The people of Kathmandu woke up to an unexpected morning. There was heavy security presence in the streets and riot police were deployed to every crossings around the valley. The unannounced visit of the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao came more as a shock than a surprise for the people whose weekend plans went all wrong. Ratna Tripathi, 71 years, from Kavre was visiting his relative in Baneshwor when he was detained for half an hour along with dozens of commuters. “I just want to cross the street”, he kept telling the police.

“Get that man, kick him if he does not listen.”, a police sub-inspector shouted to his juniors. People were being chased away from the sidewalks into the inner alleys. Even those watching from their shops along the streets were asked to go inside. Some were so put off that they pulled the shutters down and left.

Hundreds of police personnel were deployed in Kathmandu’s Bauddha, Swayambhu and Ekantakuna, which has substantial Tibetan population. Besides, there was heavy patrolling and security checks around Tribhuvan International Airport, Gaushala, New Baneswor, all the way to Singhadurbar and traffic was diverted to clear the route.

Ngawang Lakpa Sherpa, a Nepali monk from Lamidanda, was detained in Gaushala. He was trying to catch a flight back home to meet his parents. The police strip searched his body and luggage but refused to let him go. Prem Lama, who was riding with Ngawang to airport was also detained and questioned. Ngawang’s flight took off at 11, just as he and other seven monks were arrested and taken to Gaushala police station. “I am a citizen of this country and this is how I get treated, only because I am wearing a robe”, dejected monk told us as he was being shoved inside a police truck.

Over two hundred Tibetans and non-Tibetan monks have been arbitrarily detained from various places in the capital. Police detained every Tibetan or anybody who looked like a Tibetan. Even those carrying Vietnamese and Indian passports were arrested. A bus carrying Indian tourists from Himachal Pradesh was detained and taken to Gaushala police station. Dolma Negi, a member of the tour group was questioned repeatedly about purpose of her visit even though she kept telling she was just a tourist like everybody else in the group.

The Chinese Premier landed in Kathmandu around noon and will spend ‘few hours’ in Kathmandu before proceeding to Riyadh. The secrecy surrounding the visit which is also being referred to as ‘transit diplomacy’ has to do with Chinese anxiety over possible Tibetan demonstrations that led to cancellation of the visit in December.

Not much is known about the agenda of today’s discussion but Finance Minister Barsa Man Pun told reporters that the Chinese have proposed a BIPPA treaty which the Nepal government will take up in the bilateral talks. Pun also said that the government will request Chinese help in infrastructure projects including hydropower development and special package for the Nepal Police.

Anurag Acharya

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The controversial visit of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao which was shelved few weeks back is taking even more dramatic tryst. Unconfirmed sources in the government leaked the news to the media late on Friday that Wen will land in Kathmandu on Saturday at around 11 in the morning and after meeting his Nepali counterpart for few hours, will proceed onto his visit to the Middle East.

The speculations had already begun on Thursday after  Chinese Ambassador made an unscheduled visit to Baluwatar on Thursday and reports about police detaining over a hundred Tibetans entering Kathmandu on Friday.

There is no doubt the ambushed visit is a face saving exercise for both, the Chinese and more importantly for the Baburam government. But in doing so the Chinese have once again exposed their anxiety over what they regard as growing Free Tibet activities in Nepal. If the visit itself has been unannounced, the Chinese couldn’t have timed it better, using the opportunity when most of the Tibetans here have gone to Bodhgaya for Tibetan Buddhist Kaalachakra initiation given by the Dalai Lama.

The police have beefed up security in ‘sensitive’ areas and are making late night preparations for tomorrow’s visit. Although there are many issues regarding bilateral cooperation on the agenda which the Nepal government may be eager to discuss, the Chinese will be more interested in discussing ways to control ‘anti-Chinese’ activities in Nepal. In such situation, there is little hope that the Chinese premier’s visit will yield us as much as it promised.

Anurag Acharya

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The much anticipated trek through the Great Himalaya Trail that stretches from the foothills of Kangchenjunga in the eastern Taplejung district to remote Darchula in the far-west takes off on Friday. The Great Himalaya Trail- Climate Smart Celebrity Trek (GHT-CSCT) will be led by Apa Sherpa who has scaled Mt. Everest 21 times so far.

