Nepal went through a protracted internal armed conflict from 1996-2006 after the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) launched a rebellion to liberate the country from feudalism and monarchy. However, serious human rights violations and abuses were committed by both sides: the state security forces as well as the guerrillas. Over 17,000 people were killed on both sides, and more than 1,300 people are still listed as missing. The families do not know whether they are dead or alive, or who was responsible for their disappearance. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) put an end to the conflict on 21 November 2006, with both sides agreeing to hold perpetrators accountable, and provide truth and justice to victims, including a commitment to investigate the whereabouts of those who were disappeared. However, 14 years after the ceasefire, these promises remain unfulfilled. This photographic project focuses on the families of the victims of the conflict to mark the International Day of the Disappeared on 30 August. My image making process involves a ‘family reunion’ in which people who lost family members are alongside projections of old family photographs which include missing family members. The passage of time, of existing and not existing, is layered within a single image. --- <h2>Rekha Bastola</h2> <figure><img width="1000" height="667" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7c99c7e80680e0737a3jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>All photos: GULIGO JIA</figcaption></figure>Rekha looks out her window while I was trying to capture her portrait, her nephew holds a backdrop from behind. This is the only picture of her husband that Rekha has. As Maoist commanders wanted by the government, their wedding was held secretly with only a few comrades attending. Four months after the wedding, her husband was arrested by security and never came back.Rekha brought up her husband’s nephews and niece. She remains single, believing that her husband will eventually come home some day. <figure><img width="460" height="661" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7cc9c7e80680e0737a4jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="440" height="293" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7ce9c7e80680e0737a5jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><h2>Nijala</h2> <img width="1000" height="712" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7d09c7e80680e0737a6jpeg.jpg" alt="">Nijala sits in front a picture of her father, taken during a festival. Her father was captured twice by the security forces, and later disappeared for being a Maoist. She was just one year old. Her mother Rubi, thinking she would be next, went underground. After the 2006 peace deal, Rubi married again and gave birth to a boy. <h2>Bimala Dhakal</h2> <img width="1000" height="716" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7d29c7e80680e0737a7jpeg.jpg" alt="">Bimala Dhakal poses for a portrait alongside the projected photo of her husband Rajendra Prasad Dhakal who was a human rights activist in Gorkha, and was disappeared in 1999 during a trip to Tanahu. She looked for her husband everywhere, and was herself arrested and tortured by the army. She never found him. Bimala rarely talks about her husband in front of her children, only when something reminds her of him. <h2> Bibek Dhakal</h2> Bibek poses for a portrait alongside a photo of his father Rajendra Prasad Dhakal projected to the wall behind him. He was only nine months old when his father was disappeared in 1999. "Sometimes, when I smile or sing out loud, my mother tells me that I look just like my father," Bibek says. <img width="1000" height="714" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7d59c7e80680e0737a8jpeg.jpg" alt=""><h2>Maina Karki</h2> <img width="1000" height="665" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7d89c7e80680e0737a9jpeg.jpg" alt="">Maina Karki and her son sit in front a picture of her late husband, who was a sociology teacher in a government school. He was detained twice by Maoist guerrillas for refusing to give them a donation, and killed the second time. The police report said he has been shot four times. <h2>Narayan Devi Shrestha</h2> <img width="1000" height="714" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7da9c7e80680e0737aajpeg.jpg" alt="">Narayan Devi Shrestha poses for a portrait in front her husband’s picture in which he is in a Maoist party meeting. Her husband, brother and brother-in-law were all arrested and disappeared together. He was a district member of Lalitpur in Kathmandu, and eye witnesses said they had seen him pressed to the ground with a gun pointing at his head. <img width="626" height="875" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7dd9c7e80680e0737abjpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="585" height="878" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7df9c7e80680e0737acjpeg.jpg" alt=""><h2>Nagma Mali</h2> Nagma poses for a portrait in front of a picture of her father. Nagma's