard for her son when shewent to the US on a “statevisit” two months ago and this“prerogative” has beenmaintained until now. In thelast two months, Jaibir’sbodyguards have changedfrequently and are required toaccompany him everywhere—tothe play ground and at school,and what’s more, they arerequired to report the child’sactivities to a Deputy Superin-tendent of Police three times aday. When Arzoo Deuba wason the tour to America, Jaibir’sbodyguard was sent to hismaternal grandparents’ house atJawalakhel. The bodyguards arenot allowed to sleep until theprime minster’s son has gone tobed, and they must wake up inthe morning as soon as he does.We are told that the policepersonnel who have alreadyexperienced being bodyguard tothe six-year-old old areexasperated as he is hyperactive and demanding, onlynatural for a child of that age.It must be noted that even thelate princes Dipendra andNirajan did not enjoy thefacility of personal bodyguardswhen they were students at theKanti-Iswori School and atBudanilakantha.

In general, the king’s role is as a constitutional monarch. I see it as an honourable role. But we cannot saythat there aren’t any weaknesses anywhere.

—KP Oli , Rajdhani, 8 January

1414141414 ASIA 11 - 17 JANUARY 2002 NEPALI TIMES

by MUSHAHID HUSSAINANALYSIS

by YOSHIUMI WAKAMIYACOMMENT

lthough I knew 7 December,2001 marked its 60th

anniversary, I never imaginedthe phrase “Pearl Harbor” would beheard so often this year. It beganprosaically, with the release of theDisney movie Pearl Harbor last June.After 11 September, many Americansspoke of “the first attack against the USsince Pearl Harbor.” One person eventold me the attacks gave Japan a goldenopportunity to clear its name of thestigma of Pearl Harbor. The way, itseems, was for Japan to providemilitary support to the US.

Critics of Japan’s defence postureover the years have often beenunforgiving. The Economist oncederided the Japanese as “kamikazepacifists.” The reality is that defencedebates within Japan are invariablytraumatic, based on sharp memories ofthe war and the horrors of Hiroshimaand Nagasaki. Still, Japan respondedto 9/11 by passing a new law allowingthe country to support Americanforces. The Anti-Terrorism SpecialLaw, passed by Japan’s Diet inOctober, enabled Japan to send itsSelf-Defense Forces (SDF) overseas to

eventy years ago, the Islamic visionary DrMuhammad Iqbal wrote, ‘’Afghanistan is thekey to Asia’s stability. If there is strife in

Afghanistan, there will be strife in Asia, and if thereis peace in Afghanistan, Asia too will be at peace.’’

The verses of Iqbal, now Pakistan’s official poetwho first envisioned a free state for the Muslims ofIndia in the form of Pakistan, appear to haveprescience today.

There is a certain timelessness to Afghanistan’ssituation, the more things change, the more theyremain the same. Take the former Afghan monarchMuhammad Zahir Shah, who has been living inexile in Rome since 1973 when he was ousted in amilitary coup. Zahir Shah, now 87, assumedAfghanistan’s throne in 1933, the year FranklinRoosevelt was elected President of the US and AdolfHitler, chancellor of Germany. These two figuresseem part of distant history, but Zahir Shah remainsrelevant to Afghanistan’s future, and is arguably thesingle most popular public figure in strife-torn,war-ravaged Afghanistan.

There are reasons for optimism about Afghani-stan’s future: First, the chequered course ofcontemporary Afghan history—in the last 30 years,of which 23 were virtually at war, the Afghan nationhas experienced a royalist regime followed by arepublican one, a Marxist set-up followed by one claiming to be Muslim butalmost medieval in its outlook, then invasions and civil wars, interventions firstby the Russians and now the Americans. Nations destroyed by war often developa resilience and rise, phoenix-like, to become prosperous and stable. Germany,Japan, Korea, Vietnam and even China and Malaysia, all witnessed revivals.Afghanistan’s own history is testimony to the talents and skills of a strong peoplewho can bounce back from adversity. Historically, Afghanistan produced themost skilled diplomats, known for pragmatism coupled with their pursuit ofgoals in a cool manner that facilitated compromise and agreement. It has alsoproduced some of the most ferocious warriors in recent regional history, many ofwhom invaded and conquered India several times. And one of India’s greatbuilders, who laid the basis for a modern transport, revenue, mail and adminis-trative system was the 16th century Afghan ruler Sher Shah Suri, remembered for

support—through supply, transporta-tion, repair, maintenance, medicalservices and so on—American forces.

Though the SDF still cannotparticipate in combat, the new law isthe first that allows Japan to dispatcharmed forces to join in militaryoperations outside Japanese territoryand territorial waters while a shootingwar is on. Japan’s alacrity reflects thetrauma of the Gulf War. AlthoughJapan paid much of the costs of thatwar by raising domestic taxes, itssupportive actions went largelyunnoticed. It was nowhere to be seen inthe ads the Kuwaiti governmentpublished after the war to thank the 30nations of the international coalitionthat expelled Iraq from Kuwait.

These debates are also traumatic foran institutional reason. Japan’s so-called “Peace Constitution,” includingArticle 9 which prohibits the countryfrom possessing “war potential,” wascreated after WWII under strongAmerican pressure, and in anatmosphere of deep self-reflectiontoward the Pacific War. Some of itsconcepts were so alien to Japanesetradition that new ideograms had to be

created to express them. The ColdWar soon made Article 9 seemexcessively idealistic to some. Japanhas seen a severe confrontation betweenconstitutional revisionists and thosewho want to protect the PeaceConstitution.

In 1997, Japan took a big steptoward dispatching military forcesbeyond its territory when it concludedthe “Guideline for Defense Coopera-tion” with the US, though thatrestricted operations to the “areasurrounding Japan.” The new lawvirtually eliminates this, making itpossible for Japan to send troopsanywhere, anytime.

