Humiliated and dejected, Maoists go on rampage, blow bridges

Post Report

KATHMANDU, April 25 : Maoists got further drubbing on the third day of the five-day nationwide bandh as more people defied the strike call and resumed their normal activities. Capital’s supermarket and other important business centres opened for the first time during the bandh on Thursday while establishments outside the valley continued with their normal businesses.

More vehicles were seen plying in the major cities and highways around the country. Shops also remained open in many cities as security forces patrolled the streets to thwart Maoist attacks, reports from our correspondents around the country said.

But the rebels also continued with their terror activities. They bombed vehicles, destroyed private and government property and intimidated defying them. The rebels killed at least one person, abducted civilians and destroyed physical infrastructures, mainly in the districts of Teharthum, Mugu, Sindhupalchowk and Taplejung. The remote Mugu district’s several parts remain cut off with the district headquarter as terrorist destroyed 3 suspension bridge over Karnali River. They also continued their attack on the Red-Cross property.

Three armed rebels killed a Nepali Congress cadre, Bachhalal Thakur, 45, of Chandbela VDC in Sunsari district yesterday. Suresh Thakur, the 12-year son of the deceased who was witness to the murder, said rebels accused his father of tipping off the security forces about their activities.

The Defence Ministry, meanwhile, said in its routine statement that the security forces shot dead nine rebels in various parts of the country on Wednesday. Two of them were killed in Kanchanpur, and one each in Rukum, Parbat, Myagdi, Sindhuli, Nuwakot, Rasuwa and Kaski districts. Security forces also seized firearms, ammunition, explosives, and Maoist literature in the operations.

Security forces sent a 12-year-old boy, Dhan Bahadur Tamang, back to his home in Dolakha by a helicopter after he recovered from a severe injury in a 3-week long treatment in the Birendra Police hospital.

In the capital city, more shops opened and more means of public and private transportation resumed their services. Earlier on the day, several rallies consisting, businessmen, professionals and people from all walks of life went around the major thoroughfares calling for peace.

A peace rally, organised by the Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce and Industries, candidly appealed the shopkeepers, business community and transport entrepreneurs to resume their services. Life in the capital was normal on Thursday, after the government repeated that it would compensate the loss of property.

Shopkeepers of the Bishal Bazaar supermarket in downtown Kathmandu voluntarily opened their shutters on the third day of the much-dreaded nation-wide shutdown. In Thamel, almost 30 per cent of the shops remained open today, said Kirti Bahadur Chand, Chief District Office of Kathmandu.

CDO Chand said that security personnel had been put on high alert.

The rebels travelling in a taxi left an explosive behind. The driver and a pedestrian sustained injuries when the bomb went off in Thamel area. The rebels also succeeded in bombing - and destroying - a city bus in the old bus park near Ratna Park. An explosive went off soon after all the passengers travelling in the bus disembarked, said police. Nobody was, however, injured. The rebels also torched a motorbike at Makkhan Tole in the capital Thursday afternoon.

In Syangja, rebels abducted Dev Bahadur Khwas, youth leader of the ruling Nepali Congress from his home in Banethok. Another Nepali Congress leader, Dhan Bahadur Chand, 55, who is a former member of the NC’s Rukum District Working Committee, was abducted by the rebels from his home in Jhula VDC, according to our reporter there.

Youth leader Khawas, who was taking refuge in the district headquarters of Syangja for a long time, was abducted by the rebels when he arrived at his home village to marry off his daughter.

The entire Dolakha district plunged into darkness as power supply to the entire district has been cut off as the rebels destroyed a sub-station of the Sunkosi Hydropower Plant near Mudhe on Wednesday night. The rebels also uprooted some electricity poles affecting power supply to district’s Jiri township.

In Mugu, the rebels destroyed three suspension bridges located in Bhattechaur, Lukta and Shukli areas on Wednesday. Our reporter there said this would affect the movement of more than 20 VDCs. The villages now remain cut off with the district headquarters, Gamgadhi. Local security officials confirmed that the rebels also chopped off pipelines of Gamgadi’s drinking water supply system.

Despite widespread condemnations from humanitarian organisations and International Committee for Red Cross over the vandalism of ambulances by Maoists, the rebels on Wednesday set fire to a Nepal Red Cross Society branch office in Jaljale VDC of Tehrathum district. They also torched the offices of some international non-governmental organisations such as the German Development Service (GTZ) and Department for International Development (DFID), in the eastern hills.

According to report from far-eastern frontier district of Taplejung, the rebels have already destroyed 33 VDC offices, two sub-health posts, two range posts, two postal offices, and a powerhouse of a micro-hydro project in the district. In Sindhupalchok district, the rebels have so far set fire to 27 of the 79 VDC offices and have destroyed documents of 27 postal offices, depriving the district’s poor people with postal services.

