<img width="800" height="451" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131132/637235539c7e80680e0c497djpeg.jpg" alt=""/>Nepali human rights activists and survivors of the 1996-2006 Maoist insurgency have written to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres alerting him to ‘multiple flaws’ in a transitional justice amendment bill before Nepal’s Parliament.The letter was handed over to the UN Resident Coordinator in Nepal Richard Howard on Monday in Kathmandu, one day before the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances on 30 August. A copy of the letter was also given to Michelle Bachelet Jeria, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.The Comprehensive Peace Accord of 2006 envisaged setting up a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/no-closure-after-nepals-insurgency/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/no-closure-after-nepals-insurgency/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1661934213834000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0gT_QRHglKZGU7wjxZeoZm">transitional justice mechanism</a> with the formation of a Commission for the Investigation of Enforced Disappeared Persons and a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The commissions were finally formed in 2014, but have <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/stop-stalling-transitional-justice-global-human-rights-bodies/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/stop-stalling-transitional-justice-global-human-rights-bodies/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1661934213834000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3BQNmw2JY2EtTKZ9hfL2bK">lacked teeth</a> because former enemies have served together in coalition governments that have tried to brush war-time atrocities under the carpet. Read  also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/dead-and-dying,3955">The dead, and the dying</a>, Om Astha RaiThe Commission on Enforced Disappearances did draw up a list of 1,334 people who have been missing since the conflict ended in 2006. Less than half of the families of those disappeared by both sides have received compensation.But, more importantly, most have not been told the truth about whether their relatives are dead or alive, why they were taken away, or where their bodies are. Most families have been living for the past 16 years without closure.The government had been stalling on implementing a Supreme Court ruling to amend the 2014 transitional justice law, but got the human rights activist turned Minister for Law and Constitutional Affairs Govinda Sharma Bandi last month to present an amendment bill in Parliament.Human rights activists and conflict groups have held street demonstrations against the proposed bill, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/transitional-injustice-in-nepal/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/transitional-injustice-in-nepal/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1661934213834000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3yY1dq5VJPT-IyGX1Pigr2">which they say is perpetrator-friendly</a>, and would grant amnesty to those responsible for war crimes by both sides during the conflict. Minister Bandi serves in a government led by the Nepali Congress which was in power for most of the conflict years, their coalition partners from the Maoist party which was waging an armed struggle. <img width="1554" height="1468" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131132/637235559c7e80680e0c497ejpeg.jpg" alt="">Both parties now find themselves on the same side, and appear to have colluded to ensure that the draft bill will allow state security forces and guerrilla commanders who are now in government to not be answerable for torture and disappearances, summary executions, rape and other heinous crimes.The letter to the UN Secretary-General seeks his good offices to ensure that changes be made to the draft bill so that families and victims receive truth and justice. It reminds the Secretary-General that the United Nations has been a meaningful partner in Nepal’s peace process, which makes it surprising that the respective Special Rapporteurs, the OHCHR and other UN entities have not publicly reacted to the transitional justice bill.The letter states that the transitional justice bill does not follow the ruling of Nepal’s Supreme Court and goes against international law. It draws attention to the re-definition and distinction between ‘murder’ and ‘cruelly conducted murder’ in the bill, as well as the issues of child soldiers, torture and wartime rape.‘The amendment bill is designed to provide de facto immunity to perpetrators of both sides,’ the letter states, adding, “we hope that the United Nations will remain engaged on the matter.’UN Resident Coordinator Richard Howard assured the meeting of human rights conflict victims’ groups (pictured) that the United Nations remained committed to values inherent in the transitional justice process.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/forgetting-to-remember/">Forgetting to remember</a>, Sahina ShresthaThe letter was signed by Gauri Sankhar Lal Das and Sushil Pyakurel (former commissioners of National Human Rights Commission), Kul Chandra Gautam (Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, Min Bahadur Shahi (Human Rights Alliance), Nani Maya Thapa (NGO Federation of Nepal), Suman Adhikari (Conflict Victim Orphan Society Nepal) and Maina Karki (Conflict Victims’ Common Platform), among others.It also included victims’ groups, including the Army Single Women and Injured Families Group, Conflict Victims’ Society for Justice, Amar Prahari Pariwar, Conflict Victims’ National Alliance, Discharged People’s Liberation Army Nepal.Read more: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/transitional-injustice-in-nepal/">Transitional injustice in Nepal</a>, Kanak Mani Dixit