mother passed away while giving birth to her sister Swastika. Their father was abducted by the army when Swastika was three, and she had to support her little sister and her grandmother who was ill. Nagma now works for the Children of the Disappeared while studying for her bachelor degree. <h2>Swastika Mali</h2> Swastika stands in the garden of their home in Lalitpur. Swastika’s mother died while giving birth to her. Three years later, her father, Nanda Gopal, who was an artisan, was abducted by the army. After her father disappeared, Swastika was raised by her sister Nagma. <h2>Srijana Shrestha</h2> <img width="1000" height="713" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7e19c7e80680e0737adjpeg.jpg" alt="">Srijana sits in front of a picture of herself with her husband, Sanjay, who was a supporter of the Nepali Congress party. In 2001, Maoist guerrillas came into their home and shot her husband in the room. He died on the way to hospital. Theirs was an inter-caste marriage, and the couple had to escape to Pokhara to get married. <h2>Gita Rasaili</h2> <img width="1000" height="666" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7e49c7e80680e0737aejpeg.jpg" alt="">Gita poses for a portrait in front of a picture of her sister Reena. Gita and two of her brothers joined the Maoist milita when she was 14. One of her brothers died in combat, and her sister Reena, a student at that time, was raped and killed by the army in her own backyard. “What I feel is that we need to speak up for tomorrow,” says Gita. Since 2007, Gita has been working for people who were victimised during the war and on issues of women empowerment in Voices of Women in Media. <h2>Devi Sunar</h2> <img width="1000" height="720" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7e69c7e80680e0737afjpeg.jpg" alt="">Devi Sunar and her adopted daughter Maina in front of the picture of Devi’s late daughter Maina who was only 14 when she was tortured and killed by the army as revenge for her mother’s criticism of their involvement in the murder of her niece, Reena Rasaili. Accused of being a Maoist supporter, Reena was shot dead in her own backyard.  “Maina’s body has been in the hospital morgue for 17 years, and I will cremate her when she gets justice,” says Devi, who has founded the Maina Child Development Committee. <h2>Suman Adhikari</h2> <img width="1000" height="716" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7e99c7e80680e0737b0jpeg.jpg" alt="">Suman Adhikari sits in front of a family picture in which his brother and father Muktinath Adhikari are celebrating Tihar. Suman’s father was a teacher and human rights activist in Lamjung. He was accused of continuing to teach Sanskrit and for refusing to give donations to the Maoists cause. In 2002, a dozen Maoist guerrillas took him away from a class he was teaching, tied him to a tree, stabbed him in the chest, and shot him.Former Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai has publically acknowledged that the murder was a “mistake”. No one has been punished or the crime.Guligo Jia, 30 is a Chinese photographer and documentary filmmaker based in Beijing, and was stranded in Nepal from February-July 2020. <a href="mailto:guligojia@qq.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">guligojia@qq.com</a>

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The empty chairs

<figure><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7b89c7e80680e07379bjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>All photos: SABRINA DANGOL</figcaption></figure>Bimala Dhakal’s husband Rajendra was a human rights lawyer in Gorkha, and had to go underground because the authorities suspected that he had Maoist sympathies. In 1999, he was arrested by police in Tanahu. It has been 21 years, and Bimala has not seen her husband since that day.  Police came after her, too. So she left her job and family and moved to Kathmandu with three small children. It has been two decades of raising her children as a single mother, while knocking on the doors of the police and the courts, as well as being herself arrested and tortured by the military.“The past is too painful to remember. I don’t think many can even understand the kind of pain I have faced,” says Bimala, who has almost given up hope of her husband ever returning.  Rajendra Dhakal is among the over 1,300 people officially listed as still missing from the 1996-2006 Maoist conflict. Since the end of the war, and even after <a href="http://nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Legalese/Justice-in-transition,458" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Legalese/Justice-in-transition,458&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598605338367000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFRLbLjCJUh4TK46Qw1BuC61QXVZg">two transitional justice bodies</a> were finally set up in 2015, families of the disappeared have got neither truth nor justice.  The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP) are staffed by political appointees, and all they have done in the past five years is collect testimonies and file them away in steel cabinets.