<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/6372055c9c7e80680e0b28b0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="986"/><figcaption>Photo: SHANKAR DAHAL</figcaption></figure>Nepal’s Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE) issued more than 240,000 labour permits for migrant workers in 2021, even as the country reeled under the Covid-19 pandemic.Since 2008, the DoFE has issued<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/the-long-wait-before-flight/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> labour permits</a> to more than 4 million Nepali migrant workers. But this figure does not include Nepalis living and working across the border in India, which does not require labour approvals as per the <a href="https://mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents.htm?dtl/6295/Treaty+of+Peace+and+Friendship" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">1950 Nepal-India bilateral treaty</a>. Nor does it include workers who travel overseas through backchannels.Even the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/nepali-migration-in-the-2020s/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2020 migration report</a> from the Ministry shows that the number of Nepali workers seeking labour approvals has steadily declined since 2013, with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/kleptocrats-of-kathmandu-and-kualalampur/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Malaysia</a> followed by countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia being the primary destinations.Conversely, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/more-remittance-more-than-remittance/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">remittances</a> sent by migrant workers are now worth over a quarter of Nepal’s annual GDP, and the conversation is shifting to the varying degrees of access of Nepalis from different backgrounds to destination countries.‘The tendency is for the better-off to earn higher wages and to be able to send back remittances of a higher value, and for the poor to earn lower wages and to be less able to send back remittances to the family members remaining in Nepal,’ write researchers David Seddon, Jagannath Adhikari, and Ganesh Gurung in their book The New Lahures: Foreign Employment and the Remittance Economy of Nepal.‘Those from the more affluent backgrounds are in a better position to gain access to higher pay and more secure employment, while those from less affluent backgrounds are in a relatively poor position in this regard.’The book includes findings of research conducted by the authors from 1997 to 1999 on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/south-asias-migrants-shared-problems-share-solutions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepal’s foreign labour migration</a> and remittance economy, and later studies into the labour migration sector. A new edition of the 2001 book has been updated to include the changing dynamics of migration and the remittance economy in the last 20 years, especially <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-economy-already-weak-takes-direct-hit/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">during the Covid-19 pandemic</a>.The abuse and death of a Nepali domestic worker at the hands of employers in Kuwait in 1998 prompted the Nepal government to <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16350#.YfIiTeNBzOR" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ban women from going to the Gulf to work as domestics</a>. The ban was eventually lifted, but similar immigration policies that limit female mobility have been introduced in the years between, including <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/history-of-female-immobility-in-nepal/">a 2021 proposal requiring Nepali women under 40 travelling to the Gulf or Africa to present consent from a guardian and local government</a>.In August 2004, 12 Nepali labour migrants led to Iraq for work under false pretences <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=1872#.YfIi4eNBzOQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">were abducted and killed by insurgents</a>, their execution filmed and released by the extremists for the world to see. Thirteen Nepali security contractors were killed and five injured by a suicide bombing in 2016 while en route to their jobs at the Canadian embassy.A July 2021 mobile video of a Nepali security guard in Malaysia getting beaten up by his supervisor prompted Nepalis to share their own experiences of violence against migrant workers in Malaysia.The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/afghanistan-abandoned/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Taliban takeover of Kabul</a> in August 2021 brought to light the plights of potentially<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/who-will-rescue-nepalis-from-afghanistan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> thousands of stranded Nepalis</a> working to protect embassies of US and NATO countries, as well as undocumented migrants in Afghanistan.In Qatar, as many as 1,600 Nepali workers are believed to have died in the past decade <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/human-rights-referees-blow-whistle-on-world-cup-fouls/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">after the country won the bid to host the FIFA World Cup 2022</a>.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/the-days-of-international-migration/">The Days of International Migration</a>These incidents are only the highlights of Nepal’s tragic migrant history that made it to the media. Yet, there are many more success stories of workers who have done well for themselves and supported families back home, while at the same time keeping Nepal’s economy afloat.Yet, over the years, the Nepal government’s treatment of the labour export sector, whether in terms of policy-making or bilateral discussions, have not brought long-term benefits to workers. On the contrary, many Nepalis have had to resort to taking illegal channels and routes to travel and work overseas, further risking their lives.This has also made it impossible for Nepal’s authorities to pinpoint the number of undocumented Nepali migrants across Asia and the Gulf, let alone ensure their rights and safety. Preliminary data of the 2021 census released this week shows that there are only 2.6 million Nepali workers abroad, which seems to be a gross undercount (see box, below).“While economic diplomacy has been incorporated into our foreign policy, discussions about labour diplomacy have not moved forward,” said migration expert Ganesh Gurung, co-author of The New Lahures, in his keynote address at the Kantipur Migration and Remit Summit 2021.Indeed, in recent years experts have pointed out the need to diversify out-migration destinations to include better, higher paying jobs for Nepali workers seeking employment abroad. The need to ensure access to safer and better-paying labour destinations for Nepalis of all socio-economic as well as socio-cultural backgrounds have also been highlighted.Added Gurung: “We are sending Nepalis to the Gulf, Malaysia, and India —countries that earn them the least amount of income but with some of the worst human rights records in the world … We have the strength of the Gurkha reputation in the security sector, but we have not been able to use it to tap the market in Europe, or North America.”The Ministry of Labour’s 2020 Migration Report prioritised the diversification of labour destinations and employment sectors. The report read: ‘More flexible approaches such as revised time limits on employment contracts for short-term opportunities, employment in emerging sectors … and innovations in joint partnerships … should be considered.’However, into the third year of the pandemic and the third Covid wave, Nepal’s government does not seem to have learnt its lesson and has no clear short-term plans to manage Nepalis leaving for overseas jobs, even as it continues to issue labour permits. Nor has it been able to integrate returning migrants in Nepal with support.As the highly contagious variant spreads across the world, there is no clear information about when and where migrants can receive booster shots. The paperwork for workers is laborious, confusing and ridden with corruption. Recruiters blatantly exploit workers, and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/diaspora-diaries-1/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">mislead them about jobs and earnings overseas</a>.“I was told that I could get the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/boosting-booster-jabs-against-omicron/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">booster shot</a> here,” says a man waiting near a crowd of people registering for their first and second doses in front of Shahid Memorial Hospital in Kalanki this week. “I have to leave the country soon, but no one seems to know about it.”The security guard at the vaccination booth asks him what kind of frontline worker he is. He is then promptly told that booster shots are not available for those going overseas.Reading The New Lahures puts the individual everyday hassle of Nepal’s desperate migrant workers into perspective and historical context. How the government benefits by shifting responsibility for finding work for its citizens at home by driving them away, and then props up the economy with the money they send back.Yet the same government invests so little in making life easier for those very workers, ensure that they are not abused and exploited by recruiters, and getting Nepal’s embassies to look after <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/in-the-minds-of-nepals-migrant-workers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">their welfare while abroad</a>.The New Lahures: Foreign Employment and the Remittance Economy of NepalAdroit Publishers, 2021219 pages<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/6372055f9c7e80680e0b28b1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="686" height="1096">Census undercount?The <a href="https://cbs.gov.np/wp-content/upLoads/2022/01/Preliminary-report-2021-final.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">preliminary date of the 2021 Census</a> that was released this week has interesting new revelations that all point to the country having defused its <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-holding-census-despite-covid-and-boycott/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">demographic bomb</a>. However, some of the growth is uneven and there are indications of possible problems in future with an ageing population.<ul><li>Nepal’s annual population growth rate dropped to only 0.93% from 1.34% ten years ago</li> <li>The proportion of Nepalis living in the Tarai grew to nearly 54%</li> <li>Two-thirds of Nepalis live in urban areas</li> <li>The male-female ratio is 95.9:100, meaning there are 600,000 more women than men in Nepal</li> <li>The fertility rate is now approaching replacement level: 2.3 children per mother</li> <li>67% of the population is made up of working-age youth, which is Nepal’s ‘demographic dividend’</li> <li>Madhes Province has the most people, making up 21% of the population</li> <li>Kathmandu district’s population is now 2.02 million</li></ul><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/637205619c7e80680e0b28b2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">However, the census data shows that there are 2,169,478 Nepalis living abroad, and experts say this is a gross undercount. There are said to be at least 3 million Nepalis working just in India, and the figure for labour permits show at least 2 million in the Gulf, Malaysia, Korea and Japan. And this does not even include the number of students who have gone abroad.Even the head of the Central Bureau of Statistic Nebin Lal Shrestha said in media interviews that he was personally surprised by the low figure. He said there could have been an undercount because households where all members were abroad were not counted.However, among those abroad, the proportion of women has increased from 12% to nearly 19%. The reason for this could be greater <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/3-4th-of-the-sky/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">gender equality in Nepal</a>, increase in female literacy, overseas demand for domestic and caregivers.

Shristi Karki

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No country for young men

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141152/636d02289c7e80680e0a3666jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1360" height="680"/><figcaption>Photo via PROJECT SYNDICATE</figcaption></figure>This week marks the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. On that day, 19 terrorists took control of four civilian aircraft, flew two into the towers of New York’s World Trade Center, struck the Pentagon with a third, and crashed the fourth in a Pennsylvania field after passengers physically prevented the terrorists from reaching their target, often thought to be the White House or another US government building in Washington, DC.All the hijackers were from the Middle East, 15 from Saudi Arabia alone. All were trained in Afghanistan, and four at US flight schools, as part of an operation planned, organised, and carried out by al-Qaeda (the “base”), the terrorist group headed by Osama bin Laden. By the day’s end, 2,977 innocent men, women, and children had been killed, and more than 6,000 injured. Most were American, although citizens of more than a hundred other countries also lost their lives as well.Many at the time feared that 9/11 had ushered in an era defined by global terrorism. And, to be sure, other al-Qaeda attacks followed, including the train bombings in Madrid in March 2004 and the attack on London’s transit system in July 2005. Moreover, terrorists claiming allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS) killed 32 people at Brussels Airport in March 2016, and staged a series of smaller attacks (often using vehicles to mow down pedestrians). But neither the US nor any of its allies has experienced another attack on the scale of 9/11 – or one even close to it. It is therefore necessary to ask: Beyond the immediate costs, what difference did 9/11 make? How did history change, if at all, as a result?Terrorism, unpluggedThere are many explanations for why terrorists have not succeeded in executing additional major attacks. With the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/afghans-in-nepal-await-resettlement/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">US invasion of Afghanistan</a>, al-Qaeda lost its sanctuary. Almost every government around the world has introduced new screening procedures that make it more difficult for would-be terrorists to gain access to airports and airplanes. Countries have dramatically increased their intelligence, police, and military capabilities devoted to minimising risks and countering threats. Countries have also increased their cooperation with one another; counterterrorism is a rare domain where governments that often disagree are willing and able to work together to a considerable degree.There is also now broad agreement on what constitutes terrorism – the use of armed force by individuals and groups against civilians for political purposes – and a degree of support for the principle that governments should not distinguish between terrorists and those who give them sanctuary and support. Mostly gone are the days when individuals and groups who killed on behalf of their cause were romanticised as freedom fighters.This is not to say that terrorism has not continued to claim tens of thousands of lives each and every year, which it most surely has. But almost all the attacks have taken place in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia as part of ongoing conflicts (mostly in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Yemen) as opposed to an isolated 9/11-style attack against one of the major powers. Terrorism is increasingly localised and decentralised. It is also resilient: capturing or killing the head of a terrorist organisation does not necessarily spell its end. Al-Qaeda, for example, survived the killing of bin Laden by US special operations forces in Pakistan nearly a decade after the 9/11 attack.It thus comes as no surprise that terrorism continues, with no end in sight. Nor can the possibility of a new 9/11 be ruled out, even though the US government has recently stated that the “most urgent terrorism threat” the country faces is domestic. As the Provisional Irish Republican Army put it after its failed effort to assassinate British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984, “Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always.” The danger is that the day will come when terrorists gain access to nuclear material or figure out how to manufacture and deliver a biological or chemical weapon, in which case terrorism could come to define the age. For now, though, it has not.America, unleashedNonetheless, 9/11 marked a historical turning point, with a profound impact on US foreign policy in the two decades since. Although the attacks did not usher in an era of global terrorism, they did usher in the so-called Global War on Terrorism, which profoundly affected what the US did in the world, how the world came to regard the US, and how many Americans came to see their country’s foreign policy.The saga begins in Afghanistan. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, the US gave the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-and-the-talibans-second-coming/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Taliban</a>, then in control of Afghanistan’s government, a choice: either hand over the al-Qaeda leaders who were living in their country and responsible for planning the 9/11 attack, or put their rule at risk. When the Taliban refused to hand over the al-Qaeda leaders, US intelligence and military personnel collaborated with a loose confederation of Afghan tribes known as the Northern Alliance in overthrowing the Taliban. The US helped assemble a successor government that took control of most of the country.That control, though, was never complete or unchallenged. Many individuals loyal to the Taliban and al-Qaeda escaped to neighbouring Pakistan, where they gradually rebuilt their strength and resumed military operations against the government that had replaced them. The US for its part did not do enough to build an Afghan military, reduce corruption, or deny the Taliban a sanctuary in Pakistan. Instead, it increased its own presence and military operations in Afghanistan, essentially becoming a partner of the government in its civil war.At its peak, the US effort in Afghanistan involved more than 100,000 of its soldiers. Over two decades, US operations cost more than $2 trillion, and more than 2,300 Americans, as well as tens of thousands of Afghans, lost their lives. The effort was at once <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/afghanistan-abandoned/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">both too much and not enough</a>. While the US presence robbed the Afghan government of much of its legitimacy and generated opposition in the US, the Taliban proved to have more staying power than the US, which by 2020 had lost its will to continue a fight that promised only an open-ended stalemate.The Global War on Terrorism also led the US to launch a war in Iraq. It is an open question whether President George W. Bush would have initiated the war had it not been for 9/11. Certainly, the attacks increased his inclination to signal to the world that the US was not, as President Richard Nixon put it during the Vietnam War, a “pitiful helpless giant.” It made some in the administration (particularly Vice President Dick Cheney) unwilling to take the risk that terrorists might gain control of weapons of mass destruction, which Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was widely thought (incorrectly, it turned out) to possess. Still others wanted to spread democracy to Iraq, and from there to the entire Middle East, on the assumption that this was not just possible, but also that it would make the region far less likely to produce terrorists and support terrorism.The war in Iraq, launched in March 2003, did not go as intended or predicted by the Bush administration and the many in Congress (including then-Senator Joe Biden) and around the country who supported it. The US was unprepared for much of what was to come. Initial military victories ousted the government but soon gave way to widespread violent turmoil and civil war. Decisions to disband the Iraqi military and exclude from government jobs many of the Iraqis who had been associated with the previous regime exacerbated an already chaotic situation. More fundamentally, Iraq, like Afghanistan, demonstrated the limits of what military force could accomplish at a reasonable cost and in a reasonable timespan.In the end, the US was forced to increase its military presence to nearly 170,000 troops to sustain the embattled successor government in Baghdad. A degree of stability was achieved, but at an enormous cost. The US spent at least as much there as in Afghanistan, but at a much higher human cost: more than 4,000 American soldiers killed, many times that number wounded, and soaring suicide rates among US troops (both in Iraq and Afghanistan). And this total excludes private contractors and Iraqi casualties, for which estimates vary widely but which certainly total several hundred thousand.The war in Iraq also weakened the US in other ways. There was never any evidence that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks, and America’s reputation suffered further when its stated rationale for launching a war without UN support – to eliminate Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction – turned out to have no basis in reality. Images of US soldiers mistreating Iraqi prisoners further tarnished the country’s reputation. Moreover, an Iraq at war with itself meant that Iran emerged as the most powerful country in the region (or one of two if Israel is included). Since the war, Iran has increased its sway over Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon.Iraq and Afghanistan also proved to be major strategic distractions. While the US was heavily involved in the Middle East and South Asia, regions that lacked any great-power presence or economic dynamism, the geopolitical balance moved against the US in both Europe and East Asia thanks to the emergence of a more aggressive Russia and a more capable and assertive China. The Global War on Terrorism did not and could not provide a compass for how US foreign policy should approach renewed great-power rivalry.The world, unmooredThe wars fought in the wake of 9/11 also had significant domestic consequences for the US. They shook the confidence of a country that had emerged from the Cold War with a historically unprecedented preponderance of power and shattered the national unity that came to the surface in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. Moreover, their costs and failures stimulated opposition to a continuing, large US global role, giving rise to a new tendency toward isolationism. Likewise, the push for war, together with the 2007-09 global financial crisis and its economic fallout, powerfully undermined Americans’ faith in elites, stimulating the rise of populist sentiment that, among other things, helped pave the way for the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/a-trump-world-us-nepal,3359" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">presidency of Donald Trump</a>. Today’s US is <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/ten-hours-that-shook-america/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">more divided than ever</a> at home and increasingly disinclined to carry out the sort of active foreign policy that has been its hallmark since World War II’s end, and which has, on balance, greatly benefited Americans and many others.In hindsight, we can now see that 9/11 was a harbinger of what was to come: less the globalisation of terrorism than the terrors of globalisation. The attacks conveyed the message that distance and borders count for little in a global age. Little stays local for long, whether terrorists born in the Middle East and trained in Afghanistan, or the effects of the global financial crisis that had its origins in American financial mismanagement. We are all living with a pandemic virus that has killed millions since emerging in central China in December 2019. The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-is-going-up-in-smoke/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fires</a>, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/first-drought-then-downpour/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">droughts</a>, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/kathmandus-flash-floods-are-4-decades-in-the-making/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">floods</a>,  storms, and heat ravaging much of the world are the consequence of climate change, itself the cumulative effect of human activity that has concentrated <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/un-climate-report-declares-planetary-emergency/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">unsustainable amounts of heat-trapping greenhouse gases </a>into the atmosphere.The era triggered by events in Afghanistan has now come full circle, marking its 20th anniversary with events in Afghanistan. Twenty years ago, the Taliban were quickly ousted from power; in recent weeks they have regained power just as quickly. It is too soon to know whether the Taliban will revert to their old ways, becoming once again enablers of terrorism, and whether terrorists everywhere will get a boost from their victory over the US and its allies. What we do know, however, is that terrorism will remain a feature of our world. It will not define the future, but it will remain a visible aspect of the globalisation that already has.By arrangement with © <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.project-syndicate.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607178503443000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHSbaaYvdpDj2FQzkDgwL7xNFnkWg">Project Syndicate</a>Read Also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/bring-us-home-says-nepali-in-kabul/">“Bring us home”, says Nepali in Kabul</a>, Nepali Times<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/who-will-rescue-nepalis-from-afghanistan/">Who will rescue Nepalis from Afghanistan?</a> Nepali TimesRichard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, previously served as Director of Policy Planning for the US State Department (2001-2003), and was President George W. Bush's special envoy to Northern Ireland and Coordinator for the Future of Afghanistan. He is the author, most recently, of The World: A Brief Introduction (Penguin Press, 2020)

