since i married a Nepalese journalist in February, suddenly i've become
aware of little Nepal with an area comparable to NYS and a per capita GDP of
$208.
met her after she visited N.VA. relatives after attending a UN "women in
journalism" conference in NYC.
there has been a maoist insurrection in Nepal since 1995. mostly confined
to the western rural areas. they attack and kill police and a few public
officials. in turn, they are killed by govt police. about 700 maoists have
been killed so far according to one of the maoist leaders, but the figure
could be higher.
Nepalese army does not get involved for political reasons. seems the king
has control of the army while the legislature has control of the police and
the legislature doesn't want the king to usurp their perogatives. however,
the police are ineffective against the insurgents. sometimes, disgruntled
maoists turn themselves in to the govt, but in general no political solution
in sight.
i read an interview in English by one of the maoist leaders with a
sympathetic interviewer (reminded me of chomsky and barsemian). it was the
usual talk about how the fledgling constitutional monarchy has not helped
the Nepalese poor. my father in law says the elected representatives are
more interested in their own wallets rather than those of the poor. hmmmm -
that sounds vaguely familiar to me!
the maoist leaders make demands for a reconciliation that the govt won't
accept - like removing the present Prime Minister, etc.
my wife wanted to take me back for my first family visit, but when i checked
with DOS, they had posted tourist warning notices for rural provinces and i
told my wife that i'm not going to have her spend $3000 on 2 tickets +
tourist expenses just to visit hindu and buddhist temples in Kathmandu! and
i certainly didn't want to visit it's beautiful countryside and take a
chance that my family would be staring at a $100,000 ransom note for my
return.
i told my wife that when the maoist insurgency has ended, then i will visit
Nepal when i can take safaris thru their jungles, helicopter rides around
Everest, etc.
instead, she is trying to get her parents to visit us for a few months.
they have never been to the US.
my wife was particularly interested in Nepalese women's issues working for a
woman's magazine named ASMITA. in one of her reports, she covered poor,
young Nepalese female prostitution rings catering to johns in Nepal and
India. she used to visit villages by bus to obtain interviews with them.
that makes her a liberated woman by Nepalese standards.
when i bought her first western clothes, i had to explain that in the US if
she wore skirts above the knee in public she would not be considered a
prostitute. still can't persuade her to wear her new bathing suit at our
club pool. learning a lot about S.Asian customs, i am!
norm
-----Original Message-----
From: David Welch [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, September 22, 2000 4:08 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L:2173] Re: "Maoism" in Nepal
On Thu, Sep 21, 2000 at 06:42:04PM -0700, Jim Devine wrote:
> While coming home from work, I heard the tail-end of a story on US
National
> Public Radio, about a "Maoist" insurgency in Nepal, of all places.
> Interestingly, the reporter's chosen expert blamed the increase in
economic
> inequality during the last 10 years of a regime of "multi-party
democracy."
> Is this a rebellion against neoliberal democracy? does anyone know about
this?
>
I don't think anyone knows much about them except they are close to the
line of the PCP.
Some links:-
http://www.maoism.org/misc/nepal/nepal.htm
http://www.rwor.org/s/dispatch-e.htm