<a href="http://nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/by-the-way/justice-adjourned-for-nepal-conflict-victims,454" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Justice Adjourned</a>, Anurag AcharyaNew commissioners were nominated in January and have been rejected by conflict victim organisations. In April the Supreme Court ruled that the commissions could not offer blanket amnesty to those charged of serious human rights violations. Conflict victims have come to expect very little truth or justice from successive governments. The Nepali state today is made up of former enemies in that war, and although this has helped in the reconciliation process, it has come at the cost of justice for the families of the disappeared. Indeed, the ruling Nepal Communist Party is a merger of two parties, one of which is accused of murdering and disappearing leaders of the other till 14 years ago.Not having a missing relative present continues to be an ever-present pain. This burden of ambiguous loss is multiplied among thousands of families across the country who need recognition of their suffering, information on the fate of the missing relative, and support to get on with their lives. Because it was mainly men who were disappeared, it is the women who need help because of the added burden of social stigma.Because the government is no help, families of the disappeared and those killed by both sides have got together to form common pressure groups to demand justice. Mothers and wives of the disappeared in Bardiya have set up a <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17396#.X0d8Uy8w3BJ">network of mothers and wives</a> of the disappeared.These days, Bimala watches Nepalis returning home from all over the world on the evening news. She says: “Deep down, I wish that maybe Rajendra could also come home like them.”  <a href="http://nepalitimes.com/article/nation/On-the-sidelines-of-justice,1594" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">On the sidelines of justice</a>, Trishna Rana--Shanta Neupane’s husband Danda Pani was a member of the Maoist party. As the insurgency was intensifying in 1999, he was arrested by police put into a van and driven away. He has never been seen again.“In the days following his arrest, I visited the three main jails in Kathmandu. But I was told everywhere that my husband had never been arrested or detained,” Shanta says.The Supreme Court quashed her writ of habeas corpus on the same grounds that there were no records of Danda Pani ever being arrested.Shanta then opted for non-legal ways to seek the truth, organising a press conference and writing an appeal to the Parliament. But there was no word of her husband’s whereabouts.“My hair has turned grey searching for him. I regret that our children had to grow up without their father,” she says.On the thirteenth anniversary of his disappearance, Danda Pani Neupane’s case was submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. But to this day, there has been no information about who or why he was arrested, if he is dead or alive, not has his family received justice.<a href="http://nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19345" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Truth without justice is an insult</a>, Robert Godden--Gyanendra Tripathi was the member of a student union affiliated with the Maoist party.   Following the breakdown of the second ceasefire in 2003, the Royal Nepal Army began to  round up members of the student union.Gyanendra was arrested first time for 34 days, seven of which he spent in solitary confinement, blindfolded and severely beaten. Following his release, fearing for his own safety and that of his family, Gyanendra went underground. On 26 September 2003 at 11:00AM he left his home and never returned.Ever since, his wife Sharmila Tripathi has searched for him tirelessly. She pleaded at every police station, filed complaints, wrote letters to government ministries, human rights organizations. She even took part in hunger strikes to bring more attention to her husband’s disappearance.Her case went all the way up to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which on 28 October 2014 found Nepal had violated Gyanendra’s right to life, to personal liberty, to recognition before the law and the prohibition of torture.Sharmila says, “I still have no idea of my husband’s whereabouts, but I still have hope. I will continue the search for him as long as I live.”   30 August is International Day of the Disappeared, and Nepali Times is bringing a series of features over the next few days on the survivors of the decade-long conflict and the families that the <a href="http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/nepalitimes/pdf/Nepali_Times_827.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">disappeared left behind</a>. <img width="197" height="300" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7bb9c7e80680e07379cjpeg.jpg" alt="">Read also: <a href="http://nepalitimes.com/article/business/tale-of-two-commissions%20,1275" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The tale of two commissions</a>, Binita Dahal