Whether or not to revise theconstitution, especially Article 9, is adivisive political issue, as pressure forchange comes not only from within byconservative politicians, but fromwithout. The so-called ArmitageReport of 2000, produced by acommittee headed by the now DeputyUS Secretary of State Richard LArmitage, stirred up a hornet’s nestwhen it said that “Japan’s prohibitionagainst collective defence is a constrainton alliance cooperation” and that

“lifting this prohibition would allow forcloser and more efficient securitycooperation.”

But establishing a practical meaningfor this remained difficult. Japan’s newlaw was one effort to impose clarity onthe idea, and Prime Minister JunichiroKoizumi testified in the Diet that theconstitution contained obscure andunclear terms and that Japan mustinterpret them with common sense. Inthe end, however, Koizumi avoided anyformal commitment to act in “collectivedefence” or to revise the constitution.

The Upper and Lower Houses ofthe Diet created committees to investi-gate constitutional revision, especiallyArticle 9, but change remains hard forseveral reasons. A majority of Japanesedo not want to change Article 9, asopinion polls consistently show. Japanwas able to pass the Anti-Terrorist Lawwithout revising the constitution, butthe limits of expansive constitutionalinterpretation may one day be reached.

The reaction of other Asiancountries, especially China and SouthKorea, also limits revision. WhenKoizumi explained Japan’s new law inChina and Korea in October, leaders inboth countries offered sharp cautions,with Korea’s President Kim Dae Jungtelling him, “I hope the SDF behaveswithin the limits of the PeaceConstitution.”

The Japanese public needs to argueseriously, thoroughly about thecountry’s future defence policy.Formulating a basic law governingnational security that defines the role ofthe SDF and limits its actions is amechanism we should seriouslyconsider. (Project Syndicate)

(Yoshibumi Wakamiya, senior politicalwriter at Asahi Shimbun, is the author ofThe Postwar Conservative View of Asia.)

providing innovative, good governance during histenure of less than five years.

Second, Afghanistan today after 23 years ofinternecine warfare is a de facto confederation of tribes,chieftains, ethnic groups and warlords, and most, ifnot all, have found accommodation in the interimadministration cobbled in Bonn. Kabul is more asymbolic seat of authority than the real source ofpower, but there is one point everyone, includingAfghanistan’s neighbours, agree on: Afghanistanshould be a unified state whose sovereignty andterritorial integrity must be respected. This is a goodstarting point for Afghanistan’s journey from decadesof revenge and retribution, to reconciliation andreconstruction.

Third, Afghanistan’s strategic location can beconducive to dividends of peace in the form of aidfrom donors, trade with neighbours and a stablecentre of gravity for the countries that surround thisland-locked land. Afghanistan is Central Asia’sgateway to the Gulf and Pakistan’s gateway to CentralAsia. it is key to stability in China’s neighbouringXinjiang province, where the Muslim Uighurpopulation resides. It is in the vicinity of Russia’s‘near abroad’, the former Central Asian republics.Iran and Turkey have a cultural, political andeconomic influence through an affinity with Afghan

ethnic and linguistic groups. Likewise, Israel’s biggest presence in the Muslimworld is right next door in Central Asia, particularly Uzbekistan.

The head of the Afghan interim administration, Hamid Karzai, underlinedthis unity in diversity through his inaugural address in Kabul on 22 December—which was bilingual with Pashto and Darri, a variant of Farsi, which is the officiallanguage of Iran and Tajikistan. His dress also reflected Afghanistan’s mixedcultures—he wore an Uzbek flowing gown over the Pashtun long shirt and baggytrousers, adorned with a calfskin cap popular among Afghans of differentnationalities. But the most hopeful was Karzai’s message that ‘’We should be firstand foremost Afghans before belonging to any ethnic group.’’

(Mushahid Hussain was Pakistan’s Minister of Information in NawazSharif’s government.)

Afghanistan’s potential

Should Japan amend its pacifist constitution?

“Kamikaze pacifism”“Kamikaze pacifism”

S

There is a sense of déjà vuin Afghanistan.

A

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Coup in Manila?MANILA - The Philippines opened the year inauspiciously, withrumours of a coup brewing against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s one-year-old government as it marks in January the firstyear of its installation after a popular uprising against formerpresident Joseph Estrada. The biggest report New Years’ daywas the murder of a self-styled ex-army captain and informantfor the national security adviser Roilo Golez, who had persist-ently warned that a coup against the government was in theoffing. A day earlier, a senior Navy lieutenant, Antonio Miraflorwas arrested for possession of a cache of explosives largeenough to blow up all military service installations and several tallbuildings. The media was quick to speculate on these events,asking if a destabilisation plot might have been in the works. Themilitary establishment was quick to quash reports of a coup inthis country of 80 million, but that is not easy to do given theseven coup attempts in the 1980s—three of them bloody. Leftistleader Satur Ocampo says Arroyo’s government is bedevilled byan economic crisis and a fractious coalition all demanding a lion’sshare of the spoils of power. Adding to this is the fact that“everyone’s interested in (the presidential elections in) 2004”, headds. “2002, is when people start building up resources for2004, so we can at least expect some destabilisation attempts,”Ocampo predicts. Sociologist and political analyst Randolph Davidadds: “Coup rumors flourish especially in the afterglow ofmomentous political events.” Ocampo and David say therumours and reports of coups point to the reality that themilitary establishment, which had been politicised and madestrong during the years of dictatorship under Marcos, still hasthe power to change the tide for a government. (IPS)