The World 9/11 Made

<figure><img width="1024" height="768" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141144/636d00f79c7e80680e0a3605jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Mujahideen guides took us to the northernmost part of the Panjshir Valley. All photos: LISA CHOEGYAL</figcaption></figure>Kids playing on rusted tanks abandoned by the retreating Russians, war debris comfortably incorporated into stone walls to contain sheep and goats, and flickering green flags of the martyrs’ graves, too many graves, under a cloudless sky.These are the enduring images of the Panjshir Valley, wild flowers, willows and orchards lining the clear streams beneath the grand arc of barren hillsides, rocks and caves used to hide the resistance fighters loyal to Ahmad Shah Massoud, the legendary ‘Lion of Panjshir’.Nestled deep within the Hindu Kush, Massoud’s faithful foot soldiers, the fierce unforgiving geography and its defendable narrow entrance enabled the Panjshir Valley to hold out against waves of invasions — the Soviet Union in the 1980s and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-and-the-talibans-second-coming/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the Taliban</a> in the 1990s.  <img width="980" height="968" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141144/636d00f99c7e80680e0a3606jpeg.jpg" alt="">In 2001, just two days before the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York, the revered commander of the former Northern Alliance, lover of poetry and mujahideen leader was targeted by al Qaeda and the Taliban, assassinated by a bomb detonated by two Arabs posing as journalists in one of his Panjshir forts. This week, it will be 20 years since his assassination and the 9/11 attacks that brought American retaliation on al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan. <figure><img width="1200" height="1600" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141144/636d00fc9c7e80680e0a3607jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>‘More than five years after his assassination Massoud remains a national hero to many Afghans,’ <a href="http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1555018,00.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1555018,00.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1630819742846000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFkxM3nfPq5FiSkPCxlayXccFIi-Q">Time</a> magazine wrote in 2006. 'Passengers at Kabul airport are greeted by a mural of him standing several stories high. Massoud’s place in history is assured by the fact that he was arguably the most brilliant practitioner of guerrilla warfare in the late 20th century.’ High praise in a country where rebel insurgency has been honed into an art form over the turbulent centuries.These Panjshir fields and villages are currently holding out against the Taliban’s otherwise successful swoop throughout <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/afghanistan-abandoned/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Afghanistan</a>, the last stand for freedom in a nation gripped with uncertainty and fear, tribal recriminations and revenge that have festered over the past twenty years. This time the young Ahmad Massoud has stepped into his famous father’s shoes to lead the resistance from their Panjshir stronghold.Panjshir Valley lies in the northeast of Afghanistan, and in October 2005 we travelled through it to the furthest northern border in search of trekking and tourism ideas that would benefit local homeowners, guides, horsemen and crafts people. My hopeful notes show that our suggestions included Afghan village guesthouses, the Mir Samir trek ‘a short walk in the Hindu Kush’, a five-day hike ‘in the footsteps of Massoud’ circuit, visitor information, and a saddlebag and blanket weaving enterprise.One of the issues to overcome in rural <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/afghans-in-nepal-await-resettlement/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Afghanistan</a> was to persuade our hosts that they must charge money for tourist services. So powerful are the traditions of hospitality (‘guest is god’), sharing what little they have, that taking payment for what we consider normal tourism services such as meals, accommodation and guiding was an alien concept which they struggled to accept. <figure><img width="1024" height="768" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141144/636d00ff9c7e80680e0a3608jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>“Your visit here was at a time when there was hope and great expectations for the country,” remembers Ali Azimi, our Asian Development Bank client and an Afghan American with deep-rooted insider networks within the community. In Kabul he always seemed to know when and where there would be trouble, much better informed than the United Nations security system who was nominally responsible for us. He insisted on accompanying me to Panjshir to help “find ways to put money in pockets of village folks through tourism initiatives”. <figure><img width="768" height="1024" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141144/636d01029c7e80680e0a3609jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>As we drove out of town in a large white vehicle bristling with antenna and aerials, we failed to feel an earthquake which shook the city. Leaving behind the acrid fragrance of war, Ali Azimi morphed from his usual persona of a neatly-bearded grey-suited ADB executive into the country’s ubiquitous flowing robes of anonymity.  I tried, no doubt less successfully, to blend in with scarves and shalwar kameez. It was <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/ramadan-in-exile/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ramadan</a>, the time of fasting, but as travellers the rules did not strictly apply. ‘Mobile sex’ was the SUV’s call sign, but Ali was happy to lose contact once the signal weakened in the countryside, preferring to rely on local knowledge of his Panjshir guides, hand-picked former mujahedin of course, who joined us soon after entering the valley.These fighters were hard-core, the trauma of years of mountain combat etched into their weathered faces and wild eyes. They prayed at every shrine, honoured every grave, showed us their hideouts, revealed their hunting trails, took us into their homes, unrolled their carpets, shared their food, played with their children, and talked with urgent low voices on flat mud roofs under the stars in Dari which I could not understand.  It all made sense when Ali explained that our two mujahideen friends were Massoud’s personal bodyguards, his most trusted elite, still haunted by the guilt of the day they waited outside their commander’s room having admitted the ‘journalists’ with a deadly device concealed in the television camera. <figure><img width="1600" height="1200" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141144/636d01069c7e80680e0a360ajpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Part of the TRC Tourism team of Kiwi and Nepali consultants, we worked in Afghanistan for ADB and the Aga Khan Development Network on three missions in 2005, 2006 and 2008 that included Kabul, Bamyan, Band-i-Amir lakes, Wakhan Corridor and the Panjshir Valley. Ali wrote recently: ‘You will be pleased to know your recommended ecotourism policy is being practiced in Band-i-Amir.’ Most of all we remember the harsh beauty of the landscape, the unexpected warmth of its people caught in an eternal loop of historical conflict, and hearing the chilling tales of horror under Taliban rule.Twice we arranged for groups of Afghan officials and tour operators to visit Nepal’s ecotourism models in 2009 and 2011, including the governor of Bamyan, Hariba Sarabi, a remarkable Hazara woman who was part of the Doha peace talks.  <figure><img width="640" height="480" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141144/636d01099c7e80680e0a360bjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="2048" height="1536" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141144/636d010b9c7e80680e0a360cjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The Nepal trips to study sustainable tourism were led by my New Zealand-funded Bamyan ecotourism project colleague, Amir Foladi. The work included a visitor centre dedicated to the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/piecing-together-afghanistans-bamyan-buddhas/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">remains of the Buddhas of Bamyan</a>, carefully collected by UNESCO. Foladi showed me tragic metal pieces from the explosives that destroyed these 6th century monumental statues in 2001, still embedded amidst the mud and plaster fragments which are all that is left - except the massive blank empty niches. <figure><img width="640" height="480" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141144/636d010f9c7e80680e0a360djpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Throughout the catastrophic drama of last week’s departure following the Taliban takeover, it is impossible not to mourn for an Afghanistan that might have been. The progress over the last two decades, however imperfect, is dissipated. Particularly <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/i-may-not-be-alive-by-the-time-i-am-evacuated/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the fate of women</a> is desperately unclear.One ray of light amidst the grief and despair of the withdrawal is that my friend Foladi and his ecotourism teammates have arrived in Auckland, six Afghan families evacuated to safety through the chaos of Kabul airport by the New Zealand Defence Force just 24 hours before the fatal bomb. They are the lucky ones, so many left behind to face a frighteningly unreliable future.

Lisa Choegyal

A short walk up the Panjshir

<figure><img width="1200" height="574" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141144/636d00c99c7e80680e0a35f7jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>(From right) Mohamad Arif Ahamadi, his wife Safika and sons Siar and Zuber. Photos: MUKESH POKHREL</figcaption></figure>Ever since the most recent Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, they had been fleeing Kandahar and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/kathmandus-little-kabul/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kabul to Kathmandu</a> in the hope of third-country asylum.  They have been waiting in limbo for years, and have been watching the shocking images from Kabul airport of their compatriots trying to escape the Taliban. This has dashed their hopes of ever returning to their homeland, but raised the prospect of a speedier asylum process. Humayun Shahzad, an Afghan refugee living in Kathmandu, has not been able to sleep ever since the Taliban began their <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/afghanistan-abandoned/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">rapid advance across Afghanistan last month</a> that led to the collapse of the Afghan government.  “I have been watching what is happening in Afghanistan, and thinking about our friends and family still there,” says Shahzad, who has been spending sleepless nights ever since the Taliban’s rapid takeover and the collapse of the Afghan government. “On the one hand, I have had to constantly think about how I will manage to support my family without a job here in Nepal, on the other there is also the worry about what the Taliban will do to my country,” Shahzad adds.  Like dozens of other Afghan families languishing in Kathmandu, Shahzad fled first to India and then came to Kathmandu, hoping it would be easier to apply for asylum here.  <a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19109#.YTLJty2B3-Z" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Taliban forces</a> had vastly weakened in the first six years after the US-occupied Afghanistan. However, the militants then began to tighten their stranglehold in and around rural Afghanan, leaving many with the choice of either following along, or escaping their harsh rule.  Shahzad was operating a successful photography business in Grishk district in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, and chose the latter. He took his family and flew to Delhi, and then to  Kathmandu in 2014. C R Ahmed had never imagined that he would one day have to flee the country that he had been born and raised in. He owned a thriving gold shop in Kandahar, and lived happily with his family through all the years of Soviet occupation, the mujahideen war, the American bombings. But when the Taliban took over for the first time more than two decades ago, he left. "The Taliban ruined Afghanistan,” says Ahmed. “They will ruin it again.” The Taliban grew out of the US-backed mujahideen fighters who drove out the Soviet military in the 1990s. They became radicalised after coming to power, and were finally banished to the fringes after the US occupied Afghanistan in 2001 following the 11 September attacks — exactly 20 years this week. The Americans retaliated against al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, and initiated a state-building process with elections and governments that they backed. But corruption and mismanagement allowed the Taliban to regroup, conduct horrendous terrorist attacks against civilians and inflict heavy casualties on US and NATO forces. The West finally lost its will to fight, and US forces abruptly left Afghanistan, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/who-will-rescue-nepalis-from-afghanistan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">allowing the Taliban to take rapid control</a>. Provincial capitals fell one by one, as Afghan forces either surrendered or were routed.  The whole of August, the world witnessed heart-wrenching scenes of thousands of Afghans flocking to Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, clinging to the undercarriage of aircrafts in an attempt to flee the return of the Taliban. At the time of their departure, American and coalition forces had evacuated more than 122,000 of their nationals, diplomats, and Afghan allies from Kabul. But not everyone made it out when the last US Air Force C-17 flew out on 31 August.  The Afghan refugees in Nepal left long before the recent upheavals, but say they escaped because they knew what was coming if the Taliban took over. Zubair Ahmed recalls the Taliban’s oppressive regime making it impossible for Afghans to continue to live in the country of their birth. "Many of us Afghans wanted to educate our children, especially our daughters, and see them go on to become doctors and professionals, but the Taliban would not allow it,” says Zubair Ahmed. “And women were not allowed to leave the house. We saw what the Taliban did 20 years ago, we know what they are capable of.” With the Taliban taking control of Afghanistan once again, the doors have all but closed on the chances of Afghans in Nepal ever returning home. But life here in Nepal, while certainly safer, has not been easy at all — especially with already meagre <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-real-cost-of-nepals-second-wave/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">employment opportunities drying up due to the Covid-19 pandemic</a>. <figure><img width="1100" height="610" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141144/636d00cc9c7e80680e0a35f8jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Murtuza Jaffrey, 37, owned and operated a welding shop in Kandahar Province, but was forced to flee his home with his family after the Taliban threatened him for doing welding jobs for the American military. When they fled Afghanistan, his family was forced to separate. Jaffrey and his four children came to Nepal via India. Meanwhile, his mother and four siblings went to Iran.For Jaffery, the years in Kathmandu have been a constant struggle for survival. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/author/soniaawale/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The pandemic</a>, however, has made it especially difficult— he is now without a job, and has not been able to pay his rent for two months. Moreover, the Rs18,000 annual grant that the UNHCR provided for each of his children’s education has stopped in the last two years.  Like Jaffrey, Mohammad Arif Ahmadi operated a successful business in Kandahar and was contracted to install bars on the doors and windows of buildings for the Americans. “The work was good, but the Taliban would not let us live in peace, they threatened to kill me for helping the Americans,” recalls Ahmadi, who believes that Afghanistan has fallen back into the hands of “terrorists” following the Taliban victory. Unable to live in constant fear for his life, Ahmadi, his wife and four sons decided to leave Afghanistan and come to Kathmandu seven years ago. The family has been struggling to make ends meet ever since. The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/how-nepal-must-prepare-for-3rd-covid-wave/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pandemic-induced closures</a> have made it worse for the family, four of whom worked at various grill and welding shops in Kathmandu. “We do fine as long as we can find work,” says Sophika Ahmadi, “But when the jobs dry up, we are not even able to feed ourselves for the day.”For all the Afghans struggling to get through every day in Kathmandu, the journey from <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-and-the-talibans-second-coming/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Afghanistan to Nepal</a> has been long and painful. A few, like Ahmadi and Jaffrey, paid traffickers as much as $2,000 for each family member to come to Nepal — a country unfamiliar to them in terms of language, culture and geography.Similarly, Humayun Shahzad came to Kathmandu after a broker he met in Delhi convinced him to move to Nepal, which he described as a beautiful country where he could find better opportunities. The broker charged Shahzad’s nine-member family $1,000 per person just to come from New Delhi to Kathmandu. They used up all their savings from selling their possessions in Afghanistan for the trip.“We had thought the price was worth it because Nepal was a faraway place, but the broker brought us here within two days,” Seven years later, his family is still here, and struggling to stay afloat.Shahzad was convinced to come to Kathmandu by brokers who assured him that the UN refugee agency UNHCR in Nepal would provide him with the necessary support. But the reality in Nepal has been vastly different, and Afghans living in Nepal believe that the UNHCR has <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/elderly-left-in-bhutan-refugee-camp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">abandoned refugees like them</a>.Now, Afghans living in Nepal have one main demand, that they be compensated for their time living in Nepal, and be resettled in third countries. Additionally, the refugees have also been imploring the Nepal government to exempt them from having to pay the fines for staying in Nepal without a visa.Without any meaningful support from UNHCR, and running out of money, the future for Afghan refugees in Nepal looks bleak.For Murtuza Jaffrey, circumstances here have worsened to the point that he is considering going back to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/bring-us-home-says-nepali-in-kabul/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Afghanistan</a>, and taking his chances with the Taliban, a sentiment he says other Afghans in Kathmandu echo.“If we return to Afghanistan, the Taliban will kill us, and that will be it,” says Jaffrey. “Here, we feel like we are dying day by day.”