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Disappearance of justice

There was sharp and widespread condemnation of the bomb terror unleashed by the Biplav-led Communist Party of Nepal this week on the Nepali cybersphere. However, Baburam Bhattarai of the newly-formed Nepal Samajbadi Party was greeted with a barrage of criticism over his perceived double standard in denouncing the bombs. Baburam Bhattarai’s original tweet:<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121148/636a42289c7e80680e04a6b7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="606"/>The difference between revolutionary violence and terrorism is that the first attacks known enemies in order to fulfill a political goal and to defend itself, while the second attacks unknown / uncertain targets in order to terrorize the populace. The serial blasts in the valley fall under the second category! Everyone should know that!Baburam Bhattarai @brb1954<h2>Comments and replies to the tweet</h2>According to the definition of the all knowing Dr. your dear friend Biplav is a terrorist. But then how come you, who committed more heinous acts in the past, are a revolutionary? According to your own definition, can we call you murderer, former terrorist, foreign agent, and a rascal?Medani Prasai @MedaniPrasai4<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121148/636a422a9c7e80680e04a6b8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="393"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121148/636a422c9c7e80680e04a6b9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="634" height="328">Great logic! “If I bomb it is revolutionary, if you bomb it is terrorism.”Rajendra Dahal @Rdahal62A nice way of trying to clear the blame from your own mistakes: make your own definition of your mistakes. Did you ever admit that you killed civilians and ‘terrorized the people’? Let me tell you – there is no difference between the two. We can argue about this all day.Manish Prasai @manishprasai46<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121148/636a422e9c7e80680e04a6bajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="421"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121148/636a422f9c7e80680e04a6bbjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="375">This is a continuation of things you taught. You got close to power and received many facilities. They are not in power and couldn’t take anything.Santosh Panta @sdpata_pantaThose who killed, cut down, looted, and made thousands of families bereft, and rose to power on the basis of those acts, are the ones acting all ‘good’ and criticising violence now. The country can never benefit from those who play the politics of violence in a democratic country.Rabindra Mishra @RabindraMishra<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121148/636a42329c7e80680e04a6bcjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="438"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108121148/636a42349c7e80680e04a6bdjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="439">The government has reacted very irresponsibly to this event, implying that since it was the party cadres who died, there was no harm done. No matter who, what, and where, it is Nepalis who are dying. Instead of criticising or arresting Biplov party cadres, the government should go about creating jobs for the youth.Babita Basnet @babita_7

Revolutionary violence, or terror?

Fenerbahçe Beko won the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague finals in Abu Dhabi, held 23-25 May, defeating Monaco 81-70 in the final. Olympiacos, who defeated Panathinaikos 97-93, finished the series in third place. The Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the final match, Nigel Hayes-Davis from Fenerbahçe Beko, received a prize of 1,000,000 Miles&amp;Smiles from Turkish Airlines’ Chief Commercial Officer Ahmet Olmuştur. The carrier has been the title sponsor of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague, a top tier tournament, since 2010.

Turkish Basketball

In the black and white photograph, General Wangdu smiles broadly in front of the dusty cactus garden in Kathmandu’s Annapurna Hotel. With an ill-fitting jacket and shaggy hair he looks benign enough, but this was the last leader of the Tibetan freedom fighters who led the resistance against the Chinese from their remote mountain hideouts in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/comings-and-goings-in-mustang">Mustang</a>. Five months later, Wangdu was dead. Snapped in March 1974, I had only recently arrived in Nepal. How did I meet this legendary fighter? Possibly with his devoted camp follower, Lynne Klapecki, and probably in the Om Restaurant near Freak Street which was the preferred <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/hippie-trail-nostalgia-in-kathmandu">hippie hang-out</a>. Om Lobsang and his brother Yeshe were <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/earthquake-brings-back-memories-of-camps-for-tibetan-refugees">refugees from East Tibet </a>whose cafe offered a friendly welcome and<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/momo-loco"> the best momos</a> - they became my in-laws after I married their eldest brother Tenzin, but that was a decade later.