SAT: Maoist Rebels Running Parallel Governments(August 2005) NYNewsday: Drawn into the arms of the Maoists(August 2005) Nepali Times: A class of their own (August 2005) Nepali Times: Meanwhile... (August 2005) BBC News: Battle in Nepal's schoolrooms (August 2005) BBC News: Nepal's controversial rebel road (July 2005) BBC News: Nepal's Maoist leaders heal rift (July 2005) Nepali Times: Comrades-in-arms (July 2005)

August 2005

The Indo-Nepali Maoist rebels in the border areas of the hilly State of Uttaranchal and Nepal have paralyzed the local administrations and rebels are running parallel governments in the rural and inaccessible areas of Indo-Nepal border with the help of their international accomplices.

A senior Nepali rebel leader, who has crossed over to Uttaranchal in the wake of crackdown on rebels after King Gyanendra toppled the Deuba Government, told the South Asia Tribune in Dharchula that the Maoist leaders of the region have established a parallel system of 'administration'.

A detailed visit to the area by this correspondent revealed that the rebels are collecting taxes from businessmen and holding (public court hearings) in the rural areas to sort out local disputes. They have also promulgated 'Dress Codes' for the students studying in government schools. This correspondent also visited Darchula in Nepal.

August 2005

From Rolpa district

At 62, Juki Buda has already lived more years than most women of her generation in Nepal. Perhaps it's the hope for vengeance that keeps her alive.

Nine years ago, during the first year of Nepal's Maoist uprising, police killed five members of Buda's family. They shot her husband dead. They gouged out her daughter's eyes and, when she didn't die, stripped her, poured kerosene over her naked body and set her on fire.

August 2005

The Maoist Grade 1-3 curriculum includes military science

The night sky is patched with dark pre-monsoon clouds and the porch of a straw-thatched mud house glows with bluish LED lamps lighting a makeshift stage. As the audience sit on straw mats, a peculiar music breaks the silence - a fusion of madal and battery powered keyboards.

Performers take turns singing revolutionary songs and dances. Two of them ridicule King Gyanendra and former prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. The performers are teachers who have just finished a training program on the Maoists' new curriculum for Grades 1-3 in this remote village on the border of Salyan and Rolpa.

"Education is not only rote reading like in the old regime, our teachers have to be trained," announces Bhesh Raj Bhusal (alias Dhruba) secretary of the Maoist-affiliated All Nepal Teachers' Association.

August 2005

The rest of Nepal sees no hope in Kathmandu's continued political paralysis

It has been six months since King Gyanendra took over in Kathmandu promising to restore peace but in remote district towns across Nepal people are losing even the flicker of hope they had that the violence would soon end.

Since February, I have traveled across Nepal: from Pyuthan, Rolpa, Achham in the west to Terathum and Charikot in the east. In Terathum, Kamala Tamang's policeman husband was recently killed by Maoists and she is worried about the baby that was born soon after. In Jajarkot, teachers are humiliated, extorted and forced to teach children violence. In Dang and Jhapa, villagers are concerned the army has restricted community forestry on suspicion that money from timber sales was going to the rebels.

August 2005

Nepal's Maoist insurgency has been fought across the country with skirmishes reported nearly every day. But now it has also entered the classroom, affecting schools, teachers and pupils.
This is an ideological as well as a physical battle. The Maoists, said to control over two-thirds of rural Nepal, regularly order school closures and bomb educational institutions.

They also say they want to remove class privilege from schooling - while the royal-led government tries to make the syllabus more pro-monarchy.

The rebels have just finished training the first batch of teachers to introduce what they call a new revolutionary syllabus, "pro-people education", into Maoist-controlled schools.

July 2005

Nepal's Maoist rebels have a long track record of destroying infrastructure such as bridges and roads.

They now say they are building things, too, and recently gave great publicity to a road built under their direction through a remote part of this district, never before reachable by motor vehicle. But the road's critics, including many of its builders, say it has been built with forced labour.

To see the road, we walked for many hours from Rolpa's district capital, Liwang. On our way there, on a damp and misty morning, we were joined by an eight-year-old village boy, Khem Bahadur Oli, heading for the road-opening ceremony in Tila. We plan to extend our road network westwards... we're also planning to spread electricity provision and build new village markets. July 2005

An Interview Revealing All

Baburam Bhattarai favours an alliance with mainstream parties A senior Maoist leader in Nepal has been
reinstated after several months of suspension caused by major differences with the top leader, Prachanda.

The second highest ranking leader of the Maoist communist party, Baburam Bhattarai, has now been re-nominated to the party's top body. Prachanda said the move was aimed at uniting various factions in the party. The rebels have been trying to woo mainstream political parties opposed to King Gyanendra's seizure of power.
Prachanda delivered news of Bhattarai's reinstatement in an e-mailed statement on Monday. Prachanda, chairman of the Maoist communist party, said Bhattarai had been re-inducted into the politburo special committee.

July 2005

Looking at Nepal's Maoist revolution through Indian Naxalite eyes

Here in the densely populated Ganga plains, the 10-yard strip separating Nepal and India has never been treated
like a national frontier.

Land is too precious to leave it as a no-man's land. Nepali and Indian farmers use it for grazing livestock, playing cricket or even growing vegetables. But as the Maoist war in the Nepal tarai intensifies, the Indian fear of spillover of violence has begun to change that relaxed attitude. Along with border check points, the traditionally open dasgaja strip too is nowunder close security watch. India's paramilitary Seema Suraksha Bal (SSB) now pull up rickshaw wallas if they park their tricycles on no-man's land.