Well-Being For All

Terry's Travel Log (Blog) lV.V - The End of Armed Conflict, Nepal

Greetings from Nepal

I have grown up in a nation and culture that has shielded me from many of the effects of armed conflict. I know my father was seriously damaged by the war beyond the bullet and bomb inflicted wounds to his body. It was the terror that affected him psychologically. All the years we shared, from my birth to his death a few years ago, I know he never slept through an electrical storm. The lightning and thunder was so much like the bombardments he faced in Great Britain and Europe. I do not think I ever knew the man he really was or could have been. Now my nephew is in Afghanistan with the Canadian Armed Forces and I desperately hope this cycle does not start again.

As I experience Nepal after a 7 year absence, I am seeing the effects of the armed conflict that raged among these people all across this ancient nation. All of my colleagues were affected, as was their work. But now, the armed rebels have turned their guns over to the UN and they did so to enter the political theatre of dialog and conflict resolution. There is excited hope among the people in the city.

Strange though. In every other country and area of war I have visited in the past 25 years, the war has sapped the resources of the nation, halted progress or even created serious deterioration. Haiti, the Philippines, El Salvador, Guatemala and Sri Lanka. But Nepal, at least the capital city of Kathmandu, appears to have had an economic and development serge despite the Maoist revolution and civil war. I wonder about the the rural areas. I will soon find out.

The conflict simmered at a low level for several years until it fully erupted in 2000, just a few weeks after a World Accord Discovery Expedition that ended in December of 1999. It was a Maoist revolt. Nepal sits nestled up against the south side of the massive Himalaya mountain range that includes Mount Everest. It is the buffer zone between India, the world's largest democracy and the world's largest communist (cum industrialist state), China. So I naturally expected the Maoist ideology had come out of China. Wrong! It came from India. It started as a group of activists struggling for the rights of the poorest. It may have become a genuine social revolution because it was supported by a large segment of the society. The exciting thing is that the armed conflict has stopped.

I look forward to seeing the people in the country side and how their well-being has been affected by conflict. Our Parter agency, SAP Nepal (SAP means South Asia Partnership) has been telling us for the seven years of the conflict that they have been able to keep working despite the violence. All this time, World Accord staff have been telling donors and funding agencies like the World Hunger Fund of the Community of Christ that this was not a time for us to abandon the poor of Nepal. The next few days will tell.

Stay tuned. If the power is on when I am near an internet site, I'll keep you posted.

Terry Fielder
Pokhara, Nepal

posted by World Accord Staff @ 10:17 AM