Afghans in Nepal await resettlement

<figure><img width="1000" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd7a9c7e80680e0a0be7jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Aunohita Mojumdar on right talking to farmers in a field in the village of Haibat Khel in Parwan province in 2008. Photo: ANNE FEENSTRA</figcaption></figure>Gut-wrenching images and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/bring-us-home-says-nepali-in-kabul/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">stories</a> have flooded the media sphere over the last few days. Hundreds flocking to the airport, clinging to the undercarriage of aircraft in desperation,<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/call-to-evacuate-afghan-journalists/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> journalists in hiding</a> or seeking visas to leave, people in streets and in camps fleeing the violence that has preceded the fall of province after province to the Taliban. The rapidity with which the Taliban have been able to take control over the entire country has surprised everyone including the Taliban themselves. However, while the speed may not have been foreseen, the collapse of the government had seemed inevitable for some time, especially after the steps taken by the US in rapid succession since the Doha deal they struck with the Taliban in 2020. Ironically called the ‘Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan’, the deal ensured the unconditional withdrawal of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-rome-statute-and-the-hague/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">American troops</a>. Desperate to leave, the US administration acceded to the Taliban insistence of talks without the presence of the elected Afghan government -- thus de-legitimising the leadership that President Joe Biden is today blaming for the collapse of the government.So what of the 20 years of international support? The entire nation-building project led by the Americans, regardless of what President Joe Biden now says, was based on an American view of what a liberated Afghanistan and Afghans should look and sound like, often with little understanding of the ground reality. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-and-the-talibans-second-coming/">Nepal and the Taliban’s second coming</a>, Kanak Mani DixitUnfortunately, American military and financial power outstripped that of other nations several times over and coupled with the belief in American Exceptionalism this ensured their overweening dominance. More nuanced approaches were run rough-shod and complex perspectives that could address the complicated realities were jettisoned in favour of the black-and-white you ‘are with us or against us’ approach. While there is much to blame on the Afghan government and the leaders, it is worth looking at how the security paradigm and the political leadership were instituted. In the initial period following the 2001 invasion, the US prevented the expansion of NATO in order to keep complete control of the security sphere, and subsequently blocked all attempts at allowing even the negotiated surrender of the Taliban leadership, thus driving them underground. Over the years, international forces killed a large number of civilians, an unacceptably high rate of ‘collateral damage’ that turned a significant portion of the Afghan population against them as well as against the Afghan government they were supporting. While ‘introducing democracy’ to Afghans, the US railroaded Afghans into accepting a governance structure that concentrated all powers in the presidency -- far more extreme than any presidential style of governance in existence -- and also forced an electoral system that kept out political parties -- the building blocks of any democratic polity.  <figure><img width="1000" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd7c9c7e80680e0a0be8jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Leaders of militias were rearmed and empowered despite the fact that some of them had a track record of extreme brutality and predation on the local population. In later years, groups directly under the control of the US --and outside the ambit of the local army and police forces -- were armed, often with little checks and control resulting in more for violence against civilians. Finally, in order to meet an artificial timetable of ‘Afghan owned’ security, an Afghan army was built in a hurry despite obvious evidence of its weaknesses: the lack of adequate command and control structures, and inadequate training. Reports of high rates of recidivism, and drug addiction in the ranks were ignored in pursuit of the goal of filling the numbers. Over the years the Taliban regrouped and began to expand its footprint, enabled in some measure, by local discontent, access to safe spaces across the Pakistan border and the ‘live and let live’ deals struck in many areas.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/farewell-danish/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Farewell, Danish</a>, Navesh ChitrakarIn the past several years large parts of the country have been under the control of the Taliban or only nominally under the control of the government. In many areas, deals had been brokered for a holding pattern whereby neither side would engage in operations, thus leaving the local population the space to lead relatively peaceful lives. All of this was known to the US administration as it prepared to leave. What they had not counted on perhaps was the speed with which the government would fall. A more convenient gap would have allowed them to distance themselves from the disastrous political fallout a little better, and made their efforts to gas-light an entire country appear a little more tenable.As it is, the rapidity of events has left the emperor with no clothes, its usurpation of Afghan airspace to remove its own citizens while holding Afghan civilians at bay at gunpoint is now the last lingering image.What nextThe uncertainty that has come with the Taliban taking power is fearful, and the fears very real. But the truth is that no one yet knows what kind of governance will emerge under Taliban 2.0 Will women be allowed in the public space? Will they have to adopt diktats on a dress code that will force them back into burkha? Will independent media be allowed to function? Will the Taliban seek to replicate the image of the state that they created between 1996 and 2001 when they controlled almost the entire country? Will they, as they have stated publicly, respect the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/i-may-not-be-alive-by-the-time-i-am-evacuated/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">rights of women </a> ncluding their right to education? Already these rights are being caveated by talk of ‘within Islamic law’ which is open to wide interpretation. What will the Taliban attitude be towards the minorities, especially the Shi’a Hazara communities some of which were massacred when they were last in power? <figure><img width="480" height="640" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd7f9c7e80680e0a0be9jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>For a section of the media, ‘the terrorists have arrived’. And while the desperate images from the airport tell an important part of the story about the arrival of the Taliban in power they do not tell it in its entirety. Most Afghans did not want the return of the Taliban, but many urban, educated Afghans used to freedoms are staying on, deliberately and consciously, willing to consider and find ways and means of navigating the new realities. They are willing to unpick the issues and tackle them to try and create the space for living their lives, and all of us should be doing that too rather than treating Afghanistan and its people as a lost nation, or the situation as ‘game over’. The Americans have abandoned Afghanistan and the Afghans. It is time we in the region abandon the American approach towards Afghanistan as a nation to be lost or won, to be inducted into the empire of allies or rejected as an ‘enemy’ country.With the fall of the Afghan government and the takeover by the Taliban, much of the strategic discourse in the national media of the neighbouring countries has been an accounting of winners and losers, a zero-sum game that tallies the increasing influence of one country and the reduction of another’s. One popular narrative suggests that the return of the Taliban will lead to an Afghanistan-China-Pakistan nexus and that India has lost out.It might be more pertinent from the viewpoint of strategic policy to look not just at the convergence of interests but also at the divergences. China would like to see stability that will allow it economic engagement with Afghanistan. It has already invested heavily in the country’s mineral wealth and has been waiting to reap it. Neither China nor Russia would like to see unrest on their borders/near borders. China’s boundary with Afghanistan borders Xinjiang, and China has been critical of the way the US has withdrawn troops rather than happy about the exit of its strategic competitor. Russia has been deeply concerned about the problem of drugs flowing from Afghanistan, and even collaborated with the US in counternarcotics measures. Iran and Pakistan will both bear the brunt of the exodus of refugees from Afghanistan and while Pakistan has provided safe sanctuary to the Taliban, allowing them to grow in strength and capability from the safe havens, the Taliban in power in Afghanistan may make it more difficult to operate against their own home-grown terror networks. <figure><img width="1000" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd819c7e80680e0a0beajpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="1000" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd849c7e80680e0a0bebjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Until now, regional political power has been exercised at the behest of the Americans with countries it considers to be inimical kept out of the way. That template will have broken down with the American departure, and political change in Kabul. But a regional approach based on common interests, short, medium and long-term can be found only if the countries do not look for the zero-sum approach. And, what about all of us in the region? Can we leave it to our governments? ***Afghans and Afghanistan are us“We are not Americans,” the young Afghan man told me angrily, and, I thought, patronisingly. It was 2004 in Kabul and we were in the middle of a fierce debate on independence of media and women’s rights, the two issues which have come to the fore in the aftermath of the Taliban takeover of Kabul. The young man, R, was insistent that all this talk of rights was an American imposed program, alien to the culture of Afghanistan. “Nor am I American,” I answered, emphasising that my footprint was firmly in the region. My shift to a regional paradigm changed the tone of the conversation that day, and we were able to have a discussion based on substance rather than on stereotypes. I was to find this again and again as I navigated through the complex space of a country emerging from years of isolation, one, which seemed, then, to be on the brink of a more hopeful future. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepali-repatriation-from-kabul-starts/">Nepali repatriation from Kabul starts</a>, Nepali Times <figure><img width="1000" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd879c7e80680e0a0becjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>To me it seemed as though the complexities of the country and the opportunities, its strengths and its problems mirrored ours, different certainly in scale and acuteness but nonetheless familiar and tractable. The problems facing Afghan women had not disappeared with the removal of the Taliban. Some areas experienced much greater freedom, and some faced more problems. The most brutal interpretation of Sharia was gone, but it still took presidential diktat to save an Afghan from execution for perceived blasphemy. Over the eight years that I lived there, I also saw a growing erosion of support for women’s rights. An Afghan woman activist was denied appointment as a minister by the parliament because her work for safe houses for women was considered immoral. Women were still being incarcerated in Pul-e-Charkhi prison outside Kabul for the crime of running away from abusive homes. They were guilty since, as possessions of the family, they were considered to have committed a theft against their family by running away. Women ran radio stations and became TV anchors. In some places they were also forced to leave the radio stations they had joined as their voices on air were considered unbecoming by their families. The space which had opened up after the removal of the Taliban was full of possibilities. It was also full of struggle. It also felt familiar, the way it did in many parts of India where many women like me had many more rights than others did. It felt familiar the way it did in the villages of Haryana where I had reported from homes where Hindu women observed deep purdah as many Afghan women continued to do. In Kabul I wore the same head covering I had worn in many villages in India on my reporting trips and received some lectures from western women journalists on how I was supposed to show the way to Afghan women by discarding it. When some of the women’s rights started being eroded under the growing clout of the ultra-conservative militia leaders they had put in power, western diplomats started to talk about cultural relativity. I found myself asserting that I came from a similar culture but that the rights to life, liberty and safety were neither relative nor negotiable. The reigning narrative of the Taliban was one of oppression of religious minorities. Except that in the popular narrative it was oppression of non-Muslim minorities - the Hindus and Sikhs. What I found in Afghanistan was different. One of the first de rigueur interviews as an Indian journalist was with the leaders of the Sikh community in Kabul’s Karte Parwan area.  <figure><img width="500" height="668" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd8a9c7e80680e0a0bedjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The Sikh leader complained about the deterioration of security after the departure of the Taliban. They said their religious rights had not been impinged upon by the Taliban whose focus was on making Muslims observant of all the religious practices. I thought about that today when I heard the Indian government had decided to discriminate on religious grounds, and offered help only to the Hindus and Sikhs of Afghanistan. I thought about the outcry over independent media in Afghanistan today when I read about journalists in Srinagar being thrashed while reporting on the muharram procession.I knew about the outrage of the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. When I travelled to Bamiyan valley I also saw the areas where communities of Hazaras had been massacred around the same time, with much less international comment. I had gone to live in Afghanistan in 2003. In 2002 I had marched in the streets of Delhi and organised meetings after the state-assisted massacres of Muslims in Gujarat. I would not have been working in Afghanistan had the Taliban still been there and I could see the young Afghans I worked with and met amazed at the opportunities.They would show me their ID cards from the Taliban times, long bearded and morose, laughing at how much older they had looked then – but it also felt familiar, like the struggles of much of our region against femicide and infanticide, against horrific dowry deaths and religious discrimination, against the use of state power to brutal ends. It didn’t feel like another planet the way it seemed to do to some westerners. The truth is that long before the Americans abandoned Afghanistan, we in the region, had relinquished our claims to a shared kinship based on geography, history and culture, looking at the country as a mutation of our worst fears, and one can draw a line, perhaps not straight, but jagged, from there to what we see today. But now, perhaps, it is time. It is time we in the region not leave it to our governments, and to claim Afghanistan and Afghans as one of us.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/who-will-rescue-nepalis-from-afghanistan/"> Who will rescue Nepalis from Afghanistan?</a>Aunohita Mojumdar is a Southasian journalist. She lived and worked in Kabul for 8 years.