Melamchi to be further delayed, thirsty capital disappointed

By Surendra Phuyal

KATHMANDU, April 25 : Spate of obstructions caused by Maoists in the civil works of the ambitious Melamchi Drinking Water Supply Project has forced officials to postpone the completion date nearly by two years disappointing donors as well as over 1.5 million prospective consumers of the capital valley. The project will now be completed by the end of 2008 instead of April 2007 as earlier targeted.

"We have once again been forced to postpone the date to 2008 from April 2007," says Dinesh Chandra Pyakurel, Secretary at the Ministry of Housing and Physical Planning. "The situation in the project site is very volatile and we are finding it difficult to go ahead with the civil works."

The US $ 464 million project, being commissioned with the financial assistance of a number of bilateral and multilateral donor agencies, was initially scheduled to complete before 2006. But the deteriorating security situation at the project site, which lies in Sindhupalchowk district north-east of Kathmandu, forced the government to reschedule the project’s completion date to April 2007.

Officials and general public in Kathmandu fear that the project could be delayed further if the government fails to ensure security in and around the area, where Maoist activities are common.

But in the Kathmandu Valley, water woes continue to worsen. Bimala Sharma, a resident of Bhotebahal, wakes up at extremely odd hours to get her pots filled. The taps run for just two hours in every 48 hours. "It looks like we will die even before the city starts getting sufficient water from the Melamchi," the frail, middle-aged housewife says.

"Water is very scarce here and we have been forced to stand in long queues to wait for the water tankers to arrive," adds Laxmi Narayan Tandukar, a resident of Chhetrapati. "We can’t buy mineral water. Every summer our taps run dry…Melamchi is our only hope."

But the project "finally in the pipeline" once again seems to be a pipe dream with the Maoist rebels continuing to wage attacks on Melamchi’s primary infrastructures such as bridges along its access road and proposed tunnel construction sites.

Just last week, Pyakurel says, the rebels bombed a culvert near Melamchi Bridge right near the starting point of the project’s proposed 23-km access road and damaged it. "They have warned to attack the Sindhu Bridge near Bahunepati next," he adds.

The access road starts from Melamchi Bridge and snakes through the rugged terrain of the Melamchi Valley and Helambu region. Eight of the nine bridges along the access road have already been completed. "We need explosives to carry out rock-cutting works along the access road and at the tunnel site," Pyakurel says. "But we have not been able to transport them due to security reasons."

A 26.5-km-long tunnel, stretching from Ribarma to Sundarijal, would divert 170 million litres of water daily (MLD) to the Valley upon completion of its first phase. The World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB), (NORAD) Norway, SIDA (Sweden), JBIC (Japan) and a number of other donor agencies are providing financial assistance to the project.

Even the donors who have keen interest in completing the project have shown grave concern over the present state. "The overall situation is not ideal," says Richard Vokes, Country Representative of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

"It (the series of attacks) could potentially affect the implementation and delay everything."

Pyakurel asserts that the government is intent on completing the project by 2008. "The Cabinet has decided to deploy army at the project site to ensure security of the infrastructure and explosives," he says, adding that the project personnel would soon start working together with the army.

According to Nepal Drinking Water Supply Corporation (NWSC), the Valley needs 170 MLD, but the corporation has been able to supply a little more than half the requirement - 80 MLD - during the dry season, i.e. February to May. The NWSC has been supplying drinking water basically from its traditional surface resources at the Shivapuri, Nagarjuna and Sainbu foothills.

Oppn leader returns with new questions over refugee stalemate

By Damakant Jayshi

KATHMANDU, April 25 : Bhutanese leaders seem to have finally realised that there are indeed refugees in the UNHCR-run camps in eastern Nepal. But they apparently feel that most of them were forced to leave Bhutan by "certain misguided leaders" without a valid reason.

The Bhutanese government blames the Lhotsampa (Southern Bhutanese of Nepali origin) refugee leaders for "cajoling, threatening and driving out the common Lhotsampas for their own vested interests".

That is the impression of a five-member delegation of opposition politicians led by CPN-UML General Secretary and main opposition leader Madhav Kumar which returned to the capital today after completing a four-day visit to the Dragon Kingdom during which they met the Bhutanese King, the head of the Council of Ministers and the Foreign Minister, among a host of other high-ranking officials.

The visit has taken place even as Nepal is awaiting Bhutan to come to Kathmandu for the formal ministerial-level talks.

The Druk government wants this issue to be addressed while considering the resolution of the refugee imbroglio. They have impressed upon the delegation that they were ready to sit for the long overdue 12th round of ministerial level talks "today or tomorrow", which is also the position of Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Ministry (MoFA).

However, striking a contradictory note on the dialogue with Nepal, Bhutanese officials also told the delegation that they were still "processing and reconciling the findings of the verification of the refugees in the Khudunabari camp" where over 12,000 refugees have already been verified.