original

674x448

610x380

400x266

400x240

400x203

301x200

Nepali activists write to UN Secretary-General

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016118/636d141e9c7e80680e0a9960jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="490"/><figcaption>The then Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and rebel leader 'Prachanda' Pushpa Kamal Dahal signing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Kathmandu on 21 November 2006. Photo: SAGAR SHRESTHA</figcaption></figure>The headlines for the past month have all been about the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/what-is-happening-to-nepals-supreme-court/">Supreme Court</a>, and whether or not Chief Justice Cholendra SJB Rana should be <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-lawyers-on-warpath-against-chief-justice/">impeached, or resign</a>, over past naughtiness.The controversy goes to the heart of Nepal’s governance failure and the erosion of the rule of law. Politicians have tampered with the doctrine of the separation of powers, and politically appointed justices have returned the favour.But there was a larger lapse of justice that went virtually unnoticed this week. It has been exactly 15 years after the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/justice-delayed-justice-denied-transitional-justice,3556">Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA)</a> was signed on 21 November 2006 between the Maoist commander Prachanda and Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala of the Nepali Congress (NC).As per the provisions of the CPA, two commissions to investigate the disappeared and for truth and reconciliation were to be set up and given two years to do their job. This being Nepal, it took a full ten years for the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/truth-about-truth-commission,3565">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a> (TRC) and the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Who-doesn-want-a-TRC,2042">Commission on the Investigation of Enforced Disappearances (CIED)</a> to start their work.The United Nations, Nepal’s Western partners and international human rights watchdog groups were the driving force behind the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2014/08/18/justice-under-threat/">transitional justice process</a>, and if it was not for them it would have been unlikely that the country’s 14 prime ministers since 2006 would have made any moves to rake up wartime excesses.The rationale behind <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/truth-and-justice-for-relatives-of-murdered-and-disappeared,2122">transitional justice</a> is that until survivors and families of victims find truth and justice, there will be no closure, residual revenge will poison societal relations, and there will be a danger of the country slipping back into violent conflict.Justice denied also <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Legalese/Justice-in-transition,458">promotes impunity</a> in other arenas of national politics, as we see today. It is also important to keep the memory of the conflict years alive, and document the untold death and suffering it caused. Nepalis have to be reminded not to forget.Yet, memories fade, time moves on, people drift into everyday routines and try to get on with their lives. Transitional justice would have at least helped heal the loss for families of the victims, provided society with closure, and perpetrators of war crimes a chance for atonement.But, as with all other spheres of national life, the transitional justice mechanisms have been politcised from the word go. The leadership of the Maoist, NC and to a lesser degree the UML, all colluded to appoint yes men to the TRC and the CIED, extending their mandates over and over again with no hearings, trials or verdicts against those involved in heinous crimes.The toothless commissions collected tens of thousands of testimonies from families of victims and survivors, but the files are all mothballed in steel cabinets in their offices. Meanwhile, in the past 15 years, there has been plenty of lip service, blame game, scapegoating and tokenism. The two commissions have actually been used by politicians to prevent cases from moving through the regular courts.In fact, on the 15th anniversary of the CPA, Prachanda who has gone back to his peacetime name of Pushpa Kamal Dahal, vowed to complete the transitional justice process. In a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/justice-delayed-justice-denied/">statement</a> on 21 November and an English <a href="https://kathmandupost.com/columns/2021/11/20/the-nepali-peace-process-as-a-global-model">op-ed in The Kathmandu Post</a>, he termed Nepal’s peace process a ‘successful homegrown model’ for other post-conflict countries.‘Although the conflict was brought to an end, the task of investigating events that occurred during the war and to provide victims with transitional justice remains,’ Dahal said in his <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/justice-delayed-justice-denied/">statement</a>. ‘We are proud of what the revolution achieved, but we will probe wartime excesses.’The fact that most other political leaders did not even bother to acknowledge the CPA anniversary showed that Dahal knows the sword of justice hangs over his head. With Western backing for the transitional process not as vigorous as it once was, he knows he just has to keep on saying the right things.The CPA pledged to ‘investigate human rights violations and those involved in crimes against humanity’. With every year that goes by, it looks less and less likely that will happen. There are still more than <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16267#.YZxyclVBypo">2,000 people listed as missing</a>, and some of their families have waited two decades already to know whether they are dead or alive, or what happened to them.Many <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/1,334,3287">families of the disappeared</a> interviewed by this newspaper have said finding out the truth is more important than justice. This could also mean they do not expect the state to persecute known perpetrators, so they do not even ask for justice. But their anguish is heightened when they see war criminals in senior leadership positions, who never had to answer for their crimes.As Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/justice-delayed-justice-denied/">Human Rights Watch, said in a statement issued jointly with Amnesty International, the International Commission of Jurists and TRIAL International</a> on 21 November: ‘State officials’ reluctance to investigate and prosecute such serious crimes has exacerbated the suffering of victims, undermined the rule of law in post-conflict Nepal, and increased the risk of such violations in the future.’She went on to warn: ‘If justice is continually denied in Nepal, perpetrators of these international crimes committed during the conflict will be prosecuted abroad under international jurisdiction.’

Toothless Commissions

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

Turkish Basketball

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

The Last Days of the Khampa

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

Turkish to Seville

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

war-victims

Nepali activists write to UN Secretary-General

Toothless Commissions

Turkish Basketball

The Last Days of the Khampa

Turkish to Seville

Digital protection for Nepal’s art