Afghanistan abandoned

<figure><img width="1914" height="1078" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd739c7e80680e0a0be5jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>TOLOnews female presenter Beheshta Arghand interviewing Taliban spokesperson Mawlawi Abdulhaq Hemad on 17 August. Photo: TOLONews</figcaption></figure>Steven Butler describes it as “mass panic.” As the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator has been fielding “hundreds and hundreds” of daily pleas from journalists asking for help to flee the country.Butler, along with CPJ Asia research associate Sonali Dhawan and the organisation’s Emergencies team, are now in the process of vetting those requests.Many Afghan journalists told CPJ they are too afraid to speak on the record. To get a picture of what’s happening on the ground, I spoke to Butler and Dhawan via video about what they have learned. Their interview has been edited for length and clarity.CPJ contacted Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid for comment via messaging app but received no response. CPJ also emailed the US State Department for comment but received no response; several calls to the US military failed to connect.When did CPJ begin getting requests for help from Afghan journalists?Butler: The requests for help from journalists who wanted to leave Afghanistan because they saw the Taliban coming started early this year. It was a trickle at the time and then it started to crescendo in July and increased by early August.We are getting hundreds and hundreds of requests for help every day now. Many of them are journalists and some of them are not journalists, they are just trying to find a way out. It has completely flooded our system. We are doing the best we can. We have four people working on analysing and looking into individual cases.We value our reputation for thorough documentation on everything we do and are applying our same standard to this — we are trying to document the cases as the best we can, because we are recommending them to the US government for emergency evacuation.What can you tell us about the <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=tAXPZ997p8VyLOXlEG5WpXOYJYccbznnQXx7atpHJ0Y9PHCkdDZJCw" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3DtAXPZ997p8VyLOXlEG5WpXOYJYccbznnQXx7atpHJ0Y9PHCkdDZJCw&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828623000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGCqxZ-wUJ8YMOcX2o7uKDtOES31w">chaotic scenes</a> at the airport and what it means for journalists?Butler: As of Tuesday the area has been secured and there is a perimeter. Anytime you have a military perimeter you have a problem, because there is an outside and there is an inside, and the outside is going to be controlled by the Taliban in one way or another, so the challenge has been to figure out how to get people through an insecure situation on the streets of Kabul, how to get them checked in through this military perimeter including additional checks by the U.S. military, and then get them on to flights. We have had people that have failed to get through.Why are Afghan journalists so desperate to leave?Butler: As the Taliban have extended their control over the provinces, we have seen them close down media outfits and <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=3fUbZQcSQYFqWpL-dwGEB-4MS14XqK8R6sw7iAugpFl_CbEaiXS6YQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3D3fUbZQcSQYFqWpL-dwGEB-4MS14XqK8R6sw7iAugpFl_CbEaiXS6YQ&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH3U94F5cWgjTNsQM6z8fSoaio6Tg">substitute their own personnel</a>. That hasn’t always led to people being killed or put in prison necessarily, but nonetheless journalists in Afghanistan are concerned that they are going to be pushed out of their profession — at the minimum. There are a number of very prominent journalists who have been harassed or chased by the Taliban and who have gone into hiding.What specific threats against journalists are you hearing about?Dhawan: Journalists who identify as women and ethnic minorities, specifically the Hazara, are at particular risk. The Hazara are an ethnic minority group who were <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=8nGSPAHFTNAWHtl_cNVp0Wa-r7pbWq-QxXfogE0UCQrF2RSlaPPrhA" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3D8nGSPAHFTNAWHtl_cNVp0Wa-r7pbWq-QxXfogE0UCQrF2RSlaPPrhA&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHqhW6Cirn_7bswdFN_VSBwiX3r5g">subject to mass killings</a> during the Taliban regime in the late 1990s. Journalists who have critically covered the Taliban are also terrified.I spoke to a journalist who was covering the Taliban takeover of a northern province — the Taliban came to his home after his reporting and they chased him out of the home. He ran away and they fired shots behind him and he managed to escape and get to Kabul. In the days after he escaped, he continued to receive calls that said, “We will find you.” Another prominent female journalist told me she received threatening calls in recent days from the Taliban that said, “Your time is over.”One other case that I want to highlight is the <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=lWRvPuQPHAoqNEAFyEtUoE88mQd6fvQj2SodOxze7cJIZrvXGVTtwQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3DlWRvPuQPHAoqNEAFyEtUoE88mQd6fvQj2SodOxze7cJIZrvXGVTtwQ&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEJ6eWfIffJYNj3zyqYdhc_iL5VZA">takeover</a> of the TOLO News compound, which is arguably the most prominent news channel in Afghanistan, a 24-hour channel that has covered a wide range of events and produced very critical coverage as part of this post-2001 media boom in Afghanistan.The Taliban have interestingly taken over the compound but are still allowing journalists to broadcast, and female journalists <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=2P3ZTjVgDO-LEkXCst0KZnzUc0h--kDD3PboiZx6h-dO7MriTtIB8A" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3D2P3ZTjVgDO-LEkXCst0KZnzUc0h--kDD3PboiZx6h-dO7MriTtIB8A&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNELg6vESSGc2YbiIVZ45Td__kwZyA">actually came back</a> on the air today. But we are seeing that a number of women and ethnic minority journalists are continuing to be threatened and the Taliban are showing up at their homes. <figure><img width="2186" height="1168" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd779c7e80680e0a0be6jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid addresses the first press conference in Kabul on 17 August following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. Photo: VOA News</figcaption></figure>What is the Taliban presence like at TOLO News? Butler: It looks like the Taliban have stationed armed people around the outside of the compound mainly. When they entered the premises [on August 16] they took away government issued weapons from <a href="https://tolonews.com/pa/afghanistan-174313" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TOLO</a> security but they allowed privately purchased weapons to remain.People who have watched the recent news broadcast say it is much toned down. The women are appearing with headscarves and more conservative dress. It is really unclear what is going to happen and why the Taliban have taken what seems to be a softer approach to TOLO compared to other radio or broadcast operations in the provinces.Are they trying to create a kind of appearance for the international community because TOLO is the best known? That is one possibility. Have they changed? They say they welcome press freedom and they are allowing women to operate in certain professional positions. I don’t think that people are taking what they say at face value. There is a lot of skepticism given the documented <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=Qm8S0bLLVJ7VWAdng49e6NWxgMgLeRu8YDifWhwF3EytCs8gDPhfBQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3DQm8S0bLLVJ7VWAdng49e6NWxgMgLeRu8YDifWhwF3EytCs8gDPhfBQ&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHgoIizaupuirfDUabrDxt4LdLRDg">history of brutality</a> by the Taliban.What specifically did the Taliban say about press freedom?Dhawan: The Taliban spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=GTQHMjGHuQmSkAGZG2mdL8hgbEKDt4Najm_LKtnaY6TDn_wbiLITRw" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3DGTQHMjGHuQmSkAGZG2mdL8hgbEKDt4Najm_LKtnaY6TDn_wbiLITRw&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFbY5li5mrgvjiJPdjQ-a5i3T2YNQ">conducted a press conference</a> and it really goes to show how brave Afghan journalists are because they were asking really tough questions, particularly about women in the country.He said the Taliban will allow all media outlets to continue their activities on three conditions, the first being there should be no broadcast that will contradict Islamic values, the second that they should be impartial, the third that no one should broadcast anything against the national interest. What we are seeing on the public platform is not matching the realities on the ground, because several radio stations in provinces, newspapers, and news outlets have <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=4Iz0EHIu5_DpwD3wuGtdDC-JY9cff80wRXnyIURB4EOTpk1LlP7ZbA" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3D4Iz0EHIu5_DpwD3wuGtdDC-JY9cff80wRXnyIURB4EOTpk1LlP7ZbA&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFhf6nM1WfeS3vuyfaHKJPHmVUVLQ">shut down amid fighting</a> as the Taliban took over.What is the Taliban trying to convey with these comments about press freedom?Butler: I would look on it pessimistically. Governments use this kind of double talk all over the region and all over the world to find ways to restrict what journalists do. It could well be that the Taliban have seen what other countries are doing in terms of rhetoric and are imitating it.It is a fact that democracy and press freedom are values that are universally spoken about but only rarely fully embraced. I think that we may see that pattern repeat itself in Afghanistan. Hopefully not. Hopefully they actually believe what they are saying, but we will have to see.You mentioned that female journalists are at particular risk. What else are you hearing from women?Dhawan: Most of the female journalists I have spoken to are absolutely terrified and have left their homes and gone into hiding somewhere. This is because there are several local reports of women journalists who have had their homes searched or the Taliban have showed up at their homes. And that is a particularly traumatising experience.A lot of women journalists who work in the fields of arts and culture or education are equally terrified. I know of several women journalists that work in these fields and are actively receiving threats from the Taliban. The Taliban did show up at the home of one very prominent journalist and said they would come back to her home and are looking for her.What other journalistic beats could draw the attention of the Taliban?Butler: Journalists have a history of their own work that lives on social media. I have been told that many journalists are now trying to scrub their social media profiles and deleting articles to try to hide that past. It is hard to say going forward what are going to be the sensitive issues, but journalists who were highly critical of the Taliban in the past could face a kind of reckoning.There’s a journalist I have been in touch with quite a lot. He and his wife were able to get out. But they are desperate now to get their families out. They say that the Taliban is going to go after their families because of their highly critical reporting on the Taliban in the past. I don’t know if that is going to be the case. I hope it is not. But they are convinced that their families will be killed.You described a “media boom” in Afghanistan after 2001. Can you say more about what is at risk of being lost at this moment?Dhawan: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/call-to-evacuate-afghan-journalists/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Afghan journalists</a> have done incredibly thoughtful and diligent work over the past 20 years to build a thriving press. They have braved the dangers of a military occupation, the presence of militant groups in the country and they have reported critically during these extremely dangerous times.The precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan has led to a complete collapse of the government and security forces, leaving journalists at severe risk of violence. There are simply no avenues for journalists to seek protection from authorities and they are essentially relying on their own community, their neighbours, and family members for protection at this point.As much as there is a need for journalists to get out of the country and CPJ is doing its best to do that work, journalists who want to remain in the country must be allowed to freely report on the extent of a humanitarian crisis that is about to occur.Butler: The international community totally failed to create a stable democracy, but they did succeed in creating a thriving press. There was a lot of money – US government money, USAID, private foundation money — to support and get these operations going because of course a free press is the absolute foundation of democracy. It stuck.We had a <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=C3l9uYxO5cc-ndmCYIfcz__Str-VhI1hJJ1tFo1n3uKsDH6ZjkofdQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3DC3l9uYxO5cc-ndmCYIfcz__Str-VhI1hJJ1tFo1n3uKsDH6ZjkofdQ&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629510828624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGQBEOeZRNkd6kUMGfd-GWYKvqQQQ">case</a> a couple of weeks ago of people being forced into an interview with a Taliban local commander and made to promise that they would broadcast the interview. They came back and refused to do it because it wasn’t good journalism just to broadcast one side, so they went into hiding in Kabul.They got some of the lessons of what good journalism consists of and if you look at TOLO News, all these news outlets, a lot of it is quality journalism. And, of course, the international press relied heavily on local journalists. This is really a remarkable achievement and it would be a terrible shame for it to disappear completely. It would be wonderful for some of that spirit of press freedom and quality journalism and reporting to live on even if the previous government, the collapsed government of Afghanistan, no longer exists.Is there anything else that has struck you from this past week that you’d like to share?Dhawan: I was in contact with a journalist who is being actively threatened by the Taliban. She has been messaging me every day, afraid for her life. She is sheltered in a hotel right now and I told her we are working with the U.S. government to evacuate her and will continue to provide updates about her case as soon as we receive them. She said, “I may not be alive by that time.”Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/afghanistan-abandoned/"> Afganisthan abandoned</a>, Aunohita MojumdarNaomi Zeveloff is Features Editor at Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). This interview is reprinted from Inter Press Service.

“I may not be alive by the time I am evacuated”