Apa and his team will travel from Taplejung to Darchula carrying a national flag handed to them by President Ram Baran Yadav at his office on Thursday in Kathmandu.The trek will end on 13th May 2012. He will be accompained by Dawa Steven Sherpa, Saurav Dhakal and Samir Jung Thapa in a 1,700 km and 120 days trek through across 20 districts of Nepal.

The trek has been jointly organised by Himalayan Climate Initiative in coordination with the Ministry of Environment, and the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation, with the support of DFID, British Council, SNV, NTB,TAAN and other Great Himalayan Trail Development Program partners, to sensitize the impacts of climate change in the Himalayas and to promote TGHT as the best trans-himalayan trekking route in the world that offers trekkers experience of beautiful landscapes, rich biodiversity and cultures.

Speaking on the occasion, President Yadav, who has been avid campaigner against the climate change said: “The trek will help identify the impacts of Climate Change in the Himalayas, and showcase how sustainable tourism can be used as a tool for poverty reduction and to build climate-resilience among impoverished mountain communities in Nepal”.

Before leaving on his epic journey, Apa said, “The world wants to support Nepal battle against climate change but they need to be told how and where. My effort to walk from East to West in Nepal, is precisely to find places and people that need help and attention in their climate battle”.

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Five months, hundreds of mountains, seventeen hundred kilometres

Following the Karnali, #531
Nepal’s silver lining runs the length of the country

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US officials formally announced in Washington on Wednesday the return of the Peace Corps to Nepal after they were pulled out following an explosion set off at the UAS Information Centre in Gyaneswor in September 2004.

Peace Corps Director Aaron S. Williams and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Assistant Administrator for Asia Nisha Biswal signed an inter-agency agreement to re-establish a Peace Corps program in Nepal. “We are pleased that the government of Nepal has invited Peace Corps volunteers to return and work with local Nepali communities, in collaboration with USAID, once again,” said Peace Corps Director Williams.

Since 1962, more than 4,000 Americans have served as Peace Corps Volunteers in Nepal, working on projects in the sectors of education, environment and natural resource conservation, health, and community and youth development. The first group of approximately 20 Peace Corps volunteers is scheduled to arrive in Nepal later this year and will largely work in the nutrition sector.

US Ambassador Scott DeLisi said: “We are so very pleased that the Government of Nepal so eagerly worked with us to make this happen. We will have a program with PM Bhattarai and others next week to re-launch the Peace Corps program in Nepal.”

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Chandra Maya Tamang heaved a sigh of relief over the news that Sankhuwasabha District Court slapped a 12-year jail sentence on those who had gang-raped her niece on June last year. “I am happy that justice has been done, but those monsters deserved life sentence,” she told Nepali Times.

Her niece, a 21-year-old apprentice at the Laligurans Rimthen Chholing Boudha Gumba in Dilkharka, was gang raped by driver and the crew of the passenger bus at Sabha Khola in Sankhuwasabha district on the night of June 24. The culprits also looted 130 thousand rupees she was carrying for her sister Kabita Tamang, who had sent the money for constructing a house in village.

She had stayed with Kabita in Kankadbhitta for two days before leaving for her village. “I wish I had insisted her to stay few more days,” she recalls. “I wish things that had happened could be undone.”

Chandra Maya was in constant touch with her until 6 pm that evening and the nun would have reached her, had the river on the way not been flooded. The bus had to make an unscheduled night stop. As the lodges were already full, the bus staff convinced her to spend the night in a bus and raped her repeatedly. She was found next morning unconscious tied inside the same bus, which had left early in the morning from Sabhakhola. Members of the Limbuwan Volunteers had caught the culprits in a place called Kharang and handed them over to Chainpur police.

A single bench of Sankhuwasabha district Judge Salikram Koirala on Monday announced a 12-year jail term for Raj Kumar Limbu, Bhuwan Korangi, Shobhit Magar and Abhishekh Magar. According to district Attorney Krishna Batu Bhandari, Drona Rai who was found guilty of aiding in the crime was handed six years sentence.

Although, the convicted will have to pay Rs 50,000 compensation each and fork out the money stolen from the nun, the compensation amount is way too less given the treatment costs and the psychological trauma the victim has had to endure.

