Maoist night protest. Image by Flickr user izahorsky. Used under a creative commons license

Nepal's fragile peace process is faltering amidst increasing clashes between the Maoists and the government. Unhappy with President Ram Baran Yadav's decision to reinstate sacked Army Chief Rookmangud Katwal (Katwal was sacked by then Maoist led government), the former rebels launched massive protest across the nation. Their main demand being “re-establishment of people's supreme authority”, where they seek to curtail the President's authority as he is not an elected official. They have just announced third round of protest activities, after the first two round failed to produce any results.

Nepali language blog Mysansar has a brief outline of the protest programs Maoists are planning to launch.

“राष्ट्रपतिको कदम सच्याउनु पर्ने माग गर्दै स‍ंसद र सडकमा आन्दोलन गरिरहेको माओवादीले आफ्नो अल्टिमेटम सकिएको भोलिपल्ट घोषणा गरेको कार्यक्रमले खुसी र चिन्ता दुवै ल्याएको छ। खुसी यस कारण कि माओवादीले सोमबार, म‌ंगलबार र बुधबार तीन दिन स‍ंसद खोल्न दिने भएको छ। बजेट पास गर्नका लागि उसले चार महिनादेखि ठप्प संसद खोल्न दिएको बताएको हो। तर उसले देश भने बन्द गर्ने कार्यक्रम पनि ल्याएको छ। त्यो पनि एक दिन हो र, तीन तीन दिन। तीन दिन बन्द हुँदा पनि माग पूरा भएन भने अनिश्चितकालका लागि बन्द गर्ने रे। तीन दिन बन्दका लागि पुस ५, ६, ७ गतेका लागि दिन तोकिएको छ।”

“Maoists who have been protesting on the streets and in the parliament demanding the President correct his decision have announced programs which have brought relief and some confusion. Relief because the Maoists will allow the parliament to work on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. They are allowing the parliament to work so that discussions can be held on the annual budget. But they have also announced strikes across the nation. That too not for a day but for three whole days. If their demands are not met after the three days protest, they will go into indefinite strike. The three-day protest will start on Poush 5 and end on 7th (December 20-22)

United Nations has expressed concerns, writes blogger Mohan Nepali at GroundReport, over the way government and the Maoists seem to ignore the promises made when signing the peace agreement in 2006.

“UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) today strongly urged Nepali political forces, including those in government, to make sure that human rights of all people are protected. It has called on both Nepal government and Maoist protesters not to resort to any violence since it may jeopardize the very peace process going on since 2006.

The OHCHR expressed its concern on the likelihood of violence in the name of Maoist protests and subsequent government actions”

Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal is under a lot of pressure to resolve the conflict with the Maoists but so far he has been unable to placate the former guerrillas. Maila Baje at Nepali Netbook says that Mr. Nepal's latest attempt to end the stand-off with the Maoist has failed to make any waves:

“Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal warned the other day that the constituent assembly could be dissolved. But the parliament that the elected body doubles as wouldn’t be, he was quick to clarify. If the prime conciliator was expected to attempt a middle way out of our deepening deadlock, he did not disappoint. Especially since he passed the buck to President Ram Baran Yadav.”

Krishna Hari Pushkar, who works for Nepal's Ministry of Home Affairs, puts part of the blame for the faltering peace process on “foreign actors”:

“It is seen that all internal and external peace actors are visibly performing against the ethics of peace process and bouncing beyond the edge of comprehensive peace accord. So, how can Nepal's peace process go normally in such situation towards its expected end? Forlornly, it is hapless to describe that no any single direct and indirect actors found sincere and practically committed towards the success of ongoing peace process of Nepal. If the situation continues, it won't be surprising when the moist battalions decide to return jungle or government imposes special op against ethno-political combatants. It is unfortunate that some vested politicians' declares that re-insurgency or re-warfare is held in search of peace, however it has proved blunder to impel for “breach peace for peace”.

So far the protest rallies have been peaceful, in some places colorful and musical. Here is a short video of once such protest rally.