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_4573b34282b0f5395c007243d6bef12c7ba76bfd520419e994cdcea048d795a1.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2025052403054_4573b34282b0f5395c007243d6bef12c7ba76bfd520419e994cdcea048d795a1" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1583" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>Photo: LISA CHOEGYAL</figcaption> </figure>  Wangdu’s English was enthusiastically rudimentary, but even riding around town with him on the back of an aging <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/kathmandu-s-new-motorbike-museum">motorbike</a>, he was a commanding presence. Always flanked by armed outriders, impressive scars marked his forearms and a pistol hung from the cord around his neck. A charismatic guerrilla leader, Wangdu was celebrated by his followers for his tough commitment and respected for his measured pragmatism. He seemed so young to have shouldered such a responsibility of command, leading hundreds of hardened <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/50-years-after-the%20raid-into-Tibet,1012#google_vignette">Khampa combatants </a>through what had been a particularly <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/heavy-snowfall-over-nepal-himalaya">brutal winter in Mustang</a>, the last bastion to hold out against the Chinese invasion of their Tibetan homeland.&nbsp; The freedom fighters of Tibet, known as the Chushi-Gangdruk, had emerged to resist the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/territorialism">Chinese takeover</a> of Tibet during the 1950s. Estimated to be 80,000-strong at the time of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/what-or-who-after-the-dalai-lama">the Dalai Lama</a>’s final escape to India in 1959, the sheer number of Chinese deployed into Tibet eventually forced the Chushi-Gangdruk to retreat to Mustang, From this high Himalayan stronghold, they continued cross-border raids on the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) throughout the 1960s.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_8a4a935ba25ae79dc3a63bb5c14626927020e5ec098093c45ccb9a5982e009fd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="2025052403054_8a4a935ba25ae79dc3a63bb5c14626927020e5ec098093c45ccb9a5982e009fd" data-rendition-name="original" width="1114" height="676" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>Guerrillas known as the Chushi-Gangdruk emerged to resist the Chinese annexation of Tibet during the 1950s. Photo courtesy: MIKEL DUNHAM</figcaption> </figure>  Their Kathmandu base was a small discreet lodge in a back lane near Rani Pokhari. Sipping sweet tea from a blue mug with a chipped lid, I sat bemused in a corner of the Mustang Hotel room whilst Wangdu and his cohorts received a battered brown suitcase from their CIA connection, a tousle-haired American in a leather jacket. Heaved onto the dingy bedspread that covered the thin mattress, it was clicked open to reveal piles of neatly stacked dollar bills.&nbsp; I cannot think why Wangdu allowed me to witness this handover but I was clearly no threat, a newly arrived world traveller with no understanding of the stakes nor any Nepali or <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/tibetan-music-in-nepals-sacred-valley">Tibetan language</a>. Despite armed guards in the corridor,Wangdu radiated confidence and bravado, and there was a practiced familiarity to the tense transaction. This deadly dance for many years had been funded by the Americans, tolerated by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-kingdom-within-a-republic">Mustang’s residents</a>, and permitted by King Mahendra and the Nepali authorities who it suited to turn a blind eye.&nbsp; But Mahendra died in 1972, and times were changing. Richard Nixon’s ping-pong diplomacy thawed the cold war and signalled a fresh entente with China. Nepal’s yet-to-be-crowned <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/if-birendra-was-alive-nepal-could-still-be-a-monarchy">King Birendra </a>was under pressure to curb the irritating incursions against the PLA launched from the Nepali territory of Mustang. Keen to appease his northern neighbour, on several occasions the King summoned Wangdu for peace talks but, despite increasingly overwhelming odds, Wangdu refused to surrender.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_a8efd5cfb92cd997bd7cb74296a936fef46e2f7428f9cd642b03f1ac4ea11ecb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="2025052403054_a8efd5cfb92cd997bd7cb74296a936fef46e2f7428f9cd642b03f1ac4ea11ecb" data-rendition-name="original" width="1055" height="885" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>General Wangdu flanked by two Tibetan resistance fighters in Mustang in the 1970s. Photo courtesy: MIKEL DUNHAM</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_75969125a745847a2ef82b6fe8b9106c0b21a116d85b8efdf5d2ee89a347bb31.