| Reports
on Nepal's Civil War |
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ICRC
suspends visits to army detention centres
|
June
2005
The
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has put on hold visits
to detainees at army barracks throughout Nepal. The suspension comes after
the Royal Nepali Army (RNA) allegedly failed to comply fully with the terms
of an agreement with the ICRC regarding what are called 'worldwide working
modalities.'
These
are carefully worded conditions, set down by the Swiss-based organisation,
that virtually abstain from making any direct statement against state authorities
or other parties to any conflict. The current difficulties centre on the
detention of Nepal's Maoist insurgents.
"We
have visited persons detained by the RNA since December 2002 and we had
some problems as far as the respect of the ICRCs worldwide working modalities
for and with detainees are concerned," Friedrun Medert, ICRC's delegation
head in the Himalayan kingdom, told IRIN. "We have discussed these problems
with the RNA and we felt that the steps it took were not sufficient to
redress the situation," Medert added.
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Full
story ... |
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IRIN ICRC
suspends visits to army detention centres
(June
2005) - no link |
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The
soul of a Nepali soldier
|
June
2005
While
India denies that its security agencies helped arrange meetings between
a top Nepali Maoist leader and its political establishment, analysts welcome
dialogue with the rebels as a key to ending a seemingly intractable crisis
in the neighboring Himalayan kingdom.
According
to S D Muni, a widely acknowledged expert on Himalayan affairs, engaging
the Maoists is "a good idea". He pointed out that India's ruling elite
had initially shied away from the communists, who are in an armed struggle
to create a kingless republic, because of pressure from various right-wing
lobbies that "are working on behalf of Nepal's King Gyanendra and his coterie".
Speaking
to Inter Press Service in an interview, Muni - who teaches international
relations at the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University - identified these
lobbies as "the Indian army, the United States [with which New Delhi works
closely on the Nepal crisis] and members of India's high society, some
of whom have blood ties with the Nepalese monarchy".
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story ... |
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Asia Times Maoists
put India on the spot
(June
2005) - no link |
May
2005
Friday,
as so often happens in Nepal, turned out to be a day of two decisive actions
last week, although neither was as tragic as the palace massacre of June
1, 2001, or as dramatic as some of the events thereafter. One took place
at Shital Niwas, the building that houses the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
and the other at the headquarters of the Royal Nepal Army.
Secretary
Madhu Raman Acharya, the top diplomat at the Foreign Ministry, separately
summoned the ambassadors of India and the United Kingdom to his office
and conveyed the royal government's strong displeasure over their interference
in Nepal's internal affairs. "The government would highly appreciate if
friendly governments refrained from suggestive and subjective remarks on
the internal political affairs of the kingdom," the ministry said in the
aide memoire handed over to the envoys at the end of the meetings. Neither
Indian Ambassador Shiv Shankar Mukherjee nor British Ambassador Keith Bloomfield
(currently holding the presidency of the European Union in Nepal ) made
any public comments about their meeting with Acharya.
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Full
story ... |
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Asia Times Nepal
losing its way
(May
2005) - no link |
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The
soul of a Nepali soldier
|
May
2005
| Courage
of soldiers like Captain Amrit Medhasi |
Since
Homer, stories have been written about the life, loves and courage of soldiers
like Captain Amrit Medhasi. The media in the United States, tough critics
of the Iraq war, nevertheless publish stories that give a human face to
the soldiers that have served and fallen in combat.
Our
media and some human rights group's coverage of a soldier's bravery comes
with caveats like 'if only the rest of the RNA were like this man' or the
obligatory coupling of Maoist atrocities with 'both sides are massively
violating human rights' as if hundreds of summary executions, systematic
political killings, drilling holes in pregnant women, and their crackpot
vision of a communist State are equivalent to the army's mission whose
aim is to restore conditions for a return to democracy.
The
Army has had its share of troubling human rights violations but has never
embraced a policy encouraging torture and indiscriminate killings. The
work of fine soldiers during a war not of their making have been obliterated
by relentless ankle-biting and the self-serving agendas of shrill activists
and, even worse, our own confused political leadership who slur these soldiers
even as they shamelessly crave to command them.
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story ... |
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NepaliTimes The
soul of a Nepali soldier
(May
2005) - no link |
May
2005
| Nawalparasi:
Three weeks after the slaughter |
It
has been three weeks but the women of Somani in Parsa district are inconsolable.
The terror is vivid, the pain of loss of loved ones still searing. They
are unable to sleep, eat or speak.
It
was two days after the Nepali new year on 16 April and the villagers of
this hamlet 20 km southeast of Butwal were getting ready to go to bed.
At about 10PM, the Maoists arrived in hundreds. They dragged everyone out
of the houses, singled out the men aged 15-39 and executed them without
mercy. After that they went on a rampage bombing four houses and burning
another 10. They set fire to tractors, to this year's wheat harvest that
was piled up for threshing, to cowsheds in which livestock were burnt alive.
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Full
story ... |
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NepaliTimes Cry,
beloved country
(May
2005) - no link |
April
2005
| Special
report on the bloody civil war |
 |
A
TIME special report on the bloody civil war that is tearing the Himalayan
kingdom apart .
With
... Photo Essay: Rebel Territory and Interview with the Maoist leader
Prachanda
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A
distant clattering bounces off the snowy hills as 20 Maoist guerrillas
approach a mountain pass deep in Nepal's rebel territory. The sound is
too faint to fix as gunfire, so the guerrillas press on up the goat track.
Then come the explosions.
The
rebels halt and, panting in the thin air, squint up at the forest ridge
that now marks the edge of the newest battlefield in their war. "Mortars,"
says a Maoist political officer. "Eighty-one millimeters," replies a teenage
girl who has led the four-hour ascent from the valley floor. "And a chopper."
Minutes later, a helicopter marked with the scarlet emblem of the Royal
Nepalese Army (R.N.A.) skims the trees above the Maoists. They scatter,
crouching as it flies off without spotting them. For now, the danger has
passed, but the rebels later claim that the helicopter was on its way back
from the village of Kharikot where it had killed scores of unarmed people
as they celebrated the ninth anniversary of the Maoist rebellion. The R.N.A.
insists the strike was legitimate, boasting that it surprised a group of
800 armed fighters, of whom 25 were killed.
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Full
story ... |
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Time Asia Gunning
for Nepal
A
TIME special report on the bloody civil war that is tearing the Himalayan
kingdom apart
Time Asia Photo
Essay: Rebel Territory
Time Asia Interview
with the Maoist leader
(April
2005) - no link |
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