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Recycling TokyoTOKYO - Desperate over its mounting garbage problem, Japan isabout to embark on a 20-year programme to turn the world’ssecond largest economy into a recycling society. Japan disposesof 51.2 million tonnes of garbage annually, and wants to be amore sustainable and recycling-intensive society. A governmentteam has set as a national goal the reduction of waste productionto 7.3 million tonnes by 2050, roughly a tenth of the 1996 levels.Waste reduction and recycling would ultimately boost domesticproduction by $ 46 billion beyond business-as-usual projectionsto about $ 4.9 trillion in 2010. ‘’Japan’s recycling has still a waysto go. Efforts are being made to change the current massproduction and consumption lifestyle to a mass recycling one,’’says Kentaro Doi, of the environment ministry’s recyclingpromotion office. Japan produces almost 460 million tonnes ofwaste annually, of which less than a tenth, some 45 milliontonnes, is refuse. The rest is industrial waste. Tokyo aloneproduces almost four million tonnes a day, according to thegovernment. If this waste output continues unchecked, the refillsites in the capital will be overflowing within the next 30 years.“The situation is crucial, which is why there is the need to controlthe behaviour with new laws,’’ says Doi. Starting this year, thegovernment has promised to include cars, computers andmicrowave ovens in that list. Furthermore, the new law alsopaves the way for arrests to be made for illegal dumping of homeappliances. (IPS)

171717171711 - 17 JANUARY 2002 NEPALI TIMESHISTORY

Back at Sundarijal >2

1 January 1977SundarijalYesterday I was conscious of the importance of today—first day of theyear; but when I got up at five in the morning today I had clearforgotten about it. But after bed tea, which was late in coming as GM[Ganesh Man Singh], who prepared it, overslept, the realisation slowlydawned on me that today was New Year’s Day. Why is everything sovague? The awareness of my prison state also very slowly emerges inmy mind. The thought that Shailaja [BP’s niece] is alone in thejanana jail almost prompted me to visit her there—that I am myself inprison is realised moments later.

On the first day of the year I am partially successful in organisingmy daily programme. This year I didn’t make more resolutions for theyear. Didn’t promise that I would organise my time so that my minutesof the day are profitably utilised etc. I start organising my daily dutieswithout more fervour, or a resolve. I did half an hour’s brisk walking anddid skipping of 80 skips, some deep breathing and some stretching oflimbs—all before breakfast. Breakfast consisting of two eggs, cheese,toast and butter and milk was brought at 8AM. I cut out one egg. Triedreading after breakfast with no success. At about nine when the sun hadbeen a little warm, I scrubbed my boots with a wet towel. Tidied theroom. All the time being homesick and sad. Before lunch I did twentyminutes walking. Lunch at 1pm. The camp commander told us thattoday being Ekadashi meat was not available, hence was not served atlunch. Then tried to sleep which I could not do. GM prepared after-noon tea and some fruits. Evening shadows suddenly descend, and itequally suddenly becomes cold. Again walking for half an hour. Dinnerat 7PM. To bed at 8:15PM. Before going to bed GM comes to myroom—that is the practice. There is not much to talk about.

I remember Nanu who is a misunderstood woman. Her ways areabrupt; and what we think is egoistic in her character is only herattempt at the assertion of her personality in a family whose ethosbeing alien to her has given rise to a complex of inferiority in her. I amfull of remorse today because I was not understanding and fair to her.Prakash and his children Shreeharsha and Ruchira were obviouslybewildered by the sudden turn of events immediately after theirmarriage. I remember all of them and suffer pangs of homesickness. Idon’t know how Girija will manage. I hope he won’t break under hispresent terrific responsibility.

2 January 1977SundarijalYesterday was Saturday, hence that nothing happened was accepted asnormal. But nothing happened even today. This is disappointing. Nonewspapers, no news from anywhere, we are kept in strict isolation. Howlong will this last? Till the King returns from Pokhara or he makes up hismind about us. I know the world hasn’t forgotten us—even the King must beaware of us as a problem, but to be buried here in the isolation of amilitary camp and to know their one fate is in the absolute hand of theKing is an experience which is both desperately lonesome and frightening.Here in my solitary exile I become poignantly aware of the enormity of ourdecision to return to Nepal.

Shailaja had asked me to search my heart in the crisis of my life whichmy return to Nepal would entail who was nearest to me to etc. I rememberSushila and am filled with sadness, but dear Shailaja, I miss you. Sadnesshas history and partakes of homesickness. But when you miss a person, it isthe future that you miss—it is a loss of the perpetual present.

Psychologically I am steadier today. If I could be certain that peopleat home would sit, suffer for sheer want of money, that Sudule would beproperly looked after, that Shailaja is taking the hardship of the prison lifein her stride—then I will have no worry in the world.

Our daily routine is fixed. We get our food from outside at fixedhours—like breakfast at 8am, lunch at 12 noon and dinner at 7pm. Wetake bed tea at 5:30am and afternoon at about 4pm. Since this eveningthey have started giving us milk. Perhaps the instruction is that we shouldbe well fed. What we’re starved of pertains to our mind and heart. Nocompany, no books or writing materials. What I need most is company. GMcan’t provide that kind of company which I hunger for. Shailaja—I think ofShailaja because in prison she would be my best company. She ispolitical, intellectual, emotional—what more do I need in prison if shewere here. But what a fantastic wish! Would Sundarijal be a prison then?

I think it is cold wave—there is no respite from cold. In the morning itis frost, all one. The whole day, cold wind blows. Is it age that has affectedme and hence I feel so uncomfortably cold. I can’t think of taking a coldbath. When I was here last, i.e. 8 years ago, I would take cold water bath at5 am, when the world lay frozen. I haven’t bathed for so many days. Iscrubbed my body with a wet towel.

Desperately homesick, desperately hungry for some emotionalcompany. Why this darkness?

NAWAAL DEANE

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IN JOHANNESBURGouth Africa’s Apartheid Museumopened last month at Gold Reefcity in Johannesburg bringing

with it memories and facts of thosewho lived through the struggle tofreedom. Sitting on a bench brandedwith the word “Europeans only”, themuseum radiates a sense of immensepower symbolising the oppressiveregime, which collapsed in 1994.

