India’s mediation sought to resolve refugee problem

By a Post Reporter

KATHMANDU, Sept 20 Speaker Taranath Ranabhat today said the decade-long Bhutanese refugee problem can not be resolved without India’s mediation.  India allowed some 98 thousand refugees of Nepali origin from the Druk Kingdom to enter Nepal via its soil, but the big neighbour has always refused to mediate saying the issue should be discussed between Nepal and Bhutan.

"We now know it very well Bhutanese refugee problem couldn’t be solved without Indian mediation" said Ranabhat. "Nepal has to make India realise this." He was addressing a function organised by Nepal-India Human Development and Friendship Association here today.

Ranabhat’s statement follows recent European Parliament (EP)’s resolution on Bhutanese refugees which "recognises the tremendous goodwill of Nepal in accepting the refugees who are the victims of arbitrary deprivation of nationality and forcible eviction and who came to Nepal through India, which consistently refuses to help in resolving the repatriation issue by pretending that it is a bilateral issue of concern only to Bhutan and Nepal".

Prime Minster Girija Prasad Koirala, who returned home on September 16 after attending the UN Millennium Summit in New York had said that he had sought India’s intervention in resolving the Bhutanese refugee issue during the meeting with Indian leaders in the summit and "its response is not negative like before."

Nepal-Bhutan talks on refugee remains deadlocked over the verification modalities for repatriation of refugees ever since the Nepal-Bhutan Joint Minister Level Committee (JMLC) was formed to resolve the problem in 1993.

Nepal made the biggest blunder at the very first JMLC meet in Oct 1993 by accepting Bhutanese design of categorisation of refugees into four groups–bonafide refugees who were forcibly evicted, those who voluntarily emigrated, non-Bhutanese and Bhutanese with criminal records.

PAC members themselves under irregularities probe

By a Post Reporter

KATHMANDU, Sept 20 - A news report that alleged three members of the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of seeking monetary gains in exchange for leniency on a case of irregularities has raised the question of the freedom of press.

The Sagarmatha FM radio station had aired a news report that these three PAC members had gone to the Nepal Bank Limited (NBL) and "bargained" to suppress the investigation against the bank that has been alleged of banking irregularities pushing the bank towards bankruptcy.

The station did not name the sources and said these NBL Board members speaking on the condition of anonymity said that Hridesh Tripati, Birod Khatiwada and Birendra Kanaudia had approached the bank officials for moneytary favour in exchange for supressing the case.

PAC today invited officials of the radio station to inquire about the report and name the sources in the report.

Station Manager Prateek Bhandari told PAC that the report had been aired based on the information provided by "sources" and had contacted PAC Chairman Subash Nemwang a day before airing the report.

"Under the Code of Conduct of the Press Council we are not compelled to reveal our sources and the station did contact the other party (in this case PAC Chairman) and aired the story with his quote," Bhandari said.

Initially PAC had decided that they would seek the names of the sources who had leaked the story to the FM station. However, Nemwang and PAC members at today’s meeting did not directly ask for the names of the sources in the presence of Bhandari.

"If the allegations are true then as a chairman of the committee I need to seriously consider the charges," Nemwang said.

PAC, after failing to get the names of the sources from Bhandari and the radio station, decided to summon the Board members and General Manager of the bank to inquire which of the members had made the claims to the press.

They have been asked to be present on Monday next week.

Police showed extreme madness: CDO

Police, public trade charges in Birgunj

By a Post Reporter

BARDAGHAT, Nawalparasi, Sept 20 - Public tension abated at Bardaghat bazar after the district administration Tuesday reached a seven-point agreement with the locals to take stern action against the police who indiscriminately attacked locals without any reason at busy market place at this small town on East-West highway, according to District Administration Office here.

Police personnel on special training course on Monday indiscriminately attacked the locals and pedestrians and blank-fired along the busiest highway without any definite reason, locals said.

Butwal-Narayangadh section of the east-west highway which was blocked by the locals for some 12 hours opened late Tuesday after the local administration promised with the locals that they would take action against those police personnel responsible for terrorising the locals.

"A special court under my chairmanship will look into the incident and those found guilty will be imprisoned apart from the official actions," Chief District Officer Bishnu Raj Kusum told The Kathmandu Post on Wednesday.

CDO Kusum conceded that police on special training course were responsible for the incident and said, "they showed their extreme level of madness."

As per the agreement reached, free medical treatment and compensation will be provided to the injured and Superintendent of Police at the special training course Devilal Tamang and others will be taken stern action, among others.

Meanwhile, a report from Birgunj stated that some two dozen police striking force personnels were released after 15 hours of gherao by the locals at Bhauratar Village Development Committee-3, some 20 km north-west from district headquarters following a meeting between the locals and administration.