Chandra Maya had taken a loan of 250 thousand rupees from money lenders. “I had to pawn ornaments of friends and family members for the money and they have been charging me 38 percent interest,” she says. Nun’s father Krishna Tamang is in worse condition. His house in Sankhuwasabha collapsed during the September earthquake and having spent all the money for daughter’s treatment the family does not have money to rebuild the house and is living in a makeshift hut. “It seems the fate also favours the rich,” laments Krishna.

Kabita Tamang told us her sister’s condition has not improved. Despite doctors’ warning, she had been taken to Sankhuwasbha to testify her statement where she was asked to recall the traumatic incident . When she returned Kathmandu she had to be hospitalised again.

Kabita thinks minimum punishment for a rapist should be life imprisonment. Presently, the punishment for a rape convict is a jail term up to 10 years. “I don’t think the law is strong enough to deter people from committing such heinous crimes,” she says. “ The physical and psychological trauma our family had to go through is beyond any reparation and it should never happen to anyone.”

Dewan Rai

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The Maoist central committee meeting on Monday has ended in favor of the peace process and constitution drafting. As was expected the top leaders spent most of the day negotiating each other’s positions. “If we go for a revolt now, everybody will blame us for abandoning the peace process and people will not back us,” Pushpa Kamal Dahal told Baidya in the meeting. He convinced Baidya that the party must continue towards constitution drafting and choose revolt only as a last resort. However, the meeting made a vague agreement to go for ‘mass mobilisation’ to help in constitution drafting. The responsibility of mass mobilisation was given to Chairman Dahal.

Under pressure from the cadres and other leaders in the party, it was expected that the top leaders would come to a ‘temporary agreement’. It remains to be seen whether Baidya can convince people like CP Gajurel, Ram Bahadur Thapa and Netra Bikram Chand, who want to push for the line of revolt immediately.

The Maoists are consolidating after Upendra Yadav’s Madhesi Forum Nepal withdrew its support from the government on Sunday and sixteen parties led by Nepali Congress and UML formed a political block to pressurise them on the peace process and constitution drafting. The ongoing drive for unity within the Maoists is the result of quickly changing political landscape.

The opposition has come down heavily on the Maoists after the hardliners rejected previous agreements made by the dispute resolving sub-committee. NC leader, Ram Sharan Mahat, in a radio interview later blamed Maoists of going against the 7-point deal and exhibiting power arrogance. He also said the NC could consider moving ‘no confidence motion’ against the government. The constitutional committee meeting has been postponed for three days after the parties failed to come to terms.

Nepali politics is once again becoming polarised and there is a general fear that hardening position of the parties will further delay integration of the combatants and statute drafting.

ANURAG ACHARYA

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AVASH BHANDARY

The fist fights at Pokhara Stadium last week during a National League match between Manang-Marsyangdi vs New Road Team (NRT) was just the latest in a long history of sports hooliganism in this country. It was the players who turned a football match into a boxing knockout, but in many cases it is over-excited (or stoned?) fans that take to stone-throwing as happened after the Americans beat Nepal in a cricket qualifier at the TU grounds last year.

Violence is embedded in the beautiful game, second only to combat sports. Football metamorphosing itself into foot-brawl is nothing new, and goes as far back as the SAFF Championship in Kathmandu in 1997 with the Maldivian and Sri Lankan teams engaged in open warfare in the field. The Holland-Portugal match in 2006 World Cup was another classic international case.

The Nepali media condemned the players involved in Pokhara and ANFA banned them. The seemingly “one off” incident has to do a lot with the nature of competitive sports in our age in general.

“Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting,” George Orwell once wrote. Indeed, the patriotism that comes out at various sports meets borders on tribalism.

Manang and NRT are amongst two richest clubs in our league, and pressure to win among players is understandable. Some accused Manang of creating unnecessary trouble and controversy even during the Martyrs’ Memorial ‘A’ Division last time. Late into the match when, scoring or preventing the opponent from scoring becomes the only thing that matters, discipline and fair play are easily forgotten.

Coaches lamented the lack of discipline and professionalism among players and so did some journalists. The fans’ perspective didn’t come through, but they probably sided with their teams and the neutral onlookers took voyeuristic pleasure in the free “entertainment”.

Violence is an integral part of any intense competition and football is not an exception. In Nepal, sports hooliganism is just the manifestation of the general impunity in society and the frustration of the young with the general political and economic stagnation of the country.

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