The first building is a solid squarewith virtually no windows. Built ofraw concrete it stands in the harshsunlight as a symbol of the uncompro-mising apartheid state. Seven strongpillars, representing the seven cornersof the country’s constitution, stand infront of the entrance. Each enhancesthe overall feeling of immense strengthof the past against a backdrop of themine dumps and Johannesburg Citycentre. But it is more than just amuseum—from the moment avisitor steps in front of the prison-type solid building, it demands hisor her participation.

The entrance brings with it theexperience of what it was like to live inthe apartheid era. Each visitor ishanded a ticket with the words “white”or “non-white” that dictates theirjourney through the museum.Entering the wall of “Classification”, avisitor is bombarded with blown updompasses [passes that people ofAfrican ethnicity required underapartheid to move about the country]and ID books that depict the peopleaccording to race. The museumcaptures the separateness of thedifferent races through the use of steelcages. The dompasses are hung in hugesteel structures while the EuropeanID’s are merely housed in structures,with coloureds (people of mixed races),Indians and Chinese thrown in themiddle. The cages with apartheid signslike “Taxi ranks for whites only”hanging overhead is claustrophobicenhancing the feeling of oppression.

There is a separate exit for whitevisitors where they walk on a rampabove the non-whites coming out on alower level. At this point, visitors

experience the reality of physicalseparation. Walking up a rampenclosed by a huge wall (made offenced cages filled with rocks) depictsthe migration of people to theWitwatersrand area of Johannesburg.Double mirrors placed randomly onthis ramp with photographs of avariety of people create a feeling of acrowd. There are also alcoves in the redbrick building with paintings showingcommon origins, giving the impres-sion of life before the gold rush inSouth Africa. But as a visitor walksfurther, the path becomes narrowerreinforcing the feeling of the reality ofapartheid. The top of the ramp opensout onto the majestic Johannesburgskyline creating the sense of journeyingto the place of gold.

The museum works as a maze witha spiral staircase leading to the mainreception area, giving the impression ofmovement and distance. Most areashave an attendant who briefly takesvisitors through their section,explaining the relevance of thedisplays. Human experience is

displayed on television screens that aremounted in steel cages. The multime-dia approach is further enhanced byeach television feeding into a sounddome giving the viewer an intimatelook into the lives of black people.

The sense of separatenesscontinues with the Voortrekker (theAfrikaaner Great Trek) on one side,and the ruling African NationalCongress’s birth and growth on theother. Dramatically placed on a wall isall the apartheid laws implemented inSouth Africa. Looking at the namescreate a sense of detachment to theemotional and psychological damagethese laws had on non-white people.Another dramatic feature is a roomwith 131 nooses hanging from a roofrepresenting the names of those whodied in detention.

Bringing the experience of beingin detention to life is Dawn Elliot, aformer prisoner of the state. She takesvisitors through solitary confinementand what it was like to be a high schoolstudent fighting for freedom. She locksvisitors in a replica of a prison cell,

Repeating historyA new museum in Johannesburg physically recreates forvisitors the experience of living under apartheid.

slams the door, calling out: “See youtomorrow!” The 1960 Sharpvillestudent unrest is almost poeticallyshown on televisions in a semicircle- mounted along a wall, where videofootage of the massacre tells the truthshowing the atrocities of that day. Acinema screen with testimonies ofpeople fighting in the eighties leavesone sick with the brutal treatment ofpeople by the police during the stateof emergency.

Having gone through the timesince 1948 it is hard to take all thefactual information in but a visitorwalks out feeling free after goingthrough the democratic elections withlife-size queues made-up of photo-

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This is the second instalment of the unpublished diary ofBP Koirala, which Nepali Times is serialising in this spaceevery fortnight. The diary covers the period immediatelyfollowing BP’s return to Nepal from exile in India with acall for “national reconciliation” between the monarchyand pro-democracy forces. At that time, India was underIndira Gandhi’s emergency rule. We left BP two weeksago with his entry for 31 December 1976, “sad and

homesick” during his first full day in Sundarijal jail. “Ilook forward to 1977 with hope for both Nepal and our

family,” he wrote. The diary, written in English, isavailable on microfilm at the Madan Puraskar Library inPatan and at the Jawaharlal Nehru Museum and Library

in New Delhi. It was donated bysenior advocate Ganesh Raj Sharma.

graphs of smiling people. Overheadskylights work to create an image ofwalking into the light, and leaving thedark days behind. On one wall is adisplay of guns, AK-47s, but lyingunderneath is a pile of metal puttingacross the end of violence.

Still a work in progress, themuseum promises more truth,criticism and reconciliation for all thosewho step through its doors. Mountedabove a pool of water at the entrance ofthe Apartheid Museum are the words offormer South African President NelsonMandela: “To be free is not merely tocast off ones chains but to live in a waythat respects and enhances the freedomof others.” (IPS)

“Why this darkness?”

S

1616161616 11 - 17 JANUARY 2002 NEPALI TIMESSPORTS

he United Cricket Board of SouthAfrica (UCBSA) has rejected areturn for disgraced former

captain Hansie Cronje. UCBSApresident Percy Sonn last week hintedthat Cronje might be permitted toplay a part in South African cricketdespite a life ban imposed last year.

No way back for CronjeSonn was speaking on the eve of thethird test between South Africa andAustralia in Sydney. “Cronje is a son ofSouth Africa cricket. He is entitled tothe freedom and liberties of all SouthAfricans and there is a place for him inour cricket,” Sonn said.