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="2025052403054_75969125a745847a2ef82b6fe8b9106c0b21a116d85b8efdf5d2ee89a347bb31" data-rendition-name="original" width="1044" height="792" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>King Birendra with General Wangdu (right in dark glasses) taken in 1974 possibly in Mustang after one of their few attempts at negotiation. Photo courtesy: RAJRNDRA KUNWAR</figcaption> </figure>  While I naively rode pillion around Kathmandu in the spring sunshine, Wangdu was in the midst of what turned out to be his final round of negotiations with the Nepal government. Refusing to cease hostilities with the Chinese, Wangdu must have suspected the cost of his decision, making his cheerful smile in the photograph all the more poignant and brave. It was only much later that I appreciated the significance of the moment. Wangdu had been sent to replace the first resistance leader in Mustang, Baba Gen Yeshe, a much derided corrupt character who stole money meant for his troops and exploited fleeing refugees by seizing their treasures. Baba Gen Yeshe never forgave Wangdu,and sought revenge in May 1974 by betraying him and his commanders to the Nepal authorities. Renewed Chinese incursions from the north, active PLA collusion with the Nepali forces under the new King, and treachery from within the Chushi-Gangdrukranks combined to seal their fate.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_e0987a7c90d76431b0d7d5e6115ebfe3dbda7ab939e5941e079c18d722e884c0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_16" data-image-id="2025052403054_e0987a7c90d76431b0d7d5e6115ebfe3dbda7ab939e5941e079c18d722e884c0" data-rendition-name="original" width="1400" height="769" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>British television journalists George Patterson and Adrian Cowell embedded themselves with Khampa guerrillas and accompanied them from Tsum Valley on a cross border raid on a Chinese Army convoy in 1964. Photo: ESSAYS ON NEPAL / SAM COWAN</figcaption> </figure>  Mikel Dunham, renowned author of Buddha’s Warriors, writes: ‘It is possible that Wangdu was waiting for some cue from the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India. It is equally possible – during that last, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-human-cost-of-nepal-s-yarsa-gold-rush?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR31-Cqw8oyIwMPzf_35e4Skr0ululJvLf3_vDkzHn-AYG2h8uPw2rqqErg_aem_tGVn5coY1-jA7fze_xqhew">desolate winter </a>– that he made the decision to go out in glory rather than admit defeat. Over the last fifteen years, Wangdu had experienced Tibet’s organized resistance being squeezed and shoved around by every conceivable outside force.&nbsp; First they had been pushed out of their own country by the PLA; then they had been refused sanction while on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/borderlines/nepal-india-trans-boundary-bonds?fbclid=IwAR0PpJ5zUEbwdug3g_U3ar6FUugngRY0S8Tl2v_7wqzrsHmXWcXsKjvL4t4">Indian soil</a>; then they were abandoned by the Americans because, apparently, Nixon wanted to make friends with Wangdu’s mortal enemies, the communists; then they had been betrayed by the vampiric Baba Gen Yeshe – a Tibetan and, even worse, a fellow Khampa; and now, finally Wangdu’s army was being evicted by the Nepalis. One thing was certain: Wangdu was a warrior. To imagine Wangdu simply giving up and settling down in the pacific squalor of a <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/elderly-left-in-bhutan-refugee-camp">refugee camp </a>was unthinkable.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_8fc1ffef4ae751628b90ae781b66e11e51e4fdde2787207c9042efbee345ce49.jpg" data-media-id="editor_20" data-image-id="2025052403054_8fc1ffef4ae751628b90ae781b66e11e51e4fdde2787207c9042efbee345ce49" data-rendition-name="original" width="500" height="746" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>The much derided Baba Gen Yeshe, the first Tibetan resistance leader in Mustang, who betrayed Wangdu for personal gain. Photo courtesy: MIKEL DUNHAM</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_b1d833cdb00d3ac4416b844d8730475cd88c238caaaf8da69889a584eea229a3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_21" data-image-id="2025052403054_b1d833cdb00d3ac4416b844d8730475cd88c238caaaf8da69889a584eea229a3" data-rendition-name="original" width="500" height="656" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>Aditya SJB Rana of the Royal Nepal Army whose team ambushed Wangdu and his cohorts at the top of Tinker Pass in Darchula, West Nepal. Photo courtesy: GAUTAM SJB RANA</figcaption> </figure>  By August 1974 the game was up. Wangdu and six of his exhausted party were killed on their horses by <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=7270">the Royal Nepal Army</a> on the brink of escape. The officer in charge, Aditya SJB Rana, cleverly predicted their route into India after they failed to silence a police radio in Yari. A carefully laid ambush trapped them near the summit of the Tinker Pass in Darchula,at 5,000 meters the highest military operation of its time. Wangdu’s body was helicoptered to Kathmandu, and a big show made of the royal Nepal victory.