Now that the Maoists have decided to launch second round of protests and are threatening to go on strike for an indefinite period if their demands are not fulfilled, it seems that the drama will continue for a while.

The National Geographic aired a documentary which named Bhutan, the tiny Buddhist kingdom as the world's last Shangri-La. It celebrated its mountains, glacial walls, alpine highlands and misty forests and mentioned “Bhutan is a Living Eden where respect for life, in all its many incarnations, endures like the land itself”.

Landscape of Bhutan. Image by Flickr user Jmhullot, used under a creative commons license

Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar at Real clear World said:

Bhutan has done many things to deserve its Shangri-La reputation. Its forest cover is a very high 72%, and it has pledged to keep this above 60 % for eternity.

Meanwhile, Nanda Gautam at Ex Ponto countered:

A new trend in the sphere of human rights violations is flourishing! In contrast to Bhutan’s development philosophy called ‘Gross National Happiness,’ which many delegations visiting Bhutan are proclaiming a ‘good lesson’, Bhutan also offers a bad lesson: strategic violence in the form of ethnic cleansing, a lesson the world powers will find difficult to deal with. The ordeal of Tel Nath Rizal reflects how the state’s violation of one person’s rights spilled over to affect an entire minority. The minority population has already been reduced dramatically.

Most of these writers, if not all, were not Bhutanese. So how is it that they came to view this small country – the size of Switzerland and a population of 600,000 – in such extremes?

The first group, the admirers, usually came from the west where capitalism has led to a way of life that may have equipped them with material contents, but left many with a gaping spiritual void. They are people seeking for things they do not find in their own cultures; yet find it elsewhere. Often in places like Bhutan – largely mysterious, exotic and peaceful. So when they find it, they tend to see only the things they want to see and find only the things they want to find.

But this also applies to the second camp, the ones who hate Bhutan. They have little or no understanding of the country’s geo-political situation. They don’t understand the history or the complex nature of the refugee problem; and they are either sympathizing with the cause, or they just need a cause.

For the first camp, the search for Shangri-la didn’t just happen; it has been ongoing since 1933 when James Hilton depicted a Shangri-la in his novel, Lost Horizon based on an article by Joseph Rock about his travels to the Tibetan borderlands. But more often than not, it is Hilton’s version that they are after thus refusing to see Bhutan as a country like any other – inhabited by human beings, with its share of problems.

Bhutan is far from being the Utopia despite its largely tranquil history. As a poor country Bhutan has its share of social problems and challenges and the biggest blight to its good reputation so far has been the issue of the refugees.

A nation-wide census in the 80’s found thousands of illegal settlers along the country’s southern borders. Most of these people were Nepalese people from Nepal and India who came to Bhutan seeking economic opportunities and utilize the large tracts of free agricultural land along porous borders. Free health and educational facilities were also an added attraction. At around this time, some Lhotsampas (Ethnic Nepali-speaking Bhutanese) who were educated by the Bhutanese government in overseas universities like Harvard and Cambridge returned to Bhutan nursing their own political ambitions.

Bhutanese refugees in Nepal. Image by Sudeshna Sarkar, ISN Security Watch

The problem came to a head when the Bhutanese government demanded all illegal settlers, leave the country. This decision was opposed by the ambitious Lhotsampa leaders who sympathized with the settlers and so mobilized protests against the Bhutanese government demanding democracy and overthrow of the monarch. The environment to nurse their political ambitions was extremely favorable. They galvanized the southern people’s discontent with violent protests in which they decapitated heads of two Bhutanese and planted them at a government office. The Bhutanese government who had never experienced anything like this cracked down and arrested many of the leaders while some escaped to Nepal.

What resulted was a situation where both sides accused the other of what unfolded. Lhotsampas claim that anybody who was Nepali-speaking was forced out of the country. As the Bhutanese Community of South Australia blog mentions:

From 1988, the human rights situation aggravated, when Royal Government enacted discriminatory policies to depopulate the Lhotshampas - Southern Bhutanese of Nepalese origin, predominantly Hindus.