Locals locked up all the police personnel at a home of District Development Committee member Dhruba Kushwaha after the police rampantly opened fire at the locals, killing a 13-year-old Hiralal Shah and injuring two other persons on early Tuesday.

Deputy Superintendent of Police Prem Bahadur Chand alleged that a crowd of three thousand locals severely flogged the police personnel on captive.

Local adminstration claimed that the police force was sent to the VDC to raid a house where a large chunk of hemp was reported to have been kept.

Locals, however, said that tension with the police arose after the police arrested a servant of the person whose house they raided without calling the local elected representatives.

Meanwhile, Forum for Protection of Human Rights (FOPHUR), Nepal in a press statement issued today condemned the police atrocities on more than 150 people at Bardaghat and demanded stern actions against those responsible for the incident.

FOPHUR further demanded free medical treatment to the injured and compensation to property damaged as well as refunding valuables of the locals looted by the police in the incident.

Hundreds of arrests made ahead of bandh

By a Post Reporter

KATHMANDU, Sept 20 - Police today rounded up hundreds of leftwing activists across the country including noted leftist leaders while they were attempting to stage torch-lit rallies defying the government’s recent ban on such processions, reported our correspondents.

The arrest came on the eve of tomorrow’s dusk-to-dawn Nepal bandh called by the nine left parties to protest what they term "state-sponsored terrorism", and the controversial Citizenship Bill passed recently by the parliament. The Home Ministry announced a ban on torch-lit rallies early this week.

Meanwhile, a bomb went off in downtown Patan near Sajha Yatayat premises at about 6:40 pm. But no one was injured in the incident. Police could not give details on what type of device went off. Residents of Patan said they heard a loud noise of explosion.

A team of police stationed near Sundhara in the capital arrested several left leaders, including CPN-ML leader Bam Dev Gautam and United People’s Front (UPF) leader Amik Sherchan when they tried to lead at least two dozen protestors carrying torch-lit sticks popularly called ‘Mashals’.

According to a CPN-ML press release received by The Kathmandu Post late in the evening, "Gautam and many others have suffered serious injuries", and 27 of them, including Gautam and Sherchan, were later released from a vehicle in Patan.

The release claimed that the party’s "several central leaders like Hiranya Lal Shrestha are still in police custody".

The left leaders were addressing a corner meeting in Sundhara prior to that. The two leaders called on their supporters attending a corner meet to vehemently defy the government’s ban to stage torch-lit rallies, eyewitnesses said.

Police also arrested dozens of left party activists attempting to stage torch-lit rallies from Bagbazaar, Khichapokhari, Pyukha, Mahabauddha, Machhindrabahal and Raktakali areas of the capital city. The total number of left activists rounded up by the police from Kathmandu could not be known.

A police official in Patan said they took seven activists, including CPN-ML leader Siddhi Lal Shrestha and UPF Leader Dil Bahadur Shrestha, into custody. They were rounded up from different parts of the city with lit torches, the official added.

Police have also arrested several left activists staging torch-lit rallies from Madhyapur and Bhaktapur cities. Premananda Shrestha, Bhaktapur district leader of CPN-ML, however, claimed they successfully staged a torch-lit rally by hoodwinking the police.

In Banepa, police arrested five activists, including former UPF MP Kaman Singh Lama and former DDC Vice President Kanchha Ram Tamang, from their party office at about 5 pm, according to our reporter.

Likewise, police arrested five left activists from the district headquarters of Dolakha, Charikot, while they were staging a torch-lit rally chanting anti-government slogans.

In Surkhet, police rounded up a total of 17 left activists, including Birendranagar Municipality Mayor Balaram Sharma this evening, according to SP Bir Sharan Rana.

Likewise, police have arrested 22 left activists in Pokhara, 15 in Syangja, 30 in Palpa, 4 in Janakpur, 7 in Mahottari, 39 in Siraha, 43 in Biratnagar, 5 in Bhadrapur Jhapa, 40 in Sarlahi and 60 in Dhangadi townships.

In Nepalgunj, CPN-ML claimed, police arrested a total of 54 nine left party activists while they were participating in a torch-lit rally. Police sources said, 6 activists were rounded up in Bajura, 35 in Pyuthan, 17 in Dailekh, 23 in Dang while Bardia district saw no torch-lit rally at all.

Communist parties have been staging torch-lit rallies on the eve of the bandhs almost every time they call Nepal bandhs.

Nepal's teenage pregnancy rate high

By a Post Reporter

KATHMANDU, Sept 20 - Nepal, home to 23.9 million people, tops all the countries of the Central South Asia region except Afghanistan, when it comes to cases of teenage pregnancy.

