Killing For Nothing
Terrorists Never Win Wars

By Chandra D. Bhatta

NOTED writer and civil rights activists Arundhati Roy in her piece, War is Peace, writes, ‘people rarely win wars, governments rarely lose them. People get killed. Governments moult and regroup, hydra-headed. They first use flags to shrink-wrap peoples’ minds and suffocate real thought, and then as ceremonial shrouds to cloak the mangled corpses of the willing dead’. She is absolutely right by every standard because no terrorists’ organisation wins over in the infighting with the government, albeit, it continues violent activities for the years. Today, at least thirty countries around the world are in war either with internal or external extremists, in most such occasions, innocent people are becoming victims worldwide.

Violence

In the violent activities, either they are guided by the principle of political ideology are motivated by the hatred or the religion based ideologies to a particular society; in general, the people everybody knows, kill the people. Innocent people get killed in the name of ‘better system of governance’ or whatever it is, by so called people who orchestrate ‘everything is good’ in the principle they are footing on. This is the tyranny, where innocent people are denied the ‘right to live’, there is no respect of life, because they just get killed for nothing, of which, they are completely unaware of. This is the situation that prevail in thirty countries around the globe including Nepal.

The recent report issued by the US State Department states that countries that are being hard hit by the terrorists’ activities would be provided with arms and necessary amenities to fight terrorism. Nepal, for the first time, is being included in the list of countries receiving the said assistance from the US government. Too some extent, it is acceptable that unless the terrorists or the so-called perpetrators of ‘betterment’ are not uprooted, the chances of moving onto the path of development are very slim, unless there are flaws in the existing system. Nevertheless, it is also not to be forgotten that miss-utilisation of these assistance might further push these countries into chaos.

Swami Vivekananda, a leading philosopher of South Asian renaissance, once exhorted: ‘In the deep valley of despair, even the hand that comes out of the darkness to help you must be your own’. A way out of the current dilemma should be searched within the country. It is because while people kill people of the same locality, that is, in a broader sense, intra-fighting en masse becomes ‘civil war’. History is there to prove that it is very difficult to extinguish the flare of ‘civil war’.

The classical example for this is Sri Lanka where despite the recent ceasefire is once again on the verge of collapse. The skyrocketing corruption, the mismanagement in the bureaucratic systems, the excess freedom without any control, civil society without any responsibility towards state and lax in implementation of laws and the forgotten spirit of the Popular Democratic Movement have ruined the country over the years. Only a little has been achieved during a ‘decade of democracy’, to enhance the overall image of the country. The governance and political structure of power became a cause of conflict rather than becoming a source of national vitality and development. In the government offices, corruption and nepotism highly prevails.

It is important for the government and politicians to understand that manipulating the huge, raging human feelings for their own selfish purposes may yield instant results, but eventually and inexorably, they have disastrous. The democratic movement of late eighties was condemned by the regimes of that time but in a broader sense the majority of the countries in the world accepted it. It was welcomed by the Nepalese people who were even not aware of about the consequences of the movement. The very reason for its acceptability was that there was no bloodshed of this kind and it was a legitimate political instrument for the change that was universally acceptable. The Maoists in Nepal are killing innocent people under the layers of dead political ideology. A recent report published by INSEC states that more than 3000 people have been killed in their activities.

Therefore, it is urgent, leaders should launch every effort to stop killing of innocent people because it is them who have seen the world and who have got an opportunity to be seen, heard, our published in the media; it is the leaders despite being in their hideout have got everything at their disposal, who needs development and betterment for theirs own benefit but not for those innocent people whose sky is very much smaller than their and do not have ambitious desire. What they need is, just to live peacefully in their own beautiful small world.

True Interest

Summing up, it is advocated that those who want change should come with true and genuine interests and discuss their problems with government and stop killing innocent policemen and army personnel. The mere political interests are not good on the part of ‘leaders’ if they are so.

Child Labour: A Serious Problem

By Mohan K.C.

AS in every part of the developing world, Nepal too has its share of problems as regards its children. The all round physical, mental, intellectual and spiritual development of children is the responsibility of the state. These are the same children who are going to grow up and take up the responsibilities of the nation. This in itself points to the fact that adequate attention have to be paid for their development if they are to be responsible citizens in the years to come. As with everything, there has to be a clear cut policies and programmes for the welfare of the children in the coutnry.

Shocking

As per a survey conducted by Child Labour Eradication Programme of the International Labour Organisation, out of about 8 million children (5-14 years) in the country about 2.6 million eke out their living as child labourers. This is a shocking revelation for people in a country that have looked upon children as taking their lineage into future. The arrival of a child in a family is reason to celebrate. But, unfortunately, the majority of the people in the country are steeped in poverty, illiteracy and backwardness. These are the reasons why all the children have not been able to develop the way they should.

The government too has directed its efforts to seeing the development of children by committing itself to the promotion and protection of the rights of children as regards education, health care and their right to life. This is a worthy gesture. It is also in the right perspective that the government has given a great importance to educating the children. The opening up schools in every nook and corner of the country is definitely praiseworthy. This is the right step considering the fact that education opens up the door for the development of not only the individual concerned but for the country as a whole.

A look at the history of development of any country provides insight into the lead role of education. The countries that are lagging behind in overall development process are those where education has not become universal. Nepal too suffers from this malady. Being literate is one thing but becoming educated is another. Of course, the first step in gaining education is being literate. For this many programmes have been conducted. Although compulsory education for all children of school going age has not fully materialised, awareness for sending their wards to school among the people is on the rise. This is a welcome development. But there is a long way to go before total success can be achieved.

A problem with school enrolment is that the drop out rate of students is still high. It is only a sustained drive for economic prosperity that can bring down the school drop-out rate. For this industrialisation drive must pick up together with increase in agricultural productivity. If these are done the economic status of the people will become better and so there will be
complete enrolment of children in school and the drop out rate will fall. It will also discourage child labour which is so rampant today.

Child labour is an outshoot of economic deprivation of the 2.6 million child labourers, hundreds of them have been trafficked to alien countries as bonded labourers or to work as sex workers. These are matters to be greatly concerned about. As per a survey report, there are about 22,000 children under the age of 18 working as domestic servants in Kathmandu metropolis. This is enough to show how serious the problem is. It is not that all those children working have a safe life. Many are involved in works of hazardous nature. This is all against the provisions that the government has on its agenda. There is top priority on the protection of children’s rights but violations are taking place possibly because of the lack of action from the enforcement agencies.

Eradication

The basic reason as already mentioned above revolves around the poor economic status of the family of the children who are forced to work at a tender age. To overcome this, a concrete strategy has to be formulated so that the development activities in the country take place at a faster rate. Only economic development to the desired extent will be of great help in eradicating child labour. The problem of child labour has to be tackled with multi-pronged strategy including education and development.