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd5b9c7e80680e0a0bddjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2058" height="1514"/><figcaption>The 2nd Battalion 5th Gurkha Rifles at Ahnai Tangi in Waziristan on 14 January 1920 as part of Britain's 'Third Afghan War'. Painting by Fred Roe at the National Army Museum.</figcaption></figure>Even though Nepal and Afghanistan are separated geographically, Nepali and Pashtun warriors have met face-to-face over more than 200 years. While the Pashtun were in their home territory, the Nepalis were fronting for others, and now with the Taliban’s second-time total victory in Afghanistan, new dynamics will have to evolve.As current chair of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), Nepal must take the lead in, on the one hand, helping the world accept the fait accompli of the Taliban victory, while on the other get the didactic, xenophobic Taliban to accept the values of pluralism and multilateralism. As a country which holds these values dear, Nepal should reach out of its own cocoon to do what it can.The history of Afghan-Nepal relations goes back two centuries, with what the British colonisers called the ‘First Afghan War’ and continued through the ‘Third Afghan War’ against the Pashtun in 1919.  These were Britain’s wars in Afghanistan, and the Nepalis who joined at various times were straight-off mercenaries, parts of the British Gurkhas, and even the national Nepali army. Most recently, British Gurkhas were fielded as part of the ISAF/NATO force, or were recruited by western military contractors to guard Western bases and embassies.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd5e9c7e80680e0a0bdejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="751">The Army of the IndusNepal is situated in the mid-Himalaya, while Afghanistan sits astride the Pamir and Hindu Kush, 2,000km away. Even at its height, the expansionist Gorkha Empire could not go beyond the Sutlej River. But these are the only two countries in South Asia that fought off colonialism. Afghans are known for their fierce resistance to foreign hegemony, as were Nepalis, but Afghanistan has nevertheless been serving continuously as a ‘fighting field’ for outsiders, while at best Nepal has been a ‘playing field’.Historically, there were indirect links between the central Himalaya and the Hindu Kush/Pamir: from the ancient Aryans down to the Moghuls, it was through the Khyber Pass and other northwestern passages that migrations and conquests of the Indus-Ganges plains occurred. Afghanistan stretched outside the country’s modern boundary, and included the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa region of present-day Pakistan.It was the colonial British that separated the Pashtun people with a new boundary called the ‘Durand Line’. This forced demarcation has relevance today because, while Afghanistan is ethnically diverse with Kyrgyz, Baloch, Hazara, Uzbek and other communities, the Taliban leadership and rank-and-file are dominated by Pashtuns.Even though Afghanistan and Nepal were spared colonial rule, Afghanistan suffered much more foreign interference than Nepal. Located between Czarist Russia, Central Asia and the British Empire and with Persia to the west, Afghanistan was (and remains) a strategic prize. Nepal, on the other hand, was protected by malarial jungles to the south and the world’s highest mountains to the north, and neighbouring powers found it more advantageous to maintain it as a buffer state.When the Gorkha Empire felt threatened by the East India Company in the mid-1700s, it sent feelers for help to the Maratha and Sikh kings. Though probable, we do not have historical evidence to indicate that Kathmandu also appealed to the rulers in Kabul.Meanwhile, even before the end of the Anglo-Nepal war of 1814-1816, some Nepali soldiers had already gone over to the British side, marking the beginnings of the ‘Gurkha’ brigades. After the bloody defeat at Nalapani, the Gorkhali general Bal Bhadra Kunwar escaped to join the forces of Sikh king Ranjit Singh in Lahore. The Nepali word लाहुरे for soldiers and workers who go abroad is derived from the name of this city.We do not know what happened to the other Gorkhali troops who went with him, but Bal Bhadra himself was killed in battle when the Sikhs were fighting the Pasthuns in Naushera, which was then Afghan territory.There are other indirect Afghan influences in Nepal. The words रुपियाँ and अशर्फी were introduced in India by Sher Shah Suri, who became ruler of Mughlan after briefly ousting emperor Humayun from Delhi. The terms percolated up to Nepal. Although Sher Shah was born in Bihar state bordering Nepal, his ancestral village was Sur in the Sulaiman Range, within Afghan territory.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd619c7e80680e0a0bdfjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="945"></figure>British forces together with Nepali soldiers of the 'Army of the Indus' entering the Bolan Pass en route from Quetta to Afghanistan in 1839. The campaign ended in a bloody disaster. Engraved by Louis and Charles Haghe.Nepalis and Pashtuns came into more direct contact during the East India Company’s Afghan Campaign of 1839-42 when an ‘Army of the Indus’ was assembled to invade Afghanistan. This was part of the Great Game, when British India felt it had to contain the expansion of Czarist Russia. Thousands of troops from the early ‘Gurkha’ units were deployed on the Afghan front, and as was the practice in those days, the soldiers were accompanied by camp followers which included their wives and children.The ‘Army of the Indus’ was routed, and legend has it that only one British officer straggled out to Peshawar, though there would have been a few more. There is no count of how many Nepalis were cut down with swords in Herat, Ghazni and Kabul, or those who froze to death in the dreadful Afghan winter. Many women and children would have been enslaved by Afghan warlords.North of Kabul in Charikar Fort, hundreds Gorkhali fighters were under siege for months, with the water source blocked. When the Gorkhalis tried to break out, most were killed, except a sipahi named Motiram who managed a dangerous and arduous trek down to his cantonment in the Punjab plains to tell the tale.Najibullah to GhaniThroughout the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/who-will-rescue-nepalis-from-afghanistan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepalis kept going back to Afghanistan</a> – to fight. Gurkha soldiers assigned to the Durand Line engaged in frequent skirmishes with Pashtun fighters. And in 1919, while other Nepali soldiers were returning home from Belgium, France and Gallipoli, soldiers of the Nepal Army were sent to Afghanistan by Prime Minister Chandra Shumshere Rana to help the British counter a rebellion in Waziristan. Those troops for the ‘Third Afghan War’ were led by Gen Babar Sumshere.In the modern era, the people of Afghanistan suffered as super-powers muscled their way in. In 1974, Afghan king Zahir Shah was overthrown, and at the end of the Mujahideen war that followed against Soviet occupation, President Najibullah was dragged out of the UN compound where he had sought refuge, tortured and hung at the gates of Kabul in 1996 by the Taliban.Unable to face the resistance of Afghan guerrillas, the Soviet Union withdrew in 1989 and cast off Najibullah in 1991, just as the Americans abandoned Ashraf Ghani in 2021. During this whole time, Afghan polity was decimated as a result of interference by the Soviets, the Americans after 9/11, NATO forces, Pakistanis and Saudis, who together spent trillions of dollars.While all that money landed up at the hands of the Afghan elite and warlords, ordinary Afghans died and suffered. Millions became refugees in Iran and Pakistan, and more refugees are streaming out as this is written – the desperation is seen in Afghan men trying to attach themselves to C-17s on the runway at Kabul Airport this week.The irony of it all was that some of the descendants of the Gorkhali troops who fought in Helmand and Kabul nearly 200 years ago were back as part of the Gurkha units in the British deployment in the same places as a part of NATO’s ISAF mission. The blood and sweat they sacrificed seems to have been in vain, as President Ashraf Ghani flew out of Kabul on 15 August. Ghani said he wished to prevent bloodshed, and would doubtless have also feared meeting the same fate as Najibullah. But all this seems to have been part of a larger withdrawal deal worked out between the Americans and the Taliban in talks in Doha.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd649c7e80680e0a0be0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1474" height="816"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>One of the consultants that the World Bank brought to Nepal in 2006 to advise leaders here about post-conflict rehabilitation was <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=13470#.YRvjiS1w3OQ" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D13470%23.YRvjiS1w3OQ&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629372271640000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHeMUVxCU735OL-66D-E9bbRhVIQw">Ashraf Ghani himself. </a>The author of the book he co-wrote with Clare Lockhart, Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World, Ghani wrote in one of his columns for Nepali Times then: ‘Surely the people of Nepal deserve leadership from their politicians to ensure that Nepal embarks upon a path towards a new future. A new future is no longer a dream, it has become possible.’Nepal has not been brutalised and ravaged by a series of proxy wars like Afghanistan has for the past four decades. It did suffer the violent 10-year internal conflict, but the peace process took hold, and the country held two elections to a Constituent Assembly that wrote the new Constitution. Afghanistan’s violence, the killing of innocents and religion-laced extremism, have been at a whole different level.If it was soldiers that Nepal used to send to Afghanistan in the past two centuries, in the last two decades it was Nepali development experts, gender and media consultants and governance advisers who went to Kabul on behalf of the UN or other partners. And then there are the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepali-repatriation-from-kabul-starts/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">estimated 15,000 security guards</a> protecting various embassies, hotels, bases and installations in Kabul. Nepali were attracted to dangerous work in Afghanistan because it paid much better, even though they were often hired as guards of the Western soldiers.While some Nepalis are starting to return on repatriation flights this week, there are many stranded in Kabul and fearful about their future. The Nepal government must proactively establish contact with the new regime in Afghanistan in order to ensure the safety of its citizens there. It is also hoped that the soft language emanating from the Taliban victors, about allowing safe passage to all who seek to exit, reflects a genuine commitment.Nepal is currently chair of SAARC, and it could use its tenure to bring Afghanistan back into the South Asian fold even as the Taliban go about establishing themselves. Kathmandu must strive to establish bilateral relations, while remaining outside sphere of Indian, Chinese, Pakistani, Saudi or Western interests there.China and Russia have already made their moves to establish relations with the Taliban government. New Delhi has been stung by Ashraf Ghani’s downfall, given their steadfast support for him, while there seems to be some rejoicing in Islamabad. If Nepal takes a proactive diplomatic approach (in a manner that would be wholly new to it) Kathmandu could use its bilateral relations to usher a new era of peace in the region. For Nepal as a country that has been so insular in past two decades, that may seem a tall order, but some self-confidence in foreign policy can make it happen.The immediate priority of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, however, is to ensure the security and repatriation<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepali-repatriation-from-kabul-starts/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </a>of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/bring-us-home-says-nepali-in-kabul/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepalis presently in Kabul</a> and across Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Nepali civil society members must reach out to their counterparts in Afghanistan and offer safe haven should it be required.While the Taliban spokesman has said all are safe, there is no saying when Afghan <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/call-to-evacuate-afghan-journalists/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">journalists,</a> gender and human rights activists may not need support and refuge. Afghanistan is the only country in South Asia whose nationals must get a visa to come to Nepal. In the name of South Asian solidarity, ‘visa on arrival’ should now also be available for Afghan citizens.The Taliban has been using Sharia law to justify its extreme form of patriarchy to prevent women and girls from equal rights, agency and education. It has also been violently suppressing minorities like the Shi’a and Hazara. The group that blew up the historical statue of the Buddha in Bamiyan in 2001 is now ruling Afghanistan, and there are genuine fears that the Taliban will return to its old ways.The fact that the Taliban is in control in Kabul is a fait accompli. Nepal must accept this and, while working to extricate its citizens from Afghanistan, must help Kabul rejoin the South Asian sphere.

Nepal and the Taliban’s second coming

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141128/636cfd419c7e80680e0a0bd4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1440" height="960"/><figcaption>118 Nepalis arrived in Kathmandu from Afghanistan via Kabul on Tuesday.</figcaption></figure>Although Nepali security guards at Western embassies in Kabul have been evacuated and some have arrived in Kathmandu, there are <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/call-to-evacuate-afghan-journalists/">thousands of others</a> who are stranded in Afghanistan and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/bring-us-home-says-nepali-in-kabul/">fearful about their future.</a>Of the over 500 Nepali security guards employed by a private defence contractor to protect the US, German, UK and EU embassies in Kabul, 118 guarding American facilities arrived in Kathmandu on Tuesday via Kuwait.‘The US government has facilitated the departure of all Nepali Gurkhas who worked at the US Embassy in Afghanistan,” US Ambassador to Nepal Randy Berry tweeted. ‘We are grateful for their bravery and service.’However, there are said to be hundreds of other Nepalis guarding other embassies who are awaiting for flights out. The British Embassy is still operational and the ambassador is still in Kabul, although not in the Embassy itself. All Nepalis working for the British Embassy have now been evacuated. There are several hundred Nepalis employed by the United Nations and its field offices across Afghanistan.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141128/636cfd449c7e80680e0a0bd5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2010" height="1488"><figcaption>Manuel Micaller, deputy chief of mission US Embassy Kathmandu, welcoming the first batch of 118 Nepali security guards who were protecting the US Embassy in Kabul at Kathmandu airport on Tuesday. Photo: US Embassy</figcaption></figure>Nepal’s embassy in New Delhi has been trying to coordinate the repatriation of Nepalis, and the concern now is about the thousands of Nepalis who are not guarding western embassies, those who are outside Kabul, and undocumented workers. Collecting them in safe places in Kabul and arranging the dozens of flights needed to bring them out would be a challenge.The task is made more difficult because of the lack of a Nepali embassy in Kabul, and the embassy in Islamabad not being accredited to Afghanistan. A land evacuation through Pakistan would be possible, but would need careful coordination between the foreign ministry in Kathmandu, embassies in Islamabad and New Delhi.“Not having an embassy on the ground makes things more difficult,” says foreign policy expert Rajan Bhattarai. “Our embassy in Delhi needs to be in close touch with the embassy in Pakistan and other western governments. They have to use all means possible, including personal contacts.”Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s government is embroiled in coalition politics, and there has been no designated foreign minister for the past month. However, Foreign Secretary Bharat Raj Paudyal, who used to be Nepal’s ambassador to Pakistan, was handling Afghanistan and is familiar with Kabul.The chief of the Central, West Asia and Africa Section of the Foreign Ministry Harish Chandra Ghimire is heading a special task force to arrange repatriation flights in coordination with embassies, the UN and foreign governments.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141128/636cfd489c7e80680e0a0bd6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="384" height="462">Kabul airport is still closed for commercial flights, so any repatriation has to be done in coordination with military evacuation of countries in whose embassies the Nepalis are stationed. For the others, Nepal will either have to send special flights, or arrange for repatriation via Pakistan. But the government does not even have accurate figures for the exact numbers involved.According to the Department of Foreign Employment, more than 10,000 Nepalis obtained labour permits to work in Afghanistan in the past six years, and 2,122 of them were issued just in the last two years. Some of the Nepalis have returned, others had renewed their contracts and recently returned to Afghanistan. However, there are said to be at least 5,000 more Nepalis, mostly working as security guards in hotels, banks and other institutions in Kabul and major cities.However, one of the Nepali security guards guarding the US Embassy who arrived in Kathmandu on Tuesday told Nepali Times the security situation in Kabul was not as bad as portrayed in the media with the videos of the airport chaos, and that Nepalis there were in no imminent danger.“Foreign workers are safe in Kabul, in fact the Taliban have promised that they will ensure the safety of foreign workers in future when the situation returns to normal, they might call them back,” said 41-year-old Prakash Shrestha of Lamjung.A Nepal Airlines jet has been chartered for next week by a Dubai-based recruiter to bring back 70 Nepali workers, but that would just be a small fraction of those in Afghanistan.“There are at least 15,000 Nepalis in Afghanistan who have gone there either through legal channels or are undocumented,” estimates Sujit Shrestha of the Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies (NAFEA).<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141128/636cfd4b9c7e80680e0a0bd7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="750" height="500"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141128/636cfd4d9c7e80680e0a0bd8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="413"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd509c7e80680e0a0bd9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427"><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141132/636cfd549c7e80680e0a0bdajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="640"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>He explains that Nepali workers in Afghanistan fall in three main categories: ex-soldiers who have been hired long-term officially by private military contractors mainly to guard embassies in Kabul, another 4-5,000 Nepalis who work as security guards who have gone to Afghanistan on their own via Dubai or Delhi, and three there are Nepalis who work in hotels and offices as support staff.“It is the second and third categories who are most at risk,” Shrestha says, who adds that there could be up to 400 Nepalis who are undocumented.The Nepal Embassy in Delhi has asked all Nepalis still in Kabul to fill out online forms with contact details. There are said to be at least 450 Nepali security guards waiting for flights in a special section of Kabul airport.Even before Kabul fell to the Taliban, 260 Nepalis employed by the private defence contractor Forca and 150 with Eagle had been repatriated to Nepal.A Nepali in Kabul who did not want to be identified because he is undocumented told Nepali Times by phone: “We hear the Nepal government is trying to get Nepalis back. We are waiting for information. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/who-will-rescue-nepalis-from-afghanistan/">Our only hope is our own government.</a>” He is hiding in a room in the city with three other Nepalis.