But his comments appeared at oddswith the official line of the UBCSA. Theexecutive committee released a statement,after a meeting with the Minister of Sportand Recreation Ngconde Balfour, torefute Sonn’s remarks, but refused tocriticise their president. “The UCBSAwould like to reiterate its position thatformer captain Hansie Cronje has beenbanned for life by the General Council ofthe UCBSA. There is no intention to

reverse this decision and the UCBSAnow considers the matter closed. Themeeting was not in any way a ‘discipli-nary hearing’, nor was Sonn called in toface the Executive Committee.”

The UBCSA also backed Sonnfollowing a selection row that flared upbefore the Sydney Test.

They announced that they will askconvenor of selectors Rushdi Magiet whythe original team sheet for the SydneyTest was publicly “leaked”. The incidentled to a row between the selectors andSonn earlier this month. The selectorshad originally picked white batsmanRudolph but were ordered by Sonn toreplace him in the team with colouredall-rounder Ontong. The selection

incident will be brought up at thebody’s General Council on 19 Januaryafter Magiet submits the report.

The UBCSA outlined theirselection policy. “Where there is anopportunity to do so, young blackplayers who are on the fringes of theteam must be given the chance to playfor their country,” the statement said.“The process of selecting the nationalteam includes the endorsement of theteam by the President and no teamselection is complete until it has beenendorsed by the President.” Theexecutive committee also voiced theircontinued support of under-firecaptain Shaun Pollock and coachesGraham Ford and Corrie van Zyl.

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Beckham book deal may be shelvedDavid Beckham has been advised by theFootball Association to scrap a £2mil-lion World Cup book deal. The Englandcaptain was poised to sign a lucrativecontract to write a diary of his experi-ences during this summer’s tournamentin Japan and South Korea but the FA,mindful of the row over coach GlennHoddle’s book on the 1998 World Cup,is worried about the publication ofdressing room secrets. The FA cannotprevent Manchester United midfielderBeckham from signing a commercial contract with a pub-lisher but has recommended that he not proceed with anydeal. Beckham’s agent, Tony Stephens, has informed the FAabout the plan for the book and says he has been ap-proached by five publishers.

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FIFA names World Cup refereesZURICH: FIFA has named the referees for the forthcomingWorld Cup in Japan and South Korea, with orders for them tobe tough on fake fouls as well as aggressive play andtackles from behind. The list of 36 referees - including 14from Europe - and their 36 assistants was issued lateMonday by world soccer’s governing body. All of them haveofficiated at World Cup qualifiers. “Not only must they ensurethat the laws of the game are enforced, but they must alsodemonstrate excellent interpersonal skills, coupled with tactand intuition, so that the teams can fulfil their potential andentertain those watching,” said FIFA General Secretary MichelZen-Ruffinen. All the referees will take part in a seminar inSeoul 20-23 March. This will focus on directives relating tothe excessive use of force, the outlawed tackle from behindand on how to recognise and penalise the feigning of fouls.FIFA said the chosen officials would also face a “comprehen-sive, co-ordinated fitness program” to ensure they are at theirphysical peak for the finals, which take place 31 May – 30June. AP

List of referees named by FIFA for World Cup finals:Pierluigi Collina, Italy.Hugh Dallas, ScotlandAnders Frisk, SwedenTerje Hauge, NorwayAntonio Lopez Nieto, SpainLubos Michel, SlovakiaMarkus Merk, GermanyUrs Meier, SwitzerlandVitor Melo Pereira, PortugalKim Milton Nielsen, DenmarkGraham Poll, EnglandKyros Vassaras, GreeceGilles Veissiere, FranceJan Wegereef, NetherlandsMark Alexander Shield, AustraliaUbaldo Aquino, ParaguayJorge Larrionda, UruguayByron Moreno, EcuadorOscar Julian Ruiz, ColombiaAngel Sanchez, ArgentinaCarlos Eugenio Simon, BrazilCarlos Batres, GuatemalaBrian Hall, United StatesWilliam Mattus Vega, Costa RicaPeter Prendergast, JamaicaFelipe Ramos Rizo, MexicoCoffi Codjia, BeninMourad Daami, TunisiaNdoye Falla, SenegalGamal Ghandour, EgyptMohamed Guezzaz, MoroccoAli Bujsaim, United Arab EmiratesToru Kamikawa, JapanKim Young Joo, South KoreaLu Jun, ChinaSaad Kamel Mane, Kuwait

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ROYAL INSPECTION: King Gyanendra, Crown Prince Paras, Prime Min-ister Sher Bahadur Deuba and Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat pose atClub Himalaya at Nagarkot on 30 December. The SAARC retreat scheduledthere was later cancelled. Also seen in picture are Yogendra and Bindu Sakya.

IN-LAW’S ISLAND: The traffic island at Maitighar with its record-breakingmandala on 9 January as traffic returned to normal after the SAARC Summit.

191919191911 - 17 JANUARY 2002 NEPALI TIMESCULTURE AND SOCIETY

HAPPENINGS

HI, BYE: Outgoing SAARC Secretary-general gives a farewell speech whilelaunching the “Human Development In South Asia” report on 8 January atHotel Himalaya.

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BINOD BHATTARAIhe world changed in a lotof ways after 9/11. Theafter-shocks of the suicide

bombers triggered tremors inSouth Asia which are reverber-ating still. And the other waythe world changed was the birthof the Dubyaman comic strip.

Dubyaman comes from theTexan pronunciation of themiddle initial “W” of USpresident George W Bush.Dubyaman is patterned afterSuperman, but the capedcrusader here is actually an anti-superhero. “The real Dubya isnot renowned the world over forhis intellect, and this is a spoofon his war on terror,” said thecomic strip’s co-creator, Indianjournalist Jug Suraiya.

But now that the Afghancampaign is winding down, isn’tDubyaman getting a bit stale?Suraiya shakes his head vigor-ously. He was in Kathmanduthis week holidaying, and hewas staying at the Everest Hotelwhere all the journalists were.“Even at the Kathmandusummit we heard echoes ofGeorge Bush’s rhetoric: you arewith us or you are against us,”says Suraiya. Just goes to showthat Dubyaman has now becomea role model for other worldleaders who are fighting terror.

