Nepal part II

It is difficult to write anything about politics here because I know so little but it is an unavoidable part of the country. There seem to be a host of armed groups operating here. The Maoists, despite there presence in the political arena, are still very active as a military group. Their youth wing seems to comprise of a large number of thugs which the Maoist leadership refuses to condemn for atrocities they carry out, showing a worrying lack of control over its own people. In the Terai, the southern, flat lowland half of the country, increasing numbers of splitter groups are carrying out attacks on officials and tit for tat raids on the Maoists. Some groups are demanding that any migrants from the hills return to the hills under threat of death, a threat which seems to be carried out on a daily basis. Hundreds of civil servants no longer turn up for work as their security cannot be guaranteed by the government.

The military may not be able to keep the civil servants safe in the Terai but in Kathmandu and surrounds it is impossible to escape them. Machine gun nests abound, sand bagged little bunkers guard the entrance to any buildings remotely connected to officialdom and gun toting patrols roam the streets. And these are not Indian police with their WWII colonial antiques, these lads tote some serious weaponry including sub machine guns and tear gas cannons. In addition the UN landrovers are everywhere, with the big aerials at the front, their blue and white logo looking particularly reassuring on the huge vehicles, and the people in the jeeps always looking strangely refined and detached from it all. In embassy alley, cycling past the American embassy, I get that childhood twinge of security, a throwback emotion to when the world was black and white and America were the good guys.

From what I could gather the Maoists have huge support and there seems to be a strong inclination to overlook any atrocities they carry out. Their cadres seem to control most of the labour unions and so have the power to paralyse the whole country. They call general strikes on a regular basis and the city shuts down, with nearly no vehicles on the streets. Some folk I talked to spoke about them with a childlike wonder in their voices. Most though are more realistic, shrugging and smiling, rueful of all thats gone before. A lot of students I talked to just want to get out, to go and work in Australia or America or England. Some saw my mere acquaintance as being maybe the first step to getting to Ireland.

One day wandering through Kathmandus narrow alleys and squares I was held up my a Maoist march. The participants seemed mild mannered, some had numbers pinned to their shirts like marathon runners, and the chants were half hearted, as if their demands had already been met. It was only when the march had passed through and the square erupted into the usual din of car horns and bicycle bells that I realised how subdued everyone had been while the march went past. Another day I was taking some of the kids to the library when we got caught up in a mob of red flag wielding youths, a bunch of whom took off at a sprint around the corner and out of sight. I found out afterwards that it was the kings birthday. The king is at this stage pretty much a prisoner in his own palace, his allowance has been severely reduced and he's been replaced in all his official duties by politicians. He is not well liked and for his birthday the Maoists were out in force in the hope of finding some royalists to roll. They were in luck and managed to hospitalise quite a few people. One of them was a badly beaten 84 year old man.Vive le revolution.