The Royal government treats Lhotsampas as second class citizens. They are persecuted, discriminated and denied the most basics like access to education and health facilities. They are deprived of their cultural rights and are forced to adopt the cultural tradition, costume and language of the ruling elite. In the late eighties, the Royal Government adopted retroactive citizenship legislation and started to disenfranchise and depopulate the Lhotshampas. Tens and thousands of them were forcibly evicted, who ended up in the United Nations established refugees camps in Nepal. [..]

Having failed to see the possibility of repatriation, a vast number of Bhutanese refugees have accepted the offer given by Australia, Canada, Denmark, Netherland, New Zealand, Norway and United States for third country resettlement.

The Bhutanese government claimed that while some were asked to leave, many citizens left voluntarily under threats from their own leaders. Bhutan’s first democratically elected Prime Minister Jigme Y. Thinley wrote at Bhutannica:

The situation in the south is not a simple problem. Its causes are complex and perplexing as the resultant human drama that is unfolding before us. Just who is the victim or villain is a valid question. The answer must be sought with a deeper understanding of the problem. [..]

Among the villagers in' the south, every day is a nightmare. But their voice is not heard by the media, and their human rights appear not to be of any importance. Explanations by the Government are dismissed as propaganda and plain untruths. Even concrete evidence is seen as fabrications.

The Bhutanese feel that they have been betrayed by a people they had welcomed, in whom they had placed their trust and with whom they were willing to share a common destiny. But the general attitude of the Bhutanese toward their southern compatriots do not indicate any rancour.

The adoption of human rights is a convenient banner that the dissidents and the Nepalese supporters have raised before the international community. But their greater aim is to generate international sympathy for the dissident cause, which is to grab political power.

The story got complicated as the refugees arrived in Nepal. UNHCR set up camps for the Bhutanse refugees in which free food and stipend was given and in a few years the numbers rose from 5000 (1991) to 100,000. The handouts attracted many people other than Bhutanese to those camps as more than half of Nepal's population live on less than a dollar a day.

Ethnic cleansing is a very serious charge. People who make that accusation about Bhutan should visit the country and see that thousands of Nepali-speaking people still live and work there; that even before the crisis the Fourth King encouraged integration of the ethnic groups through inter marriage with special cash incentives. Many even hold very senior positions in the government.

So what is Bhutan? A ‘Shangri-La' or ‘ethnic cleanser'? Neither, is the answer. And it would be nice if people really stopped imposing their dreams of an Eden, or their disillusionment of failed political causes and ambitions, on this little Country.

Limited access to education, scarce employment opportunities and discrimination embedded in social structure have severely restricted growth and development of dalits in Nepal. For dalit women, the situation is even worse.

Blogger Kiran at Everest Uncensored discusses about Dalit Women and their issues:

“When we talk about Dalit women they suffer from triple discrimination as oppressed by the so-called high caste people (which equally affects both male and female Dalits), oppressed by the design of the Hindu patriarchal system and oppressed by Dalit males. 90% of Dalit women in Nepal live below the poverty line and 80% of Dalit women are illiterate. These women are also vulnerable to serious health issues, sex trafficking, domestic violence, and suffer from social, political, and economic powerlessness.”

With 80% of dalit women struggling with illiteracy, odds could not be stacked higher against them. Dalit women are also often target of racially motivated attacks by the so called “higher” caste members of society. Renu Kshetry at NewsBlaze writes about a dalit woman who was attacked in a village near capital Kathmandu:

Recently B.K., a Dalit woman, was the victim of a heinous crime - she was tortured, beaten and forced to eat human excreta. The person who orchestrated this barbaric act was a supposedly educated woman: Bimala Lama. The principal of the local Gadi Bhanjyang Primary School, Lama accused B.K. of practising ‘witchcraft'.

The incident took place earlier this year, unfortunately, is not isolated. Every year dalit women are victimized, and very few manage to get justice.

Some dalit women, however, are working to achieve what was previously thought to be impossible. A temple is Kathmandu's Baneshwor area now has a dalit woman as priest.

