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Kathmandu Friday March 16, 2001 Chaitra 03, 2057.
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Living in gangsters’ paradise
By Surendra Phuyal
Street demonstrations by community forest user groups and students. Royal
Nepal Army (RNA) Colonel’s arrest along with a freshly killed barking deer in Chitwan
and his subsequent escape to Kathmandu. United Nations (UN) General Secretary Kofi
Annan’s visit. Minister Jay Prakash Gupta and Surendra Hamal’s resignation. And
hotel employees’ strike over ten percent service charge. All these incidents
literally messed up things this past week. All is not well in the city.
While the community forest user groups were taking to the streets demanding
scrapping of a law that they claimed would snatch away their rights over their own forest
resources, the RNA Colonel was apprehended by a group of forest guards on charges of
shooting dead a barking deer. Consequently, the shikari colonel along with his nephew fled
to Kathmandu, much to the hue and cry of conservationists and general public.
And no sooner had the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan and his wife, Nane
Annan, completed their brief but landmark stay in the city of peacekeepers, a fresh row
over ten per cent service charge staged a dramatic comeback. Apparently, this led the
1,500-odd tourists staying in the city of temples to pack up their belongings, and either
wander about the city of demo(n)s or flee the Himalayan Kingdom.
Going by the street demonstrations, it appears that the guardians of
community forests are really angry over the government’s move to "snatch
away" their rights over their own forests. But grapevine has it that donors are
equally angry over the move and that they are coaxing and encouraging the users groups
into protesting against what they call an "unwise move". The tip-off worked
anyway.
Indeed, communities have nurtured hundreds of community forests across the
hills and plains of the country over the last few decades. And, experts say, it is because
of the communities’ participation and direct involvement in protecting and nurturing
their forests that Nepal today is popular as a country of community forests, leave alone
temples and Himalayas.
So successful the concept became that within a span of just a few years,
Nepal’s barren hills turned green and lush with regenerating forests and exotic
species of wildlife in them. And countries in Africa and Asia began to replicate what they
call a ‘successful model’. As a result, officials say, the model has now been
successfully replicated in countries like Kenya, Laos, and Myanmar and lately in
neighbouring India also. In such background, officials in Nepal will do well in thinking
twice before introducing such a law.
If enforced, proponents of community forests say, the forest would be taken
care of and managed by the government - and not by the communities - like in the past.
With no such thing left as "our own forest to go into", the same communities who
are guarding the forests now will begin cutting down trees. Incidents of logging and
wildlife poaching will go up and the same hills with lush green forests start becoming
barren and …
Just as the guardians of the community forests were demonstrating on the
streets of Kathmandu, reports came that the country’s skilled (UN) peacekeepers were
breaking the peace of the jungles in Chitwan. RNA Colonel Dilip SJB Rana along with his
nephew, Arun SJB Rana, were apprehended with a dead barking deer, which bore freshly shot
bullet wounds.
Although the Colonel denied having killed the deer, the incident underscores
the royalties’-like tendency of our RNA bigwigs to hunt the country’s wildlife
that are nearing extinction. This should stop forthwith for good. Thanks god, the bad news
did not go into the ear of the visiting UN Chief.
Had that deer been one belonging to the list of endangered animals, the
Colonel would be awaiting serving a heavy penalty. Still, now that the RNA headquarters is
taking up the matter the Colonel is sure to face the army’s Court Martial even though
the general public is not aware of the degree of punishment one has to face under the
Court Martial.
But another important question remains unanswered as yet: what about his
nephew? Is not he liable to legal punishment as much as his uncle? And so on. Perhaps the
District Forest Office, Chitwan, will get him and penalize him before it is too late. The
authorities need to draw a lesson from this incident that poaching of such hapless animals
as deer is a commonplace in the forests of the Terai and in most cases bigwigs are
involved.
And the beleaguered government of GP Koirala could not remain unaffected by
this hurricane. Two of his close confidants resigned, and leaders of the ruling Nepali
Congress (NC) party are keeping their fingers crossed for a meet which is due for Sunday.
Let’s hope that the meet will come up with solutions.
To make things even worse, hotel employees’ strike over ten percent
service charge has made a comeback. And the police are finding it difficult to handle
things (street demonstrations of the CPN-ML affiliated students have already eaten their
hearts out). When this write-up was being done, the cops were busy nabbing the striking
employees from the hotel premises, and the hotel executives were taking up the cooks’
and waiters’ jobs. Better late than never. Going by the mess, it feels like this city
is gangsters’ paradise.
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