The Kathmandu Post spoke to General Secretary Nepal and two other UML parliamentarians – Jagannath Khatiwada and Mahendra Bahadur Pandey – who were part of the delegation and are also members of the party’s foreign affairs cell.

The UML leaders maintain that there was serious breach of trust between the two governments as far as the refugees are concerned. "The refugee impasse cannot be resolved unless there is an atmosphere of trust between the governments of Nepal and Bhutan and between the latter and the refugees," said opposition leader Nepal. He added that a lot is yet to be done on this score.

Nepal, however, said that he had told the Bhutanese leaders that all the refugees must soon be taken back.

Replying to a question, the leader of the opposition said that he would brief the government about his impressions and give the necessary suggestions.

Khatiwada revealed that Bhutan had doubts whether all the refugees in the camps are genuine Bhutanese and added that there were serious differences in the perceptions of the two governments. On the other hand, Pandey said that the Druk government was sore with the government here for not "materialising the understanding reached during the 10th and the 11th ministerial meetings".

Gyan Chandra Acharya, the Spokesperson at the MoFA, while declining to be drawn into what the Bhutanese government said to the delegation, reiterated Nepal’s position on the 12th Ministerial Joint Committee meeting that is due in Kathmandu. "We repeat that we are ready for the talks any moment."

Refugee leaders, who have been accused by their government of fomenting trouble, have debunked the charge as "frivolous and mischievous" and another attempt to delay the resolution of the refugee problem. "We never left as leaders when we were evicted by the government officials. So there is no question of inciting the refugees as the government claims now," R B Basnet, President of the Bhutan National Democratic Party told The Kathmandu Post.

Another marked departure felt by the delegation was the Bhutanese "openness to all the options in solving the refugee issue, including third and fourth party mediations". Although Nepal had insisted on such mediation from India, Bhutan has been steadfastly refusing the means. "They are open to Indian mediation but they want honest and impartial arbitration," revealed Pandey, adding that the Bhutanese need to be assured first of impartiality of any such mediation.

If what Pandey said is true, then this is a significant departure from Bhutan’s long-held position. It also indicates that, if Indian eventually became involved as a mediator, then Bhutan wants another party – the so-called fourth party – to sit in as an arbitrator.

It was through India that the Lhotsampas entered eastern Nepal in the early 90s. In fact, it was West Bengal Police that dumped truckloads of the refugees at Kakarbhitta, the Nepal-India border.

CBS data on high literacy ignites controversy

By Razen Manandhar

KATHMANDU, April 25 : Census 2001, the recently concluded mammoth head-count exercise, reveals that Nepal’s literacy rate - that is people who can both perform basic reading and writing- has shot up to 53.74 per cent. But the data is attracting controversy as education experts refuse to believe that progress in literacy has made such strides.

The Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) announced recently that adult literacy rates has reached 54 per cent. But experts say, the figures do not reflect the actual situation. Worse, there is spreading confusion as many institutions and organisations other than the CBS continue to have their own literacy data.

Mana Prasad Wagle, a professor of Tribhuwan University’s Education Department, said that the data of CBS is "not reliable" and the government is only trying to please the donors by "playing the game of digits".

To drive home argument, Wagle pointed out that the National Planning Commission, in a study conducted four years ago, found Nepal’s literacy rate at 36 per cent. "I can challenge, the literacy rate of Nepal cannot go beyond 40 per cent," he said. "The census was carried out at a critical time and most of the western villages were officially and unofficially left untouched. A sample study in five development regions will reveal the fact," Wagle said.

Moreover, Wagle is vehemently against the present system of surveying literacy rates. "Nowhere in the world does statistics on literacy rate include children below 15 years of age. Post literacy and continuing education should be taken into account when we survey literacy rates," he argued.

Another educationist, Dr Tirtha Khaniya, questions the very definition of literacy. Though he does not challenge the CBS data, Dr Khaniya nevertheless says, "what is the use of literacy if it cannot help a person in his profession later on? So we need to go for functional literacy to seek people’s participation in development, rather than boasting about literacy figures."

Meanwhile, international organisations do not see the CBS announced figures as a major achievement. Education officer at United Nations Educational Scientific Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Rohit Pradhan, said that 54 per cent literacy should not be a cause for joy since the government had committed as far back as in 1990 to raise the rate up to 67 per cent by the year 2000.

"The next thing is that literacy must be defined according to the present context. Many of the VDC officers have not even seen computers.

Then the question arises, what type of literacy we are talking about," says the UNESCO officer.

Another area which is confusing experts is the different literacy data in circulation. While CBS puts the latest literacy rates at 54 per cent, other organisations have their own figures. UNESCO for instance found 35.9 per cent literacy in 1998. Then there is the four-year old National Planning Commission figure of 54 per cent.