In fact it was this Bush linethat inspired the 55-year-oldassociate editor of the Times ofIndia to create the comic strip.“A friend called me and askedme to switch on the tv,” saysSuraiya recounting the events of11 September. “America isfalling down.” He is allergic totv, but switched it on. A fewminutes later he was dictatingthe TOI 10-11 editorialentitled ‘Target Humanity’. Nosooner was he done, and afterwatching more footage of thepolitical reaction to the attacks,it struck him that leaders werebeginning to make more andmore belligerent noises, andthe retribution was aimed atSouth Asia.

“Here we had the least legitleader who barely scrapedthrough controversial electionsthreatening a conflagration thatcould happen in our backyard,”he says. “I feared that themental vacuity associated withthe rhetoric could do more

harm.” His fears were com-pounded after India andPakistan began to compete tomake offers to help the US tobring the war to the alreadyvolatile region. Suraiya thenwrote a script and discussed itwith staff artist NeelabhBanerjee.

The rest is history,Dubyaman was born onSunday, 16 September as ablack and white strip thatappeared in the Times of India.Vice-president Samir Jain lovedit and wanted it continued, andso it has. Suraiya says he isusing humour to spreadcommon sense, and to cutthrough the political rhetoric.

Dubyaman is gettingsomething of a cult following.“There are those who like itand those who hate it,” saysSuraiya. “Few are middle-of-the-roaders.” The haters andnon-haters also tend to swayeditorial decision-making at the

They either loveit, or they love tohate it. AndJug Suraiya keepschurning outDubyaman.

The man behindDubyaman

taste, others argue that itexonerates terror. “It doesnot,” Suraiya says firmly. “Ittries to show the differentfaces of terrorism, includingbombing of schools andhospitals.” Dubyaman is nowgetting help from cameo-performances by Indianleaders like Foreign MinisterJaswant Singh, and primeminister Atal BehariVajpayee.

Then there are those wholove it. One fan sent Suraiyaa unique letter to the editor:a t-shirt with “Uncle OsamaWants You” printed on theback.

(For an archive of Dubyaman,see www.timesofindia.com)

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TOI when many wrote in tosay it was not relevantanymore. Besides Times ofIndia, Dubyaman today is alsosyndicated in papers in Europeas well as Nepali Times.

Why is India’s mostinfluential paper against USdemocracy, many have asked.Suraiya tells them the paper isnot against democracy butagainst terror in all its manifes-tations. “It is my protestagainst war and what ishappening around us.” To himterror is a lifestyle disease, likecancer. It is only after thepathological conditions beginto appear, do people askthemselves “why me?”.

Those who hate Dubyamanfind the humour to be in bad

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The Januaryissue of Himal

is nowon news-stands.

In addition to being a special issue on reconceptualising theregion, this month's issue includes a special downside-upatlas-quality map of South Asia.

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1818181818 CITY 11 - 17 JANUARY 2002 NEPALI TIMES

ABOUT TOWN

For inclusion in the listing send information to editors@nepalitimes.com

KATHMANDU VALLEY

Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue

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DSES-09-01-2002 0900 GMT

by NGAMINDRA DAHALNEPALI WEATHER

by MIKUYAK YETI YAK

For insertions ring NT Marketing at 543333-36.

CLASSIFIED

This satellite picture taken on Wednesday afternoonshows a fresh westerly heading our way. It is riding a strongjet stream and will have moved into west and centralNepal by Friday. The front is fighting a high pressuresystem over eastern Tibet, but seems to be making itspresence felt. Northwest India and Nepal may receivelight rain Friday and Saturday. The central and easternhills will get cloudy skies, but will remain largely dry. Thecurrent trend of higher maximum temperature willcontinue because of clear haze-free days. Minimumtemperature will also come up a notch at the weekendbecause of night-time cloud cover.

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Radio SagarmathaP.O. Box 6958, Bakhundole, Lalitpur, NepalTel: ++977-1-545680, 545681 Fax: ++ 977-1- 530227E-mail: radio@radiosagarmatha.orgwww.radiosagarmatha.org

Mon-Fri 0615-0645 BBC World TodaySat 0615-0645 BBC Science in ActionSun 0615-0645 BBC AgendaDaily 2045-2115 BBC g]kfnL ;]jfg]kfnL ;]jfg]kfnL ;]jfg]kfnL ;]jfg]kfnL ;]jfDaily 2245-2300 BBC g]kfnL ;]jfg]kfnL ;]jfg]kfnL ;]jfg]kfnL ;]jfg]kfnL ;]jf

on FM 102.4

/]l8of] ;u/dfyf

BOOKWORM

Courtesy Mandala Book Point, Kantipath, 227711, mandala@ccsl.com.np

Vacancy UK Charity in Nepal seeks outgoing,motivated and self-directed individual, fluent inEnglish and computer literate, to assist inpromoting the charity’s activities among partnerorganisations. Applications by e-mail (Wordattachment) only to ukcharity@nepalimail.com.

Reflexology Technique of applying pressure tothe feet, reduces stress, promotes relaxation andgood health. buddhasfeet@yahoo.com.

Stupa View and Restaurant & Terrace atBaudhanath Stupa. Well-appointed restaurantand terraces with views of stupa and Himalayas.International vegetarian specialties, pizza fromclay oven, ice cream, soft guitar tunes onFridays, Saturdays, Sundays from 5PM on.Special events on full moon. Open daily 11AM-8.30PM. 480262.

Kodari Eco Resort Peace in natural surround-ings, good views of Nepal/ Tibet border, jungle-covered mountains, Buddhist monasteries,ancient Shiva cave. Hike to villages with variousethnic groups, vantage points to Himalayas.Comfortable accommodation, attached bath,balcony or terraces, good food, friendly service.