Nepali repatriation from Kabul starts

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141128/636cfd3a9c7e80680e0a0bd2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1800" height="1200"/><figcaption>A Taliban fighter stands guard at the main gate leading to the Afghan presidential palace. Photo: Associated Press/ Rahmat Gul</figcaption></figure>The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and other media freedom organisations have called on the United States to do more to protect Afghan journalists as the county falls under the control of the Taliban.The New York-based CPJ said the US should provide emergency visas and facilitate the evacuation of the journalists. It said there was deep concern for the safety of hundreds of local journalists, interpreters, fixers and media workers who could be targeted by the Taliban.“The United States has a special responsibility to Afghan journalists who created a thriving and vibrant information space and covered events in their country for international media,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. “The Biden administration can and should do all within its power to protect press freedom and stand up for the rights of the vulnerable Afghan reporters, photographers, and media workers.”CPJ says it has a list of nearly 300 journalists it has confirmed are in danger, and hundreds more whose situation it is studying. But because of the chaos at Kabul airport, which is closed for commercial flights due to security reasons, only a few of the journalists have been able to get out in the past two days.‘The vast majority of threatened journalists remain in hiding,’ CPJ said in the statement.Among them are Afghan journalists working for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. A<a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=1muhBXIcn2A5dEcL8E6CHaDbkMWQmaKfpfZwhmhrrRqkMmd0ANDkAw" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3D1muhBXIcn2A5dEcL8E6CHaDbkMWQmaKfpfZwhmhrrRqkMmd0ANDkAw&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629252028315000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHXVFEXl9eKgbtYSRwJCrw8FCaZ7A"> joint statement</a> the three newspapers sent to President Biden called on him to guarantee safe passage out of the country for them.“The international community’s understanding of what is happening in Afghanistan will depend on the survival of what was once a thriving independent press, even if much of the reporting takes place from exile,” Simon said.Of the 300 journalists on its list, CPJ says there are 45 high priority cases of Afghan journalists in which the threat from the Taliban is clear and imminent. Many are said to be female journalists whose record of reporting on women’s rights has increased their risk.CPJ says the list does not take into account family members who are facing danger, and it says it has received 475 email requests for assistance which it is reviewing. CPJ has passed on information about the journalists at risk to the US and other governments willing to evacuate or accept journalists.At least <a href="http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i=vqh-a_GFGSmVxYXDZpatUrEOXqiMdCEqbNeaFQ2NHEbj37G8gSHMXw" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://support.cpj.org/site/R?i%3Dvqh-a_GFGSmVxYXDZpatUrEOXqiMdCEqbNeaFQ2NHEbj37G8gSHMXw&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629252028315000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHhO1jyFwswtJaAgwb03nMIDBBmuQ">53 journalists have been killed since 2001</a>, and five were killed last year alone. CPJ says it has been getting requests for help from Afghan journalists since the start of 2021, and increased as the Taliban moved in as the US and NATO withdrew.Read Also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/bring-us-home-says-nepali-in-kabul/">"Bring us home", says Nepali in Kabul</a><a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/who-will-rescue-nepalis-from-afghanistan/">Who will rescue Nepalis from Afghanistan?</a>

Call to evacuate Afghan journalists

<figure><img width="1804" height="1310" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141128/636cfd269c7e80680e0a0bcbjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Ex-Nepal Army soldier Dhan Singh Dhami worked for a US defence contractor guarding the American Embassy in Kabul and assisted NATO forces in Helmand Province from 2004-2015. As the Taliban advances in Kabul, many other Nepalis in Afghanistan are at risk. Photo: NEPALI TIMES ARCHIVE</figcaption></figure>As the Taliban closes in on Kabul, international media attention on the rescue of Western diplomats has overshadowed the plight of thousands of international contract workers, including Nepalis, stranded there.There is no exact count of how many Nepalis workers there are in the war-torn country, but figures range from 2,000 to 15,000. The Nepal Embassy in New Delhi, which is also accredited to Afghanistan, says it is in touch with Nepalis there but seems to be laying its bets on Indian rescue flights.If flights are not possible, the only way out would be to negotiate a safe passage out for Nepalis through Pakistan. This will need coordination with the Pakistan government though the Nepal embassy in Islamabad. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/they-fail-we-fall/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">has not been able to expand his cabinet</a> even a month after his coalition government came to power, and there is no foreign minister. Preoccupied with politics and fighting the pandemic, the government has left the Nepalis in Afghanistan to their own devices.The opposition RPP is the only party so far that has called on the government to bring back Nepalis from Kabul. In a joint statement, the party’s leaders Kamal Thapa, Pashupati SJB Rana and Prakash Lohani on Sunday demanded that the government ‘ensure the safe return’ of Nepalis in Afghanistan.The end-game in Afghanistan has also coincided with Gurkha veterans in the British Army on hunger strike in London demanding equal pension with US soldiers. The RPP statement also expressed ‘solidarity with their struggle’.Besides Nepalis in the British Army who used to be deployed in Helmand and other provinces and were withdrawn, there are still many retired Nepali veterans from the British and Indian Armies, Singapore Police, as well as Nepal Army and Police who worked as <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/canada-settlement-with-families-of-nepali-guards/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">security guards for private defence contractors</a>.They worked as security guards for US and British defence contractors based in Kabul, Bagram Air Base, Kandahar and other military installations. While some third country workers left as the US withdrew from Bagram and other bases last month, there were still many Nepalis guarding Western embassies in Kabul. American and British troops arrived in Kabul this weekend to evacuate their diplomats and nationals, but the contract workers will have to find their own way out on very limited flights.Some Nepalis working for private contractors who managed to get out on some of the last flights are now stranded in Dubai, and cannot get home because of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/how-nepal-must-prepare-for-3rd-covid-wave/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Covid-19</a> restrictions in the UAE. <img width="640" height="751" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141128/636cfd299c7e80680e0a0bccjpeg.jpg" alt="">Many of the Nepalis worked for logistics companies like the Texas-Based Fluor or Turkish sub-contractors, while security guards were hired by the American private security firm DynCorp International, or the UK-based Aegis Defence.Aegis alone used to have more than 1,000 Nepalis on contract in Afghanistan before the latest Taliban offensive. Besides working as security guards, military escort and in demining operations, Nepalis have also been hired as construction workers, cooks, cleaners and as support staff. Many of the Nepalis who have managed to get out are said to be ready to be recruited again to go to other dangerous countries like Iraq. In 2004, 12 Nepalis working for a private contractor in Baghdad were massacred in cold blood by extremists, prompting the Nepal government to ban Nepalis from going to that country.Again, after the death of <a href="http://www.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2016/06/23/lives-of-our-brothers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2016/06/23/lives-of-our-brothers/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629113964967000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFo-y7ikyGPJ_LXBEsZqeaMUNgKEQ">13 Nepalis</a> guarding the Canadian Embassy in a <a href="http://www.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2016/06/20/kabul-attack-condemned/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2016/06/20/kabul-attack-condemned/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629113964967000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH3EX-wbri9zWNVZoysmf-N3m7rkA">terrorist attack in Kabul</a> in June 2016, the Nepal government had banned nationals from going to Afghanistan.However, a government fact-finding team visited Afghanistan later that year to assess the danger, and the Labour Ministry later lifted the ban and recommended measures, including approval of work contracts that included safety provisions. <figure><img width="2020" height="1208" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141128/636cfd2c9c7e80680e0a0bcdjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Nepal Embassy in New Delhi on Sunday 15 August released security advisory for Nepalis in Afghanistan.</figcaption></figure>Legally, Nepalis and other foreign workers in war zones like Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya fall between the cracks. The US and Britain get to lessen exposure to their own troops by hiring nationals from other countries through private contractors for much less money and fewer facilities. There is also no legal obligation during emergencies like this.The Nepali guards at the Canadian Embassy in Kabul in 2016, for example, were hired by Sabre International, a private contractor. Families of the security guards <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepali-guards-sue-canada-government/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepali-guards-sue-canada-government/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629113964967000&amp;usg=AFQjCNF_vbyXjkznQcgethYi-VAXg_lldg">sued the Canadian government </a>in 2018, and finally <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/canada-settlement-with-families-of-nepali-guards/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/canada-settlement-with-families-of-nepali-guards/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629113964967000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE8GgyoW7SKOcucIKsvMUT19KI1fw">reached a settlement</a> verdict on compensation at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto last year. Five of the Nepali soldiers wounded in the attack and 13 widows of those killed were awarded a total of $20.4 million in compensation. <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/guarding-guards-afghanitan,3370" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/guarding-guards-afghanitan,3370&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629113964967000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEVDrjU4r49vZyjGUrngw5_Cig9ZA">The guards were killed</a> when a lone suicide bomber blew up the unarmoured bus taking them to the Canadian embassy for their duty.After the attack Sabre International terminated its contract with the Canadian embassy, and shut down operations. Representing the Nepali plaintiffs, Canadian lawyer Joe Fiorante had told CBC: “These men died in the service of our country and have basically been cast aside…They were abandoned by our government and we thought that was dishonourable and frankly unacceptable.” The American and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, has now left Nepalis and other nationals working for them in a similar predicament. Although a Taliban offensive was expected, what has shocked many is the speed at which the US-trained, equipped, and funded Afghan security forces have either surrendered or been defeated. There are no accurate figures for the number of foreign contract workers still in Afghanistan, but many had been leaving, and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction put the number at 7,000. It is not clear how many are still there. However, besides registered Nepalis there are also said to be many other undocumented workers of which neither the government in Nepal nor the embassy in New Delhi have exact figures. Many have been <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15312#.YRjkLy1w3OQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D15312%23.YRjkLy1w3OQ&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629113964967000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGop6Gp8JOg2gil_DovcJlzScCJJw">cheated by their recruiters</a>, and are stranded there.“Everyone has been so focused on the U.S. troops, and also the Afghans, interpreters and others who could face revenge killings by a resurgent Taliban," said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch to <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-08-10/contractors-who-powered-u-s-war-in-afghanistan-stuck-in-dubai" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-08-10/contractors-who-powered-u-s-war-in-afghanistan-stuck-in-dubai&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1629113964967000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG_gLNys429Cdv8JTQb-_aJrNvBlA">Los Angeles Times. </a>“About the stranded foreign workers, the Biden administration can say, well, their companies and their governments should have moved heaven and earth to get them home.”Meanwhile, <a href="http://s.ca/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Globalnews.ca</a> reported that Canada had not approved the evacuation of 100 Nepali guards from its embassy in Kabul, even after its other staff were flown out.

Who will rescue Nepalis from Afghanistan?