Each year 1,000 girls aged 19 and below give birth to 120 babies in Nepal, beating the region’s annual average of 103, said a UNFPA report.

The report has placed the region’s eight countries - Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the South Central Asia region.

And what makes the matter worse is that only 23 percent of the women above 15 years of age in Nepal are literate, as against the percentage of males which stands at 58.

The alarming trend can be largely attributed to poor health awareness and inadequate family planning devices, the report said, adding only 26 percent of married women in Nepal use modern contraceptives.

Gender inequality, discrimination and violence are still a predominant custom in almost all the developing and least developed countries, said the report, The State of World Population 2000.

Saying that such forms of malpractices are "massive global violation of human rights", the report predicted grave repercussions: continued unwanted high fertility, rapid population growth and speedy spread of HIV/AIDS in poor countries.

"The price of inequality is too high to pay," said UNFPA Executive Director, Dr Nafis Sadik, in a message issued today.

Some 5,00,000 women die each year due to pregnancy-related hazards, and many times that number suffer disease or disability, the report said.

Moreover, women of the third world countries are vulnerable to the HIV infection. In Africa, for instance, the number of HIV-positive women outnumber their male counterparts by two million, according to the report.

The report also presents a dismal picture of reproductive health status of women, especially in the developing countries.

Due to the denial of reproductive choices and access to health care, about 80 million pregnancies a year turn out to be unintended or unwanted, said the report.

Revealing some more alarming facts, the report said that two million girls are at risk of genital mutilation and over five thousand women and girls are the victims of so-called "honour killings."

Displaced Kamaiyas facing strained sex life

By Bhaskar Sharma

DHANGADI, Sept 20  A new addition to the numerous plights of Kamaiyas, who have been displaced in the name of liberation from their residences, is the severe impact on their sexual life.

Following the declaration of freedom to the bonded labourers on July 17, thousands of Kamaiyas flocked into Dhangadi bazaar. At present 237 families have been settled in temporary settlements in the old airport area, where members of a family are sardine-packed in cramped and unpartitioned huts.

They have been forced to enjoy their freedom in such a place for over two months now. As the time passes by the shy couples are becoming frustrated not being able to quench their natural urge for sex. Whereas the bold ones are corrupting their young children and other relatives.

A 17-years-old Chayawati (name changed) is just an example of the extent of the problem in sexual behaviours of the Kamaiyas. She has been living for over a month in a shabby hut, hardly 15 feet by 10 feet, with her parents, her brother and his spouse, and her uncle’s family, where there’s hardly a place for one to sit properly, let alone sleep.

The frequent exposure to the sexual acts of her own relatives has corrupted her mind to the extent that she is now involved in prostitution. A recently freed Kamaiya, this teenaged girl accepts money in exchange for sexual favours. And her experience with it is hardly one month.

With children here getting increasingly exposed to sex at an early age, elders are afraid that the problem would be compounded within a very short time. "We have repeatedly asked her to abstain from sex. We even asked her parents to check upon her, but in vain," says Rajkumar Danguara, one of the Kamaiyas here.

Had the government not overlooked the biological needs and arranged for a more systematic dwelling, perhaps no such cases would have surfaced. The decision to put Kamaiyas in clustered settlements seems to be taken in haste, says Gopal Dahal, Technical Administrative Officer with Lutheran World Federation (LWF).

Most organizations that are working for the cause of the Kamaiyas have all begun to feel the need to address the problem that has started brewing in the Kamaiya camps. Dahal even cited the case of the Bhutanese refugee camps, where such problem was encountered at later dates. "Prostitution is something which is seen at later stages. If proper measures are not immediately taken, it may flourish even within the Kamaiyas," Dahal added.

The lack of awareness regarding Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) like AIDS and ignorance about safe sex among the Kamaiyas makes the problem even more alarming.

While some Kamaiyas claim that they have not indulged in sex ever since they came to live in the camp, some frankly acknowledge practicing sex.

However, Dal Bahadur Chaudhary, who lives with his two brothers and both sister in-laws, says, "One has to control inner desires during times like this. I cannot think of sex with all the family members sleeping inches apart."

Experts claim that both sexual restrains and early-exposure to sex is dangerous for the society and the people as such. Anthropologist Dr Ram Bahadur Chettri says the effect of strained sex life is negative upon a couple. "Strained sex life is the root of many social problems," he says.

It is imperative that organizations working for the cause of the Kamaiyas arrange for ensuring that their physiological needs are met, he says.

They must also impart sex education not only to the adults, but also to the teenagers to ensure that they engage in safe sex only. They should also provide separate huts for married couples to reduce the exposure of children to sex at an early age and to lessen the strain among the adults.

"If children get exposed to sex by themselves suddenly, the impact is disastrous. They should rather be given education on it," he says.