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By Bishnu Sapkota
With just over three and half months left for Nepal’s Constituent Assembly to finalize the new constitution, a new question has emerged in Nepal’s political scene that could further delay the process: Should the ex-Maoist combatants who still remain inside cantonments be integrated into the Nepal Army before or after a new constitution is established?
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By Nirjan Rai
Our dramatic topography here in Nepal provides a front-row seat to many of the disastrous effects of climate change, including rapid glacier melt, receding snowcaps, landslides, etc., so we are listening eagerly this week to hear what will come out of the Copenhagen climate conference. You may recall – as it was reported here in this blog–just prior to the start of the Copenhagen summit, Nepal’s top politicians held their own cabinet meeting at the base of Mt. Everest – over three miles up – to raise awareness of the danger global warming has on glaciers. Despite the very present threats, awareness of climate change among Nepali citizens remains low, according to a July Gallup poll.
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By Diana Fernández, Nirjan Rai, and Geoffrey Swenson
The Himalaya mountain range is warming at a rate three times faster than the rest of the planet, and the impact of this crisis is reverberating throughout Nepal. Snowcaps are receding, new lakes are making traditional animal herding routes impassable, landslides are becoming more frequent, and insects that previously were unable to live in the high altitudes of the Himalayas are flourishing and driving down crop yields. Despite some controversy over numbers, the catastrophic effects climate change could bring to the region are inarguable, and will be a leading priority as global leaders convene on Monday for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
A village sits at in the shadow of the Himalayas. It is estimated that more than 700 million people live near the Hindu Kush-Himalayan mountain ranges, and are particularly vulnerable to the effects climate change brings to the region. Photo by Mr. Helmut Blauth.
By Joshua Gross and Sneh Rajhandari
Joshua Gross and Sneh Rajhandari are interns with The Asia Foundation in Nepal. They can be reached at info@taf.org.np.
Sitting in the small but breezy Local Peace Committee (LPC) office in Nepal’s Rolpa district, LPC Coordinator and Maoist leader Rishi Ram Roka Magar pauses when we ask him if he fears that Nepal is heading toward another war. He contemplates the question with a somber face for a few tense moments, and then his face softens into a smile so large that for a moment he resembles the Cheshire Cat. He tells us that Nepalis from opposite sides of the conflict lines have been working together for the past several years, and people who are interacting with each other through peaceful means are far less likely to fight each other. In his view, the post-war period has enabled Nepalis to become much more aware of the costs of war and the benefits of peace. Now the priorities of the people in Rolpa district are to rebuild and to focus on development and coexistence. “This is coming from somebody who held weapons during the war,” he tells us. “There should be no politics in development.”
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By Hallie Schiffman-Shilo
Hallie Schiffman-Shilo is The Asia Foundation’s Program Assistant for the Women’s Empowerment Program based in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at hshilo@asiafound.org-dc.org.
Human trafficking is one of the most egregious human rights abuses. Each year, millions of men, women, and children are trafficked within their own countries or abroad into exploitative, abusive, and often illegal labor sectors. Many trafficking victims are forced into sexual slavery, domestic servitude, or hard labor and suffer from both physical and psychological abuse. Official statistics are hard to determine because of the illicit nature of trafficking. However, the International Labor Organization estimates that there are 12.3 million people in forced or bonded labor, forced child labor, or sexual servitude at any given time. Furthermore, an estimated 80 percent of transnational trafficking victims are women and girls.
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By Bishnu Sapkota
Bishnu Sapkota is The Asia Foundation’s Program Advisor in Nepal. He can be reached at bishnu@taf.org.np.
Nepal’s peace process has seen significant achievements in the last three years, but not all has gone well. In retrospect, Local Peace Committees (LPCs) feature as one of the most prominent failures.
Initially, the peace committees were designed to sustain peace by providing a common forum for people to locally implement national peace agreements. LPCs were to promote the notion that the responsibility to maintain peace at the local level lies with the people. They would bring together political parties, NGOs, and relevant local government agencies to prevent potential conflict, resolve them as they arise, and promote peace in the district. Following intense discussions, the LPCs were officially approved by the Cabinet in late 2006. The Cabinet made provisions for peace committees to be created in each of the 75 districts of the country. However, the committees never could quite achieve any of the stated objectives.
Here’s what I think went wrong.
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By Sagar Prasai
Sagar Prasai is The Asia Foundation’s Deputy Country Representative in Nepal. He can be reached at sagar@taf.org.np.
Just nine months after taking office, Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal (known as Prachanda) resigned on May 4, 2009, citing the president’s lack of cooperation on his efforts to establish “civilian supremacy” over the Nepali Army. The events that led to his resignation unfolded quickly and predictably. On April 20, the Maoist government asked for an explanation from the Chief of the Army Staff (CoAS) citing three incidents of insubordination. The incidences cited were controversial administrative decisions, but whether they amounted to insubordination is debatable, given how serious a meaning the term carries in civil-military relations lexicon.
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On Monday, Nepal’s Prime Minister, Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal (also known as Prachanda), resigned from his post after a confrontation with the president. Following the dramatic May 4 announcement, Dr. Sagar Prasai, The Asia Foundation’s deputy country representative in Nepal, told Bloomberg News, “A national unity government is the only viable option. It is very difficult for an alternative government by other parties and without the Maoists to be formed.” Read the full Bloomberg News story, “Nepal’s Premier Resigns Amid Row Over Army Chief.” Dr. Prasai can be reached at sagar@taf.org.np.
Click image for videos
The Asia Foundation’s “Election Season: Nepal” video series documents events surrounding the country’s 2008 election, during which Prachanda’s CPN-Maoist party won a plurality of seats in Nepal’s Constituent Assembly. The Foundation’s video footage was shot during the build-up to the elections. Watch the series on YouTube, including “Part One: Campaign” that shows Dr. Prasai as he walks through a motorcycle rally for the Communist Party of Nepal (UML), and “Part Six: Polls Close” in which Dr. Prasai visits the poll observer’s headquarters on election eve as reports from observers across Nepal come in.
Bruce Tolentino is The Asia Foundation’s Chief Economist and can be reached at btolentino@asiafound.org. He blogs here about George Varughese, the Foundation’s representative in Afghanistan, who leaves Kabul to take the reins in our Nepal office starting May 1.
After four years of stellar service in Afghanistan, George Varughese is moving on to represent The Asia Foundation in Nepal. Earlier this year, I was fortunate to participate in one of many going-away tributes to George – one organized by The Asia Foundation’s Kabul staff. The events of that day are going to be difficult to forget.
By Afghan tradition, non-family events are exclusive to either men or women, so the farewell tributes I attended were all-male. Earlier in the week, an all-female event had already been held in honor of Kala Gurung, George’s wife (fondly referred to in Kabul as “Mrs. George”).
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By Sagar Prasai
Sagar Prasai is The Asia Foundation’s Deputy Country Representative in Nepal. He can be reached at sagar@taf.org.np.
Think about the difficulties of writing a constitution for a country like Nepal. There are 103 ethnic groups, 17 officially recognized languages, and 19,000 former combatants still in cantonments. In the Constituent Assembly (CA), there are 25 political parties with no one in a clear majority, 601 members who disagree on most everything, 11 constitution drafting sub-committees, three committee rooms, and an anticipated 300,000 submissions to be read. Plus, barring public holidays, there are about 330 days left to complete the job.
Due to delays in every preparatory step – from drafting procedural rules to public consultations – the drafting calendar has become so compressed that if the CA seriously focuses on logistics, it is likely to fail politically. If it seriously focuses on politics, it is likely to fail logistically.
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