One smoggy winter morning in February 2019, Ekta regretted coming to her sculpture class. It was the first day of her period, and the 19-year-old wished she was home, curled up in bed with a hot water bag to soothe her cramps.
Her class was at Kalapremi Ceramic Studio, a dark room on the ground floor of a house in Maharajganj, and Ekta’s teacher was the artist Gopal Das Shrestha ‘Kalapremi’, a noted sculptor.
Two other students were already there, using all their muscle strength to knead the sculpting clay. Ekta, now 24, recalls how Kalapremi asked her if she was feeling all right. She avoided him, as she did not want everyone to know she was menstruating.
Kalapremi repeatedly asked Ekta what was wrong. She finally muttered that she was having her period, after which he grabbed her hand and led her to a partitioned corner of the studio and sat her on a chair. Before she could stop him, he slid his hand under her dress, and started massaging her abdomen.
“I was horrified,” Ekta recalls. “I told him to stop, but he didn’t listen, asking me not to be shy, saying he knew how to relieve my pain. He stopped only after I protested furiously.”&nbsp;
The art tutor then said, “You’re like my daughter. I’m doing it out of love to make you feel better, but you’re so stubborn.”&nbsp;
“Instead of saying sorry he acted like I was the one having crazy thoughts,” remembers Ekta, adding that from April 2016 to August 2020 beginning the time she was 16, the artist sexually abused and harassed her on several occasions. &nbsp;
Now, Ekta and the artist’s other former students are finally sharing their experiences and some are pressing legal charges against him, hoping that others do not have to endure what they did.&nbsp;
Award-winning artist and teacher Gopal Das Shrestha ‘Kalapremi’ (the name means ‘Art Lover’) is known for his ceramic art, sculpture, and contemporary pottery. He was <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-house-of-kalapremi">profiled in Nepali Times after a collaborative exhibition</a>, ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ at the Siddhartha Art Gallery three years ago.&nbsp;
His pieces, titled Gaalis, featured sculpted female figures with the heads of dogs, sheep, and donkeys (pictured) to depict derogatory terms for women. Some critics said the collection was a satire on feminists.
Kalapremi started his artistic and teaching career in 1983 and over the years taught at Bhanubhakta School, Kathmandu University School of Arts, Lalitkala Campus and at his private Kalapremi Ceramic Studio. He has also lectured at Jeonju University in South Korea and recently at Tabor Academy in the United States.
Seven of Kalapremi’s former students were interviewed for this story. Five female students said he touched them inappropriately in his studio or at Kathmandu University. Two male students said they witnessed him abuse and harass the women. In all cases, the students struggled to recognise the abuse when it occurred, and the lack of reporting systems left them to cope on their own for years.&nbsp;
Earlier this year, students shared a social media post hinting at Kalapremi’s history of abusive behaviour following which more students of the artist reached out sharing similar experiences. Some students spoke of abuse that happened as long as 20 years ago.
Kalapremi, 60, has denied the allegations. He told Nepali Times: “Some years ago, there was a movement encouraging people to hug and kiss. I used to do it purely out of friendship and love. But after seeing posts on social media last year calling out my behaviour, I realised my actions may have hurt some people. I understand now that I should have been more mindful.”
He added: “I am also an auxiliary health worker, so I know the exact points to massage to relieve menstrual pain. It’s not just menstruation, I take anyone who is ill to the hospital.”
Sexual abuse is much more rampant than reported given how difficult it is to prove it in court. The law defines sexual abuse as occuring when someone touches another’s private parts, coerces them into touching theirs, uses vulgar language, shows degrading images, or behaves indecently towards them without consent.&nbsp;
Ekta and her fellow students are consulting lawyer Suneeta Regmi Pokhrel, who says they know that even if the court decides in their favour, it is difficult to survive after speaking up, and influential men defend themselves saying they are being framed.&nbsp;
“They are in a lot of pain and weep when recalling how he abused them,” Regmi Pokhrel told us. “They are angry and have filed a case against him, but they are also terrified. They know he is a powerful man and they have seen how our society treats women who speak up against abusers. Unless people speak up, perpetrators will be emboldened.”
Art and academia in Nepal simply reflect the power imbalances in society where people with intersecting identities experience worse forms of abuse. Theatre actors Raj Kumar Pudasaini, Rajan Khatiwada, and Sunil Pokhrel were called out during the #MeToo movement in the Nepali theatre scene in 2019. Even after the allegations Pokhrel went on to receive national awards, while others continued to work without repercussions.
“If you speak up against abusers, you gradually get sidelined from projects,” explained a theatre artist who wished anonymity fearing professional setbacks. “The theatre scene in Nepal is quite small, you just have to make peace with the perpetrators and work with them if you want to sustain yourself.”&nbsp;
In academia there is a history of faculty members sexually harassing students and getting away with it. After Tribhuvan University (TU) lecturer Krishna Bhattachan was accused of harassing women students, the university said it would follow Nepal’s sexual harassment law and set up a reporting mechanism. But nothing happened to the professor, who had already retired. Instead, he counter-accused the students of 'attacking the indigenous people’s movement with baseless allegations' as <a href="https://kathmandupost.com/letters/2019/01/29/bhattachan-responds">he told the Kathmandu Post in 2019</a>. He continues to be featured as a prominent speaker including at TU.
Other faculty members previously accused of sexual harassment include Jagadish Murti Koirala from TU, Bishnu Prasad Acharya from Ratna Rajya Campus, and Bodha Raj Tripathee from Lalitpur Madhyamik Vidhyalaya. A woman staff member from TU also filed a sexual abuse complaint against Dambar Chemjong from TU.
Prominent figures like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-rise-and-fall-of-nims-purja">mountaineer Nims Purja</a> have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/sports/mountaineering-sexual-harassment-abuse-nims-purja.html">accused of sexual assault</a>, and cricketer Sandeep Lamichhane, actor <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/celebrity-rape-case-spotlights-nepal-laws">Paul Shah</a>, and former speaker of Parliament <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/mahara-arrested">Krishna Bahadur Mahara</a> have been accused of rape, but society-at-large has let off the alleged perpetrators amdist a larger debate about justice for survivors and punishment of perpetrators.&nbsp;
‘Gaushala-26’ is the court name given to the 18-year-old who accused Sandeep Lamichhane, former captain of Nepal’s national cricket team and skipper of Biratnagar Kings in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/here-comes-the-nepal-premier-league">ongoing Nepal Premier League</a>, of rape. She left the country citing society questioning her character affecting her mental health while Lamichhane got an outpouring of support. In May, the Patan High Court overturned a prior verdict that found Lamichhane guilty of rape and had sentenced him to eight years in prison. During the 23-month legal battle to pursue justice, Gaushala-26 faced threats of gang rape and acid attacks.&nbsp;
Exhausted by the struggle, Gaushala-26 sought to “move to a new world” where she could live free without hiding her identity.
Actress Samragyee Rajya Laxmi Shah in an Instagram video now deleted detailed the harassment she faced from a filmmaker during a movie shoot. She did not name any name but veteran actor Bhuwan KC filed a defamation case against Rana, but the court ruled that the charge lacked sufficient evidence.&nbsp;
Former Kathmandu mayor <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/theytoo">Keshav Sthapit also mocked the #MeToo movement</a>, calling accusations against him by journalists Rashmila Prajapati and Ujjwala Maharjan “a rape of men’s rights”.
Serial Abuse
Back at the Kalapremi Ceramics studio, another former student, 24-year-old Rajiv, says he felt the need to speak out after seeing his female classmates being abused.&nbsp;
“He frequently kissed them on their cheeks,” he told Nepali Times. “Whenever they walked into the studio he flailed his arms like a child asking for a hug. They awkwardly hugged him from the side, but he pulled them closer, held their chin, and kissed their cheeks.”&nbsp;
Rajiv says he also saw Kalapremi pull the women’s bra straps, touch their breasts, and slap their buttocks. The young students would freeze, not knowing how to react, and if they protested, he would say it was “normal in art”. Rajiv, 19 at the time like his classmates, remembers thinking perhaps the well-respected artist was right after all.
Another student, Luna, who took lessons at Kalapremi’s studio from 2020 to 2022 did try to confront the tutor after he made an obscene proposal to her. She recalls: “One day when the other students had left the studio and it was just the two of us, he told me that God had given him special artistic talent and he could transfer those powers to me. But to do that both of us will have to be naked, inside a dark room, and have sex.”
Luna, who was 18 then, was livid and told him she did not want any of his powers, but she says he laughed at her as if he was joking. She did not tell her family about the incident because she thought no one would believe her.&nbsp;
“They were all in awe of this famous artist and felt I should be grateful that to be learning sculpting from him,” she says. “I was scared to be alone with him in case he talked about sex again. My coping mechanism was to be rude so he wouldn’t try to come close to me.”
Seeing how some classmates were standing up to Kalapremi, Ekta too tried to push back against his advances, but she said he found ways to coerce her. Since Ekta, Rajiv, and Luna could not afford Kalapremi’s Rs30,000 monthly fee for lessons, he had offered them all a stipend to assist him in the studio.
“He had spondylosis and took me to his therapy sessions to learn massage techniques, then he often made me and other students massage him,” says Ekta. Whenever she refused, he would feign pain to make her feel sorry for him. “He would insist that I put my hands under his shirt so that I could massage him better,” she adds.
The art tutor often tried to “seduce sympathy” from Ekta by sharing how he had never been loved as a child and was “sexually frustrated” as an adult.&nbsp;
“At 7PM, he would pour himself Signature whiskey and immediately go off again about how he was sex-starved. I didn’t know how to respond. It took me time to realise alcohol was just an excuse to talk about sex,” Ekta says.
If convicted, Kalapremi could face financial penalty and/or a prison sentence of up to three years according to Section 224 of National Penal (Code) Act 2017.&nbsp;
Data suggests that victims of child sexual abuse on average take nearly 24 years to tell someone about their trauma, and some may never disclose it at all.&nbsp;
“In our culture, children are rarely taught about boundaries. They often react, show anger when adults pinch their cheeks. But adults insist they did it out of love, and force the children to accept it,” says Sita Lama, a psychotherapist at Manka Kura. “And even when someone touches them inappropriately they struggle to identify and verbalise it.”
When perpetrators claim to be “acting out of love”, Lama says survivors are likely to perceive it as something safe, rather than recognising it as abuse.&nbsp;
“It may take years for them to realise they were abused,” she explains. "And even when they become aware, the power imbalance with the abuser and the associated shame often prevents survivors from speaking up."
Other former students from the School of Art at Kathmandu University have also come forward years later, saying Kalapremi sexually abused them. As young adults, they felt his behaviour was off but were uncertain if it was inappropriate, illegal, or they did not know how to respond. After having understood that it was indeed abuse, they say they are speaking out now to protect others.&nbsp;
Amina Singh, a visiting faculty member at Kathmandu University, says there is no clause against sexual abuse in contracts of teachers, and there is no formal grievance handling mechanism for the students.&nbsp;
“So the only way students can to deal with sexual abuse is approach someone they trust,” she says.
Eight other former art students of Lalit Kala Campus and Srijana College of Fine Arts of Tribhuvan University and other private art studios in Kathmandu say they were also sexually abused by their art teachers. Three faculty members interviewed from these institutions said they saw the abuse, but felt it was futile to report it given how powerful the teachers were.
In the absence of a formal system, some longtime women artists warned each other about “problematic” artists. They shared &nbsp;a “heads-up” to be more cautious when collaborating with them, and avoided responding to their calls and texts after work hours.
To ensure art institutions are safe for all, galleries, museums, artist studios, and smaller art spaces need to develop policies on sexual harassment. This would include a code of conduct or studio policies that hold the leadership accountable and outline the principles of professional ethics.&nbsp;
Students and employees should inquire about accountability mechanisms for raising concerns, both formally and informally, advocates say.
Three years after Ekta left the ceramics studio, she learnt that Kalapremi had harassed many other women. Still trying to get a footing in the art industry, she attended a workshop in Kathmandu where women artists discussed ways to stay safe in the art sector.&nbsp;
Since it was a close-knit group Ekta opened up about how she felt violated and realised she was not alone, he had been abusing underprivileged students for years, and this was common knowledge among artists in Nepal.
Ekta says that even after she quit, Kalapremi continued sending her text messages like ‘I am thinking of you’, ‘Why have you stopped speaking with me’, or ‘I am waiting for your call’.&nbsp;
But what really forced her to act was when Ekta found out that he was sending similar texts to her younger sister.&nbsp;
“I’ve had enough,” she told us. “He abused me all these years but I won’t let him abuse my sister.” &nbsp;
Ekta, Rajiv and Luna are not the real names of the students.&nbsp;

‘Art Lover’ accused of sexual abuse

It was 8:15 in the evening of 25 March 1968 when everyone in the village of Batulechaur near Pokhara heard a deafening sound like thunder as a bright flashing object hurtled down to land in a field.&nbsp; That field belonged to Kul Timilsina, and the next morning he retrieved a sheet of metal about 2m by 1m and carried it home with the help of a few others, thinking it would be useful for his buffalo shed.&nbsp; Before he died at age 83 three years ago, Timilsina had told photo archivist Sunil Ulak that the black metal sheet was not rectangular and had rounded corners. There are a few witnesses still alive who have a clear recollection of the object that fell from the sky that night.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024120707128_75cc85aac56b9cc4a77366471f058d7b3eb6868776811b0923845c2d0a61f014.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024120707128_75cc85aac56b9cc4a77366471f058d7b3eb6868776811b0923845c2d0a61f014" data-rendition-name="original" width="1170" height="601" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>The field in Batulechaur belonging to Kul Timilsina where fragments of a flying object fell from the sky in 1968.</figcaption> </figure>  One of them is Timilsina’s wife Gyanu, who was 22 at the time. She had been at home, and remembers hearing the big bang and the sky becoming very bright. “We saw the thing in the field in the morning,” she told us. “It looked like a lid, a covering of some sort. The way it was stuck in the ground, it must have fallen from the sky. We thought we could use it to dry clothes on, and took it home.”&nbsp; Another witness is Kul Narayan Paudel. “I was only eight then. We ran to the field to see what had fallen. It was a four-sided metal sheet. The elders took it away, and I don't know what happened to it.” &nbsp; Ram Bahadur Baniya, a teacher at the local school, says he had heard the sheet had been brought to the school, and later handed over to the Zonal Commissioner at the time, Nanda Prasad Malla. “But that is all hearsay,” he says.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024120707128_0bf207a12063fb8155b3c8d9a00a94887b126380c9e0627527c84cf5e1101f54.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024120707128_0bf207a12063fb8155b3c8d9a00a94887b126380c9e0627527c84cf5e1101f54" data-rendition-name="original" width="1170" height="610" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>Gyanu Timilsina, wife of Kul Timilsina.</figcaption> </figure>  There are two versions of what happened to Kul Timilsina’s metal sheet. One is that an American Peace Corp Volunteer teaching at the nearby Bindyabasini School took it, and another is that it was handed over to the government. Recently declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and US State Department documents from the time say that the US Embassy in Kathmandu tracked down the object two years later and had it shipped back to the US. A telegram from the Department of State and Department of Defense tagged as ‘MOON DUST / Space Fragments’ dated 1 March 1972 stated: ‘1. Restored space fragment will be on board Embassy support flight 115 arriving Kathmandu on or about March 10. Fragment is packed in shipping crate (cargo no. 72-33365) marked in care of DAO.&nbsp; 2. State and Defense representatives examined fragments prior to shipment finding restoration acceptable.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071212_929d903ee06d41baa4f6040e981cd7c7d7bd75cc9c37c9b617d307fc8538d2df.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241207071212_929d903ee06d41baa4f6040e981cd7c7d7bd75cc9c37c9b617d307fc8538d2df" data-rendition-name="original" width="856" height="568" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>Declassified CIA documents about the investigation into the object sighted in Pokhara. </figcaption> </figure>  The documents show that the US government, military and intelligence agencies investigated this incident thoroughly when it occurred, and have continued to revisit it ever since, as recently as five years ago. What is even more intriguing is that the object that fell in Pokhara was not the only unidentified space object that fell to earth that year. There were similar sightings of objects falling from the sky in Ladakh, Sikkim and Bhutan between 19 February and 25 March 1968.&nbsp; These mysteries were the subject of a CIA investigation in 1968 titled ‘<a href="https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP81R00560R000100070007-8.pdf">Sighting of Unidentified Flying Objects in Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan</a>’, and the report is part of the recent online declassification of 800,000 top-secret documents from the period.&nbsp; &nbsp;Although unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have a connotation now of being alien craft, it could be pieces of satellite, missile, rocket or even aircraft. The CIA report documents six sightings in 1968 and quotes local sources as describing all of them having similar characteristics: bright blue or red streaks in the sky accompanied by loud sounds like lightning and thunder and objects falling to the ground. Aside from the metallic object that was found in Batlechaur, there were other items also found nearby in Tallakot, Tureypasal, Armalakot and Maidan. Whatever the object was, it seems to have disintegrated even before it hit the ground.&nbsp; The CIA report records the first sighting on 19 February 1968 in various parts of Sikkim and Olangchung Gola and Ghunsa in eastern Nepal. The light was said to be ‘long and thin’ and giving out ‘green and red light’. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071212_c3c825027d966a2aedc846970390eebe063957503c7eacc8e01e0517843f9bbb.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241207071212_c3c825027d966a2aedc846970390eebe063957503c7eacc8e01e0517843f9bbb" data-rendition-name="original" width="892" height="596" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara "> </figure>  Two days later on 21 February, a soundless blue object was seen traveling fast across the sky above Thimphu in Bhutan. Then on 4 March there were multiple daytime sightings or white streaks in the sky at Chang La Pass, Fukche and Koyul in Ladakh. There were more sightings in Ladakh on the very day fragments fell near Pokhara on 25 March 1968.&nbsp; After the sightings in Pokhara, rumours started flying in Kathmandu that these were aliens trying to land on Earth, it could be Russian or Chinese spy planes or satellites, and some even say it as a sign from heaven that the end of the world was near. This was at the height of the Cold War. The Russians and Americans were testing their thermonuclear devices as well as intercontinental ballistic missile delivery systems. The Washington-Beijing rapprochement had not yet happened, and China was making quick progress testing atomic bombs. Within two years after its first atomic test, in 1966 China exploded its first hydrogen bomb at the Lop Nur site in Xinjiang, 3,000km to the north from Nepal. After neary six decades, what is still intriguing is that all the sightings within a few months of each other in 1968 were along the Himalayan arc bordering Tibet: from Bhutan, Sikkim Nepal, to Ladakh. The US military intelligence seems to have concluded that this was not a coincidence and there were frequent research trips to the site in Pokhara by American officials in the months after the incident. With the help of the Royal Nepal Army, the region north of Pokhara was thoroughly searched.&nbsp; A confidential memo dated 25 June 1968 by Jerry C Trippy to a ‘Mr Farley’ mentions that the US Air Force’s Foreign Technology Division had decided that the debris could be important because it may be related to a Chinese missile test or a Soviet ‘Vehicle Venik’ rocket.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071216_feb5425692dc36b20187de4e4fcc2ce9fd12b6d9e1b8724398e50bcdbf9032fe.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20241207071216_feb5425692dc36b20187de4e4fcc2ce9fd12b6d9e1b8724398e50bcdbf9032fe" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> </figure>  On 28 August 1968 the US Embassy in Kathmandu sent a letter to Washington DC saying that the object could be of Soviet origin, possibly from when the rocket carrying the ‘Kosmos 208’ satellite re-entered the atmosphere. But why were the fragments falling to earth several weeks apart, and in the same region? No one knows where the metal sheet that Kul Timilsina recovered is now. It was definitely packed in a crate and taken to the US, and although it is rumoured that it was returned that is not very likely. Archivist Sunil Ulak heard from the Timilsina family that CIA officials had returned to the site five years ago. &nbsp; Interest in UFOs peaked in the US in the 1950s, with the Cold War space race and tests of atomic weapons and delivery rockets. CIA and scientists were being sent to investigate sightings, both publicly and privately. Could the Pokhara fragments as well as the sightings in Ladakh and Bhutan actually be alien craft falling to earth? The renewal in interest in space travel in large part due to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, UFOs and sightings are again subjects of public interest.&nbsp; Even 57 years later, even if there was definitive proof about whether the Batlechaur fragment was from a Chinese missile or a soviet rocket, it has not been made public in documents declassified so far. We may never know.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071216_b6938795f40731e7657fd6dcbb3cf460a326186a15eb11d4f832f602201ff598.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20241207071216_b6938795f40731e7657fd6dcbb3cf460a326186a15eb11d4f832f602201ff598" data-rendition-name="original" width="642" height="320" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> </figure>  Sunil Ulak speculates if the debris actually came from an American aircraft, perhaps on an intel mission upon China. “Which could explain why they were so thorough in collecting the fragments in Pokhara,” he says. But that still does not explain the multiple sightings weeks apart in 1968.&nbsp; Indeed, US military aircraft were at that time flying frequent night-time missions from air force bases in India to supply weapons to Khampa guerrilla camps in Nepal located north of Pokhara in Mustang. It could very well be that the Chinese shot down one such aircraft. The other sightings could have been contrails of US spy planes, or Chinese anti-aircraft missiles.&nbsp; There were quite a few developments regarding UFOs in 2024. In a US congressional hearing in July, former intelligence officer David Grusch claimed that the government had long been involved in a program to investigate and retrieve non-human craft crashes, and then try to reverse engineer them. However Grusch did not show any evidence.&nbsp; The UAP Disclosure Act of 2024 was signed into law by Joe Biden in December 2023. It plans to oversee the public disclosure of UFO information. However, there is a clause in it that prevents disclosure if it would cause threats to military defense, intelligence operations or foreign relations.&nbsp; It is unlikely that the declassified documents about sightings in the Himalayan will cause any real surprise about definite evidence of alien life even if it was found. It seems humanity will continue, at least for now, to wonder about curious lights in the sky and whether there is anybody out there.&nbsp;