&nbsp; The Tibetan armed insurgency against China had reached its end.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250524030520_3ff9c6fc85a65bc9a2c3afe9736d9f5f9413de752e790a5d9dca0981ea94f9b4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_23" data-image-id="20250524030520_3ff9c6fc85a65bc9a2c3afe9736d9f5f9413de752e790a5d9dca0981ea94f9b4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> </figure>

The Last Days of the Khampa

Starting 17 September Turkish Airlines will fly daily to Seville, one of Spain’s major tourist draws. This is Turkish’s sixth destination in Spain after Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Malaga, and Bilbao. Seville is in the Andalusia region on Spain’s south coast with a rich Moor history. There are approximately 30,000 Nepalis living in Spain.&nbsp;

Turkish to Seville

The newly-formed Himalayan Art Council is set to launch Nepal’s National Art Protection Platform that seeks to preserve <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-history-of-heritage">Nepal’s unique cultural heritage </a>using<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/artificial-censorship"> AI-powered tools</a>. The Council seeks to safeguard <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepali-art-going-places">Nepali art works</a> from neglect, theft and counterfeiting as well as preserve existing artwork and celebrate living masters by giving them a cultural space to continue the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/sacred-survival">sacred art traditions</a>. "We are introducing a new digital platform designed to preserve, verify and elevate <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-new-generation-of-alternative-artists">Nepal’s art for generations to come,</a>” says a statement from the Council, adding that the digital platform will use AI told for authentication and blockchain to keep track of works of art. Artists can now be protected by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/ayo-ai?fbclid=IwAR1uwmTVq4gUB70ljfRezjzukD9ArWXPuMnUikopeQ8PoiZMjicToPSwhKE&amp;=1">AI tools</a> that detect forgeries, identify their work even when unsigned, and ensure they receive proper recognition and credit. The archives will be searchable with translated inscription and interactive guides. Says curator Meena Lama: “AI and blockchains are tools that give us the power to detect fakes and identify unsigned paintings and track every piece. With these tools we can restore trust, secure authorship and give artists the dignity they deserve.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250514170544_2ab58f6313c0458f75114a692b0016bd9efb3b59d5f8f07f0da72e1e37b82f53.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20250514170544_2ab58f6313c0458f75114a692b0016bd9efb3b59d5f8f07f0da72e1e37b82f53" data-rendition-name="original" width="1300" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Artwork at the Traditional Art Exhibition at Patan Museum."> <figcaption>Artwork at the Traditional Art Exhibition at Patan Museum.</figcaption> </figure>  The Council is also holding an exhibition of Nepali cultural masterpieces with 50 historical <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Buzz-the-art,671">thangka and paubha </a>by past masters and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/between-the-sacred-and-everyday">contemporary works by current artists</a>. This curated collection is a living tribute to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/when-yaks-go-so-does-culture">Himalayan culture</a> with economic depictions of deities, mandala and sacred narratives. The exhibition at <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/a-portal-into-patan-s-past-and-present">Patan Museum</a> also provides an opportunity to meet painters and custodians of art and culture. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/golden-deities">Golden deities</a>, Sewa Bhattarai ‘The exhibition is only the first step in a long journey to ensure that Nepali art is no just seen but fully understood, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Narratives-of-Faith-and-Memory-Remembering-the-Lost-Sculptures-of-Kathmandu-exhibition,987">protected and remembered</a>,’ the Council says. Artist Kailash K Shrestha of Artudio has spent decades promoting thankha and paubha traditions because of their beauty and devotional meaning. But he also says artists are underpaid, exploited and ignored. He adds, “AI and blockchain are not just buzzwords, they are powerful tools that can protect Nepal’s artists from fraud, verify authenticity and build a permanent record of provenance.” Traditional Art Exhibition Till 17 May Patan Museum