Says Pradhan of UNESCO, "It’s embarrassing that on World Literacy Day (September 8), half a dozen newspapers gave different data on Nepal’s literacy rate."

Spokesperson of Ministry of Education and Sports, Yubaraj Pande said that the recent data produced by CBS "must be reliable" as it was based on door to door survey. "Irrespective of its outcome, we can’t say that the actual survey of CBS is wrong and the national and international projection is right."

But he admitted that the term literacy rate must be redefined and come to functional utility of literacy the surveyors count.

PAC summons Secretaries

Post Report

KATHMANDU, April 25 : The parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) today sent a letter to the Chief Secretary of the government and the Secretary at the Ministry of Water Resources asking them to submit reports on the progress made on probing irregularities on Bakraha and Mahakali Irrigation Projects within three days.

PAC in mid July 2000, had found that the Ministry of Water Resources was involved in irregularities while signing contracts with Koneko Pvt. Ltd.

The parliamentary committee also concluded that the decision was made with "ulterior motive" to benefit the company causing a huge loss to the Mahakali Irrigation Project.

The committee had also pointed finger at the contract signing procedures for Bakraha Irrigation project, which was completed two years back. The agreement was signed with a Chinese company, China Henan International Economic Technical Cooperation, but the committee asserted that the government had violated the financial regulations.

Marriages are made in heaven but not during bandh

By Suvecha Pant

KATHMANDU, April 25 : A long queue of people outside the Nepal Astrological Research Centre in Dilli Bazar has become quite a regular sight now. Almost each of them with creases of worries on their face has the same problem - that the 5 day bandh call forced them to postpone marriages in their families and that they are looking for another auspicious date at the earliest.

There are only five ‘lagans’ (auspicious dates) available in the remaining 18 days of Baisakh, but catering services, music band and community stalls for marriage party are much less in number compared to their demand. Desperate parents and guardians are now thronging at the astrological centre for the auspicious date, and they immediately run for the music band and caterers.

Around 90 people have already come here to fix the marriage dates on 24 and 25 of this month, said astrologer Mayaram S. Rijal, president of Nepal Astrological Research Centre and vice-president of Nepal Astrological Science Service.

"Almost 60 people have cancelled their marriages due to the bandh," Rijal said. "A majority of these marriages have now been fixed for Baisakh 25 and 26, as these are the two most auspicious days in the month."

Furthermore, though Baisakh 18 is also auspicious for marriage, people are not choosing this day, as it immediately proceeds the five-day bandh. At the Nepal Astrological Research Centre, there has been only 15 marriages set for this day, which is much less than the later dates.

"People are asking in particular to fix the date of marriage for 25th and 26th and to limit the timing of rituals to a day," said astrologer Dr. Purna Prasad Adhikari, adding, "We already have more than 50 marriages fixed for these days."

"People generally like to wed in Baisakh, as it is the first month of the year and is believed to be most auspicious to begin a blissful married life," said Adhikari.

Govinda Thapa is one of the many families in the capital who have been affected by the bandh. Thapa’s only son is coming from the Untied States to get married this month. Though they had planned the marriage on earlier date, they had been forced to fix Baisakh 25 as the date for the marriage.

"The current situation has compelled us to organise a short, one-day marriage," said Govinda. "Due to the bandh, we have to now compromise and arrange the marriage on the 25th."

The marriage procedure in today’s society has changed drastically due to the country’s volatile situation. Families are now opting for a ‘short’ marriage with most of them lasting for not more than a day.

"We can not perform the same long rituals now like in my marriage," said Ram Sharma. "My daughter’s wedding will now complete in a day."

Even dozens of catering services in the Kathmandu Valley have been fully booked on Baisakh 25 and 26 and most of these bookings have been done a month ago keeping bandh in mind. The five-day bandh has affected the business of the capital’s catering services by almost 50 per cent.

"We have no parties during the bandh, but we have full bookings for the last two days of Baisakh," said Shambhu Shrestha, managing director of Indreni Catering Service.

Managing director of Amrit Bhog Catering Service Binod Kumar Agrawal complained that the earlier bookings have all been cancelled due to the bandh, as most of them fell on bandh days. "People do not want to hold parties during the bandh and this has tremendously affected our business," said Agrawal.

It is the same story with the bandmasters too. Though the practice of hiring band baja during the wedding procession is gradually waning, many people still prefer to have them during their marriages. But the bandh has affected their business as well. The service of Everest Band Baja on Baisakh 25 and 26 has already been booked since the last two months. Due to the bandh, the bookings from Baisakh 10 to 14 had to be cancelled.

Be it astrologers, caterers or bandmasters, the last week of Baisakh will become pretty hectic for them but will obviously bring them some relief, as they will have the opportunity to recover the losses they have borne during the present bandh.