“The 43-year-old is the priest at the Chhakkubakku Bhagwati temple in the busy Baneshwor area of the capital, hemmed by shops and pavement stalls. Besides being a woman, she is also a Dalit, a community that stands at the bottom of still-conservative Nepal’s rigid social ladder and is ostracized as untouchables even now.

The mother of four comes from the Sarki clan who were originally cobblers and once forced to live on the carcasses of dead cows when Nepal was a Hindu kingdom with a ban on cow slaughter.”

In constituent assembly elections held on April 10, 2008, a number of dalit candidates-including women, were elected and dalit leaders hope that increased political participation will help end discrimination.

Here is a video in Nepali by NepalNews.com which features dalit leaders to discuss how the country's new constitution should be shaped so that caste discrimination ends definitively.

For more information on Nepal's dalits, you can visit Nepal Dalit Info, which has informative articles, studies and latest news on Nepal's dalit movement in both English and Nepali.

Law against discrimination has been on the books for long in Nepal, but the caste system continues to ostracize one community. It is clear that unless dalits-especially women, are given the opportunity educate themselves the practice will continue to find new victims.

Register your blog to add your voice!

This is the Global Voices entry.

Over the next couple of months Global Voices is going to be following environmental and climate change issues extra closely. We're hoping to amplify unheard voices in the debate around the United Nations meetings in Copenhagen in December (COP15).

In November, on Conversations for a Better World, a blog sponsored by the UNFPA, two of our authors, Eduardo and Belen, are going to be cross-posting stories about population dynamics and climate change. I know they'll be looking towards Latin America.

Throughout October, Global Voices bloggers have been mentoring 31 young men and women from Africa and Denmark who are organizing an online campaign under the auspices of MS ActionAid in Copenhagen, Denmark. They've asked us to relay stories about ‘what developing countries need to help correct damage from climate change'. So we'll try to do that too.

Some mentor entries

For Blog Action Day, Jillian encouraged her readers to visit the blog of her mentee Edith, while Ali says his mentee Peter turned the tables on him and inspired him to write a post on climate change.

Another mentor, Gayle, has written a longer post highlighting the situations of farmers in Ghana, Australia (her own countries) and Zimbabwe (her mentee John's country).

Gayle used Twitter to put the call out for farmers in Australia. To her surprise, she was re-tweeted by ABC Radio in Australia, and came directly in touch with several farmers by email. She read interviews with Ghanaian farmers online, and even spoke to one directly.

And among dozens of links and interesting sources, Gayle found information on how local communities use traditional knowledge in rural Ghana to cope with climate change.

Gayle did something that bloggers on Global Voices do all the time. She went looking for voices you rarely hear speaking for themselves in international mainstream media.

In the past week on Global Voices

Bhumika Ghimire wrote a post today about the future of bio-gas in Nepal, including a video by a Japanese university research team that shows how bio-gas is used in rural Nepal.

A landslide caused by Typhoon Ketsana in a village in Pampanga province. Photo by Flickr user susancorpuz90

Earlier this week, Mong Palatino wrote about how Filipino bloggers are drawing connections between climate change and the devastating floods in Manila that killed more than 500 people.

Saffah Farooq wrote about how citizens of the low-lying Indian Ocean island state of the Maldives, feel their fate may be decided by the success of treaties like the Kyoto Protocol.

Wildlife blogger Samuel Maina in Kenya, wrote about how Kenyans are so desperate for rain they are awaiting El Niño rains that may displace thousands with mixed feelings.

There is a constant flow of stories on Global Voices' environment topic feed by bloggers all around the world.

Looking ahead

On this Blog Action Day, where we celebrate the collective power of bloggers to push for change, we'd like to encourage everyone not only to write about climate change but also to read what other people are saying.

Over the next many weeks, we're going to be overwhelmed by news stories by journalists quoting politicians, activists, and many others - but when the UN meetings are over and the cameras are off, the people who face the consequences of climate change immediately, will still be telling their stories on the internet in hopes of reaching people who care.

As we say at Global Voices, ‘The world is talking. Are you listening?'

For those far removed from the front lines of climate change, listening and linking is one the few ways we can succeed to make the problem feel real and in need of solutions today.

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