(no subject)
There seems to have been some mention of it in the Western press, but for those of you who don't know, Nepal is currently in the middle of a political crisis. Last night there was a mob of maybe five hundred to a thousand people passing within 50m of my house, shouting, burning torches and lighting figures in effigy on fire. Today I almost couldn't get back to Boudha (my neighborhood) because of multiple roadblocks set up on major thoroughfares.
The problem comes from the 19,000 Maoist fighters currently idling in UN-monitored containment camps, who were promised a place in the Nepali Army as part of the peace deal, but whom the Army categorically refuses to integrate into their ranks. People--myself included--have been muttering about an army coup for months, and when evidence allegedly surfaced that the top general was in fact planning one in order to avoid having to let the Maoists in, the (Maoist) PM fired him.
The figures they were burning in effigy were of the President, who overruled the PM's decision to fire the general, saying (essentially) that he had no authority. The PM resigned in protest, dissolving the ruling coalition in Parliament; the Maoists won a significant plurality of seats, but not a strict majority. Now the main opposition party, Nepali Congress, recently reached a deal with other parties to form a new government, but Maoist protests have deadlocked the city and prevented Parliament from convening. What happens next is anyone's guess.
(Amazingly, the Nepali bureaucratic machine rolls on unhindered: today I had to stand around for two hours, and offer no fewer than four people baksheesh (a "gift" aka bribe) to put their signatures on a piece of paper, in order to retrieve a package I could see lying in the next room. But that's just Nepal, you get used to it after a while.)
Anyway, the main reason I'm writing this is to let everyone know that I am actually perfectly safe, the building where I live is in the first ring of houses around the Boudha Stupa (a holy site revered by both Hindus and Buddhists but more important to the latter). Aside from the annoyances of having to deal with roadblocks and power outages, the current political problems don't really affect my life here all that much; the Tibetan community in Boudha forms a nice little bubble that you don't have to leave much at all, if you don't want to. There's basically no chance of my immediate surroundings becoming dangerous, and if other areas of Kathmandu do, there's always the American embassy. I do want to say that it's unlikely things will get that bad, no one in the upper ranks of either side wants a return to open civil war, and even if it happened it's hardly imaginable that Kathmandu would be the battleground.
I still find it kind of weird that I'm living in such a crazy place, though.
The problem comes from the 19,000 Maoist fighters currently idling in UN-monitored containment camps, who were promised a place in the Nepali Army as part of the peace deal, but whom the Army categorically refuses to integrate into their ranks. People--myself included--have been muttering about an army coup for months, and when evidence allegedly surfaced that the top general was in fact planning one in order to avoid having to let the Maoists in, the (Maoist) PM fired him.
The figures they were burning in effigy were of the President, who overruled the PM's decision to fire the general, saying (essentially) that he had no authority. The PM resigned in protest, dissolving the ruling coalition in Parliament; the Maoists won a significant plurality of seats, but not a strict majority. Now the main opposition party, Nepali Congress, recently reached a deal with other parties to form a new government, but Maoist protests have deadlocked the city and prevented Parliament from convening. What happens next is anyone's guess.
(Amazingly, the Nepali bureaucratic machine rolls on unhindered: today I had to stand around for two hours, and offer no fewer than four people baksheesh (a "gift" aka bribe) to put their signatures on a piece of paper, in order to retrieve a package I could see lying in the next room. But that's just Nepal, you get used to it after a while.)
Anyway, the main reason I'm writing this is to let everyone know that I am actually perfectly safe, the building where I live is in the first ring of houses around the Boudha Stupa (a holy site revered by both Hindus and Buddhists but more important to the latter). Aside from the annoyances of having to deal with roadblocks and power outages, the current political problems don't really affect my life here all that much; the Tibetan community in Boudha forms a nice little bubble that you don't have to leave much at all, if you don't want to. There's basically no chance of my immediate surroundings becoming dangerous, and if other areas of Kathmandu do, there's always the American embassy. I do want to say that it's unlikely things will get that bad, no one in the upper ranks of either side wants a return to open civil war, and even if it happened it's hardly imaginable that Kathmandu would be the battleground.
I still find it kind of weird that I'm living in such a crazy place, though.