UFO over Pokhara

When Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) president Rabi Lamichhane was arrested in October on charges of defrauding depositors of cooperatives, the party’s vice president Swarnim Wagle gifted him Fareed Zakaria’s book, Age of Revolutions.
Since then, Lamichhane has been shunted around from Kathmandu to Pokhara to Chitwan and back to Pokhara to attend police investigations and court proceedings. He was being flown to Birganj via Kathmandu on Buddha Air on Monday. There is another pending case in Janakpur.
Human rights groups and civil society have criticised the government for hounding Lamichhane with inhumane treatment that borders on physical torture. The two parties in the coalition, Nepali Congress (NC) and the UML, see Lamichhane’s RSP as a potentially formidable challenge to their power.
Even if the fraud charges against Lamichhane are true, the Nepali public is increasingly looking at the government’s actions through the police and courts as political vendetta.
Despite all the travelling, sometimes by plane and often by road at night, Lamichhane appears to be in high spirits, waving to supporters who often gather if they know he is going to be driven around. A social media video shows him giving high fives to fellow passengers on a recent flight to Pokhara.&nbsp;
In the past weeks, streets in Pokhara have erupted with parallel protests by Lamichhane’s supporters as well as depositors of cooperatives who lost their savings to the scam.&nbsp;
Although family visits are allowed, prison officials in Pokhara told Nepali Times that not many people visit Lamichhane these days. He added, “When he does get visitors, he asks them to bring him books.”
Lamichhane is currently Nepal’s most high-profile public figure in custody, and highlights the stark difference between how influential prisoners are treated compared to ordinary inmates.
There are six prison cells at Kaski District Police Office’s two-story detention centre, three on each floor. And while authorities pack prisoners into already overcrowded cells, Lamichhane has an entire room on the second floor to himself.&nbsp;
He has also been allowed to call his family every few days. Other prisoners are not permitted phone calls except for emergencies.
Meanwhile, Lamichhane’s former business partner Chhabilal Joshi, an ex-Deputy Inspector General of Police with whom he established his Gorkha Media Network, is in custody under the same charges in the prison cell next to him.
Lamichhane is accused of siphoning off depositors' money to the tv network in which he was part-owner and anchor. &nbsp;
Both Lamichhane and Joshi are able to buy food from the police canteen instead of being served the regular meal like other prisoners. Joshi has also given his statement to authorities in Rupandehi and Kathmandu for his alleged role in the scam. Lamichhane is yet to be presented in Kathmandu for questioning.
While he was in custody at the Kathmandu District Police Complex, Joshi expressed his desire to sleep in a police officer’s office, reportedly assuring authorities that he would not run away and he was entitled to certain facilities as a former officer of the law.
“He seemed to be under the impression that he is still a police officer,” says a source at the Kathmandu District Police. “We made it clear to him that as someone accused of a crime, he was not entitled to special treatment.”
Former ministers Balkrishna Khand and Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, and ex-home secretary Tek Narayan Pandey, who were arrested in connection with the fake refugee scam last year, were similarly housed in the offices of law enforcement officials instead of prison cells. Khand has since been released after six months in jail.
While there is no legal provision to keep high-ranking officials in separate detention centres when they are arrested, authorities granting them special facilities is not uncommon. Law enforcement officials say VIP detainees expect preferential treatment while in police custody.
Among those is former Kosi Province minister Lila Ballav Adhikari, who was arrested from Biratnagar on 10 November over his alleged involvement in human trafficking and brought to Kathmandu. Adhikari had flown to Japan without government approval with three individuals on 29 October to attend a cultural conference, but had been sent back to Nepal from Narita.&nbsp;
His three companions were arrested at Kathmandu airport upon their arrival, but Adhikari was able to exit unscathed from the VIP lounge. Adhikari had resigned as the Kosi Province Minister for Internal Affairs and Law when it became public that his companions had been taken into custody, and was himself arrested shortly after. He has since been cleared by the courts.
Throughout his detention, Adhikari was kept separately from other inmates. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Basant Rajouri, head of the Bhadrakali complex, says that while there is no separate detention area for VIPs, some detainees are kept separately depending on the nature of their crime.
However, sources say that arrangements were made for retired judges and others to visit Adhikari frequently worked at the office of a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) during his time in custody.&nbsp;
“He used to constantly pester the authorities to let him sit outside in the sun, and to be able to use the police officer’s shower area,” added an officer.
Adhikari was released on 25 November after the government prosecutor’s office decided not to charge him in a move that was seen to expose the government’s double standards.
Over at Kathmandu’s Dilli Bazar Prison, former Kist Bank CEO Kamal Gyawali emerges from his prison cell into the courtyard of the prison’s ‘Ka (क)’ block every morning with a thick book in his hands, ready to give his daily sermon.
With his long beard, Gyawali, who is serving a prison sentence for banking fraud, looks the part of a religious guru as he implores his rapt listeners to “walk the right path, abandon bad thoughts and turn to scripture and spirituality”.&nbsp;
Afterward, the attendees gather to discuss politics and current affairs. Inmates at his daily sermons at the prison include other high-profile detainees, including former MP Ichchha Raj Tamang, who is in jail for money laundering and cooperatives fraud, former joint secretary Chudamani Sharma, who was convicted of corruption, as well as NC leader Chandra Bahadur Lama and Krishna Bahadur Upreti of the UML both of whom are on trial for embezzling billions of rupees.
Victims of the cooperatives scam that former lawmaker Tamang was involved in have made trips to the prison and requested visits, but he has refused to meet with any of them.
“Tamang often complains that the state has prevented him from returning the money to the victims by locking him up,” says a police officer at the Dili Bazar jail.
“All you hear every day from the VIP prisoners is that they have been framed,” adds the officer. “No one admits that they were involved in misdeeds.”
But while most high-profile prisoners complain about prison conditions, one exception is former provincial lawmaker Deepak Manange, who is serving a sentence at Dilli Bazar Jail for attempted murder.
“He is the happiest prisoner here,” says a warden. “Unlike the others, he doesn’t claim to have been framed, in fact he doesn’t seem to care that he is in prison.”
Manange is detained in the ‘Kha (ख)’ block of the prison complex, which he renovated at his own expense. The block previously housed female prisoners, but Manange used his influence to transfer them elsewhere. He faces no shortage of visitors, who range from political leaders to people from the underworld.
Along with Manange, other well-known prisoners in this block include Nepal Telecom Managing Director Sunil Poudel, and former executive director of the Surakshan Printing Centre Bikal Poudel, who are serving time for corruption.
Former prisoners at Dilli Bazar prison include ex-ministers Khum Bahadur Khadka and Shyam Sundar Gupta, NC leader Ganesh Lama, Maoist MP Balkrishna Dhungel, Nagarik Unmukti Party leader Resham Chaudhary, as well as former IGs Ramesh Chand Thakuri, Om Bikram Rana, and Hem Bahadur Gurung.
Section 54 of Nepal’s Prison Act assigns each prison’s internal administration the
responsibility of governing its prisoners, which means the more favourable the jail management is, the more comfortable it is for prisoners.
Dilli Bazar prison has been the prison of choice for many high-ranking prisoners, especially those convicted of white collar crimes, due to its more accommodating administrators. The prison, which has the capacity to house 700 inmates, is also less crowded than other jails.
Anuj Bhattarai, spokesperson of the Department of Prison Management, says that there is no legal classification in Nepal for felons to be assigned prisons based on the nature of their crimes.
“That Dilli Bazar Jail has a higher number of prisoners convicted of crimes like corruption is most likely a coincidence,” says Bhattarai. “There is no provision for influential people to be able to choose where they will be incarcerated.”&nbsp;
Translated by Shristi Karki from the Nepali original published in himalkhabar.com

What Nepal’s VIP prisoners do in jail

As soon as she milks her cow, 52-year-old Punam B K is off, pedaling her bicycle furiously along the highway with a blue milk can in the front basket.&nbsp; By the time she arrives at the Jaya Shiva Ganesh Dairy Producers Cooperative in Gopalganj village, others are already there, their bicycles parked on the roadside. The farmers are all holding on to their blue milk cans, and are chatting away.&nbsp; “We keep what is needed for the family, and sell whatever remains here at the cooperative,” says B K, as the volume, fat and non-fat solid content of her milk is measured. It is then poured into a bigger vat to be mixed with milk from other farmers. B K collects her receipt with the value of her milk, and prepares to head home. The farmers are reimbursed on a quarterly basis.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/a-family-that-works-together-stays-together">A family that works together stays together</a>, Sahina Shrestha “Everyone around here has at least a cow or buffalo to provide milk for the family, the cowdung is used for fertiliser, and we can bring whatever is left over to the cooperative,” says B K who, like the others, brings her milk by bicycle twice a day, once in the morning and again in the evening.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241210081232_0df32c0f6a572aef83eca02dc7a86f75ea5dbc88dc6c2390d42a44ab3cc93395.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241210081232_0df32c0f6a572aef83eca02dc7a86f75ea5dbc88dc6c2390d42a44ab3cc93395" data-rendition-name="original" width="1700" height="1275" loading="lazy" alt="dairy farmers in Chitwan"> </figure>  All this may seem like nothing special, just an ordinary farmer selling her milk. But it has to be seen in the context of dairy farmers overcoming subsistence and increasing household income. Nearly 200,000 dairy farmers from over 1,200 cooperatives have not been paid by the government-run DDC for their milk for a year or more.&nbsp; The DDC has fixed a quota for buying milk from cooperatives that limits production even during the peak winter months. Farmers in Chitwan are so fed up, they have staged demonstrations in Kathmandu and even poured milk on the East-West Highway in protest.&nbsp; Punam B K’s milk ends up in Bhawani Dairy, a milk processing plant in Chitwan that buys milk from various cooperatives in the district. It was established six years ago by three entrepreneur cousins Devrath Baral, Drishya Baral and Subash Paudel and is now being supported by the Commercial Agriculture for Smallholders and Agribusiness (CASA) project.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241210081232_4e3c65390b9c5345f807b10cbb8c36b006ef6d3cb972e07b5067f4b2db2be32e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241210081232_4e3c65390b9c5345f807b10cbb8c36b006ef6d3cb972e07b5067f4b2db2be32e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1102" loading="lazy" alt="dairy farmers in Chitwan"> </figure>  This UK-funded project implemented by Swisscontact in Nepal has been supporting agro-businesses in 23 countries in Asia and Africa. They focus on improving the capacity of private dairy and vegetable farmers to find markets and build a sustainable supply chain for their produce. It helps dairies like the one in Chitwan with branding and marketing, as well to track business through a Dairy Management System (DMS) digital database.&nbsp; Bhawani Dairy also got support to conduct orientation for cooperative farmers to learn about new ways to boost productivity with breeding, cowshed management and hygiene maintenance. Many commercial farmers in Chitwan, some with up to 60 cows and buffaloes, have benefited.&nbsp; B K says she only has six cows, so not everything she hears at the orientation about increasing cowshed area is applicable. “We are just happy our milk is not wasted, and we can earn some cash from the surplus,” she says.&nbsp; Bhawani Dairy’s clientele is based entirely in Chitwan and in towns along the East-West Highway. But building on its success here, the company is looking to expand nationwide and target the Kathmandu market. Being a perishable product, the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/so-far-so-good/nepal-s-milk-heartland-rebounds">diary business is challenging</a>. Businesses also need investment and technical support to diversify into value-added milk products like cheese, yoghurt, ice cream or powdered milk.&nbsp; “For now, the best thing we as a dairy business can do for farmers is to buy their milk at a decent price and pay them in time,” says Drishya Baral of Bhawani Dairy.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241210081232_6c06efb5674dbcd8679015af543bfda87030755383a13c9269e272af28e85953.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241210081232_6c06efb5674dbcd8679015af543bfda87030755383a13c9269e272af28e85953" data-rendition-name="original" width="1700" height="1275" loading="lazy" alt="dairy farmers in Chitwan"> </figure>  Another agro-industry supported by CASA since 2018 is Himalayan Supervores, a venture that sources farm produce to supply vegetables and other foods to restaurants and hotels in the city, and even export Halal-certified produce to Gulf countries.&nbsp; CASA helped with cold chain management system to keep vegetable produce fresh so that the products earn trust about quality in the national and international market. Himalayan Supervores is already exporting to UAE and Qatar, and is targeting other Gulf countries next. “The guidance provided by the international expert was invaluable, we could not have bought that knowledge even with money,” says Nelson Shrestha of Himalayan Supervores. “It was not about fancy hardware, but how to minimise wastage, increase productivity, save time and money.”&nbsp; Though Himalayan Supervores collects vegetables from vegetable cooperatives, it indirectly works with a network of thousands of cooperative farmers. Its catchment area therefore is enormous, and it has enhanced their knowledge about organic farming methods, bio-pesticides, and the right way to handle and package vegetables. CASA’s most recent tie-up is with Pokhara-based Poshilo Foods, which specialises in increasing the shelf-life of local nutritional food items. During the Covid lockdown <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p3bparajuli/">Prithwi Kallyan Parajuli</a> saw an opportunity to supply nutritional foods that stayed longer, and set up Poshilo.&nbsp; It took traditional satu flour made from dry-roasted pulse, added more nutrients, and packaged it. Four flavours of satu with nutrient values differentiated for various age groups now line the shelves of supermarket chains like KK Mart, Saleways. Poshilo is now exploring the export market in India.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241210081232_a8dbea8c8d45ac4eff6c37fb47da7ff461989c662ba86d207a008381101acdcf.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20241210081232_a8dbea8c8d45ac4eff6c37fb47da7ff461989c662ba86d207a008381101acdcf" data-rendition-name="original" width="1700" height="1275" loading="lazy" alt="dairy farmers in Chitwan"> </figure>  In the five years of helping Nepali agribusinesses, CASA has already teamed up with 35 established companies. Parajuli heaps fulsome praise on the catalytic support and guidance he got early on, not just for product design, but to explore market viability, branding and marketing.&nbsp; He has participated in government-led programs before, but says those are one-off and focus only on technical solutions and do not pay much attention to the important back-end work with management and sales.&nbsp; Says Devrath Baral of Bhawani Dairy in Chitwan: “We would probably have eventually got to where we are now, but it would have taken years longer without CASA. And now we can share our experience with other agribusinesses in Nepal.”

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