A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

Bulletin #7: Update from the NDD

(On February 5, 2005, dozens of pro-democracy activists in Kathmandu started an e-update to inform the world about the crisis in Nepal following the imposition of military rule by King Gyanendra on February 1, 2005)

A note on missing people in Nepal after 1 Feb 2005 -- A list and a story

Friends, my apologies for sending you these bits and bytes, but these are names. People. They need to be accounted for. Currently it is a mess. The govt. released a list with 36 they accounted for since 1 February.

Other lists show that there are then hundreds, maybe thousands unaccounted for. Where are they? Are they underground? Are they safe? Are in Nepal? Are they in army detention? Are they tortured? Are they dead? They are missing.

This is not a name game. This is a life and death game. Please excuse the inelegance of these different people writing from different e-mail ids. They are trying to call for help. They are risking their lives by sending these e-mails. They have defied the military's diktat of not 'undermining the morale of the security forces'.

One boy missing is a student activist from the Nepal Students Union, a Nepali Congress affiliated student group. I know Kundan Kafle. Should I say that I knew Kundan Kafle? The first among the NC to raise the republican slogan. He was badly beaten in every street protest. The security knew him and they would find him in a crowd of protestors, single him out and beat him. Arrest him. Then beat him again.

The police and armed police force 'managed' the protest pre- 1 February. But they were under the command of the army. The army that my democratic republic gave money too. Big big money.

They singled him out and kept him in the armed police force headquarters, where he was incommunicado. We had to find him. Locate him then. That was before the takeover. They beat him so badly, his leg was broken. When it got okay, there he was back, in Pashupathi Campus, declaring it with his friends, the 'republican zone'. They held a referendum in the colleges: students voted out the monarchy. The police tried to break the referendum efforts. They were so angry. The king and his men. Scared of a young wiry student, who had only his voice and his capacity to organise and innovate newer forms of protest to defy the oppression that was in evidence from November 2001 in Kathmandu. Kundan Kafle.

When there was a ban on assembly imposed in Kathmandu in April-May 2004, Kundan and his friends, whose campus is close to Pashupathinath, organised a cremation. They bore a 'corpse' on their shoulders, shaved their heads, chanted the last rite prayers, and took the body to Pashupathinath and gave it a cremation, with a pundit and all. They wept, they beat their chests, they cried, 'King Gyanendra is dead, our monarch is dead'. This wasn't breaking the prohibition order. It was just a voice of protest when no political protest was allowed. That is the Kundan Kafle. My dear young brave friend. I can tell you many many more stories of protest organised by Kundan and his friends. Their tactics, how they organised, how seven different unions belonging to seven different parties from the royalists to the Maoists worked together, came on the streets first, provided the fire and brimstone to every protest...

Did Mr Pranab Mukherjee, defence minister, ever feel the fear in the boy's mother's breast for her son, the young man bearing one lethal weapon: conviction. Does he know what 'missing' means? The chill?

What does the Honourable Minister, Mr Mukherjee who speaks in my name, my name as a citizen of this republic, know about insecurity or security? Has he ever been scared? Really scared? Hungry? Who gave him the right to say this?

More guns won't stop more Kundan Kafles from coming up. They will be martyred and more sons will come and more mothers will weep. The women who gave birth. If he is dead then the Indian state has only pierced Kundan's mother's heart.

Mr Shivraj Patil: home minister. He will be very insecure. He doesn't understand the abc of what makes his state insecure. It is not the students. It is not the workers. It is not the poor migrants from Nepal. Something else makes his state insecure. What is the difference between him, my representative, representative of a billion people, Indian people, poor people, businessmen, Naga people, blind people, all kinds of Indian people, and Gyanendra, who represents only the Nepali army?

But, one request to these big Indian ministers. Educated, senior, well read people. If you talk the language of the state, don't do it in my name. Don't demoralise my friends. They have not done anything wrong. They have only spoken. If they are disappeared, the next lot will come with guns. Or grenades or anything. They are young people. Angry, sad, scared.

His friends in the underground now, hiding. Once they defied the police and now they hide because they don't want to be illegally arrested in a state without the rule of law, where their name will appear on an e-mail list, if it ever gets there at all. What is going on in the minds of the friends? Young men and young women? What are they saying? Who will listen?

Their patience for non-violence against a feudal autocratic military state that the world is bent on supporting is wearing thin. It is being tested.

Don't silence these strong, honest, good young people.

Let them speak. Walk free.

Their energy will create a beautiful Nepal. A lovely Nepal that won't be a security threat. Let's bring them out. Let them walk the streets of their city Kathmandu, which they know alley by alley, heads held high, working towards a beautiful safe new Nepal. They have love in their hearts, sympathy, empathy, intelligence, a smile on their lips, a ready joke, camaraderie...give them a chance.

Here's more names. Names and details. Who is going to account for them?

After Krishna Pahadi's arrest on 9th Feb. another 9 human rights activists were arrested by the police yesterday. The names are:

1. Suresh Chandra Pokhrel, vice president Human Rights and Peace Society
2. Balaram Aryal Treasurer
3. Narayan Dutta Kandel Member
4. Jayaram Basnet- Office assistant
5. Laxmi Pariyar- Coordinator
6. Suman Shrestha- Secretary Kathmandu district committee
7. Jib Lal Hharel Member
8. Basu Devkota
9. Laxaman Achrya

Altogether 17 human rights activists and lawyers are arrested and detained till now. Their whereabouts are unknown.

Please take note, there is not a single Maoist on this list. So where is the war on the Maoists? The king's army can only fight unarmed men and women.
Note: The above message has been reposted without any changes or edits.