480262, kodari@mos.com.np

The way to Mexico is too far. Botega Restau-rant and Tequila Bar is near Thamel Chowk.266433. 15 percent off-season discount.

The Borderlands Resort For canyoning,rafting, trekking at Tibet borders, ProfessionalDevelopment Program, Leadership Coursesand many more. 425836/425894.info@borderlandresorts.com.www.borderlandresorts.com.

K-Too! Beer and Steakhouse not the “longest”,“highest”, “first” or any other superlative. Just arelaxed, easy-going bar and restaurant with thecoldest beer and juiciest steaks this side of themoon. By the Kathmandu Guest House.433043

HMB Mountain Biking Have your bike servicedor repaired by HMB’s Professional Mechanicsat the HMB Workshop. Riding gear, accessoriesand parts available. Second hand bikesbought/sold/hired. New and reconditionedmountain bikes for sale. Himalayan MountainBikes—Tours and Expeditions. 437437.

That Dreadful Night: Carnage at Nepalese Royal Palace Aditya Man ShresthaEkta Books, Kathmandu, 2001Rs 500An absorbing narration of what happened on the night of 1 June, 2001 in the royal palace ofNepal, and its causes and consequences. The only undisputed fact of the night was the death of tenroyal family members, including the Nepali sovereign. The rest is a mystery. Shrestha tries toprobe into the tragedy and put it in its proper perspective.

Patents: Myths and Reality Vandana ShivaPenguin Books, New Delhi, 2001

Rs 320This volume examines the myths associated with the universalisation of the Trade Related IntellectualProperty Rights Agreement (TRIPS) in the context of trade liberalisation, and the real consequences of

implementing such a regime. Shiva highlights the ethical, ecological and economic impacts ofglobalised patent regimes.

My Girlhood: An Autobiography Taslima NasrinKali for Women, New Delhi, 2001Rs 400The first major work of Bangladeshi writer Nasrin in exile, My Girlhood is a sensitive retelling ofher growing up in an extended family in erstwhile East Pakistan and Bangladesh. The authormoves back and forth between her own life and that of a fledgling nation, with sharp observationson the class discrimination, bias, gender disparities and growing religious orthodoxy in Bangla-deshi society.

MOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIESMOVIES Nepali and Hindi movies online ticket booking at www.nepalshop.com

EXHIB IT IONEXHIB IT IONEXHIB IT IONEXHIB IT IONEXHIB IT ION Photography Mani Lama’s People and Red series and Kim Hong

Sung’s Wind Horse series. 15-25 January, 11AM-6PM, Sunday throughFriday. Siddhartha Art Gallery, Baber Mahal Revisited. 411122 Phil Privett Paintings inspired by Hindu and Buddhist mythology,

sculptures and three-dimensional Himalayan Chessboard. 13-24January, 8.30AM-5.45PM, British Council courtyard, Lainchaur. 410798

EVENTSEVENTSEVENTSEVENTSEVENTS Migratory Bird Festival at Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve.

Birdwatching and ecotourism. Rs 1,500 for nights of 18, 19 January,with food, local transfer, accommodation and jungle activities. 441226 Friends of the Bagmati Meeting of concerned people trying to clean up the Bagmati

river. Dwarika’s Hotel, 14 January, 2.30PM. All welcome. 479488 Philips Bowling Tournament Each bowler rolls three games, highest average

wins Philips stereo. Rs 500 per bowler, 12 January, 12PM, Bowling Boul-evard, Kantipath. mg@mail.com.np Gokarna Forest Golf Annual Tournament for members (Rs 800) and

guests (Rs 1,800, and lunch for spouses Rs 500). 12 January, 7:30AM-after lunch. 244154 Nepali classical dance and folk music at Hotel Vajra. Dances of Hindu and

Buddhist gods Tuesdays and Fridays, 7PM onwards, the Great Pagoda Hall. Ticket and teaRs 400. Nepali folk tunes Wednesdays and Saturdays, 6.30PM onwards, hotel restaurant.Hotel Vajra. 271545 Contemporary Jazz dance classes by Meghna Thapa. At Alliance Francaise Sundays

and Tuesdays 4.30PM-6.30PM, 241163. At Banu’s, Kamal Pokhari, Wednesdays 6.30PM-8PM, Saturdays 1.30PM. 434024, 434830 Beetle Mania, tribute to George Harrison: Poolside party with live band, DJ and

contests. Come in a Beetle, pay only Rs 2,222 for as many as will fit in the car. Prize formost stuffed car. Rs 450 per person head with drink and snack. Hotel de l’Annapurna, 25January, 3PM onwards. 221711

M U S I CM U S I CM U S I CM U S I CM U S I C Coffee and live music with Dinesh and Tilak. Saturdays, 6.45PM- 9.15PM. Himalatte

Café, Thamel. 262526 Live music Tuesday and Friday nights at the 40,000 ½ ft Bar, Rum Doodle Restaurant.

414336 Daily live gazals by Saj Singh and party. Ghar-e-Kabab, Hotel de l’Annapurna. 221711

EATING OUTEATING OUTEATING OUTEATING OUTEATING OUT Steam Away Winter Blues Hot appetisers, soups, noodles

and momos. Splash Bar & Grill, Radisson Hotel. Mamma Mia Pizzas with special toppings, special pasta

menu and complimentary Coke with every order. 15percent discount for Standard Chartered Bank credit cardholders. Complimentary shuttle from Pokhara lakesidefour times daily. Shangri-La Village, Pokhara. 061-22122 Traditional Sekuwa with live music from Himalayan

Feelings fusion band and bonfires. Friday nights atDwarika’s Hotel. Rs555 per head. 479488 Le Cafe des trekkers Crepes of Brittany, raclette, cheese and meat fondue. 15 percent

discount until 15 January 2002. Jyatha, opposite Blue Diamond Hotel. 225777 Winter specials French onion soup, hot mulled wine, eggnog, and steaks. K-too! Beer

& Steakhouse, Thamel. 433043 Rox Restaurant and Bar Traditional European cuisine from woodfired oven in show

kitchen. Live music, cocktails and snacks at the Bar, Hyatt Regency Kathmandu. 491234 Tukche Thakali Kitchen Buckwheat, barley, bean, and dried meat specialties. Also

brunch with porridge and pancakes, all raw material from Tukche village. Darbar Marg.

GETAWAYSGETAWAYSGETAWAYSGETAWAYSGETAWAYS Fresh air and tranquility in Kathmandu Valley Stay at Triple A Organic Farm Guest-

house in Gamcha, south of Thimi. Rs. 1,500 per person per night, all-inclusive. Emailaaa@wlink.com.np. 631766 Thank Goodness it’s Friday! Dwarika’s TGIF overnight package including Friday check-

in, sekuwa dinner, Saturday brunch, massage. $125 net per couple. 479488 Pokhara Retreat Through January 2002 stay two nights, get one night free. Package

with or without airfare to Pokhara and return. Complimentary shuttle to Lakeside, free useof pool table and fitness centre. Shangri-La Village, Pokhara. 435741/42

2020202020 11 - 17 JANUARY 2002 NEPALI TIMES

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

by Kunda Dixit

Under My Hat

NEPALI SOCIETY

ubhas Rai’s cartoons have bynow become a staple formany Nepali books, maga-

zine and is familiar to the readersof this newspaper. But he does notlike to be called a cartoonist, noteven an artist. “I am an explorer,”says the boyish-looking 34-year-old, and he has never stoppedexploring.

Starting out in a Kathmanduad agency, Subhas was a quick-learner and soon found theconfines of a “job” restricted hisneed to seek new challenges. Heshifted to a multinational advertis-

ing agency in Kathmandu where hefamiliarised himself with computergraphics and design. But evenhere, claustrophobia set in. “It is avery commercial environment,there isn’t much time to becreative,” says Subhas. So he struckoff on his own as a freelancedesigner.

His most challenging task? Toillustrate Adventures of a NepaliFrog, the best-selling children’sbook by Kanak Mani Dixit which hasnow been translated into eightlanguages. Subhas likes to dounusual things, and his latest work

is the cover for the SAARC issue ofHimal South Asian which has anupside down map of the subconti-nent with Sri Lanka on top. “I’m nota cartographer, but it was fun tospoof National Geographic andmake a map that forces people totake a whole new perspective.”

Subhas is off to the US to learnnew tricks, more computer aideddesign work and animation. “I’m notthe kind that will stay abroad,” saysSubhas, “I want to widen myhorizons, gain experience with newequipment and bring back world-class graphics design to Nepal.”Keep on exploring, Subhas, and(like the poet said) return to theplace you started to see it for thefirst time.

Subhas’ explorationsS

omeone stop me right now before I get carried awayand write another column about the successfully-concluded SAARC summit. (“Let Us Grandly

Succeed the SAARC!” – Meow-Meow Chow-Chow PvtLtd). Go on, restrain me, otherwise I will have to involun-tarily unleash yet another glowing tribute to the concept ofregional cooperation to foster crossborder tourism. (HeartyWelcome to Heads of State/Government of SAARC! – YakPremium Filter). You mean you actually want to hear moreabout the SAARC Spirit of Partnership? You mean you’venot had enough? You sure you don’t have SAARC coming outof your ears? No kidding. All right, then, you asked for it.

Now that we have survived a major shark attack, this isthe perfect timetable for our nation and people to limp backto normalcy. The all-clear has been sounded, the frenzy ofdeconstruction has abated, and Nepalis are slowly regainingthe socio-economic rights that they had willingly sacrificedfor the duration of the summit of regional hammerheads.

Much to the relief of the man-on-the-street, forinstance, the Tundikhel area is now open once more forpeople who want to take a sun bath. And as is the case after anice noontime nap, one can now also attend to calls ofnature in broad sunlight right there on the wall opposite thePCO without facing the danger of being observed by ashark head of state (or government) speeding past on amotorcade, or an escort helicopter gunship swoopinglow to take a closer look at what one is up to, andcatching one flagrante.

It may be hard for those in the corridors of power toimagine what a relief the lifting of these restrictions is to the

SAARCASMman and/or woman on the street. Every activity of personalhygiene was under strict scrutiny, even in the privacy ofone’s own home. It was rather disconcerting to have yourevery move on the kausi under constant surveillance froman airborne early warning and control system (AWACS),and the aforementioned common person on the street had tothink twice and look over his/her shoulder before caving into the temptation of pressing one thumb to his/her rightnostril and with a sharp exhalation from the lungs, expertly

discharging a major glob of nasal obstruction (Warning tominors: don’t try this stunt at home) right there below alarge hoarding at the Tripureswor intersection that says“Heart Felt Well Come to SAARC Heads”.

Lest our illustrious readers are labouring under theillusion that we are complaining about the suspension ofcivil liberties, let me dispel that notion right here and now.There is no gainsaying that as patriotic Nepalis, we feel nosacrifice is too great in order to impress our foreign visitors.We will willingly suspend the dumping of our trash withwild abandon on our own doorsteps (we will dump it insomeone else’s doorstep), we will postpone all public nosegrooming, we will not sun bathe on the bridge—but onlyfor a limited time, and only if you can get parliament toratify the strictures with a two-thirds majority.

The question in everyone’s mind right now is: when arerhinos going to be translocated to the Royal TinkuneNational Park? What are we going to do with all the bedsheets that draped the city’s billboards for the past twoweeks? The answer to both questions: Maybe.

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