deep into maoist heartland

The Norwegian Refugee Council in Nepal works to protect the rights of persons who had to flee their homes during the decade-long conflict between Maoists and established elites. The people’s war, as they called it, was started in the Mid-West region of Nepal, in the hills, among villagers and hard-to-reach communities. The first to flee were political leaders and wealthy landowners. However, as the conflict progressed, it was more and more the regular villagers who were caught in the squeeze between army and Maoists.

As I walk through the hills together with three of my colleagues, following the majestic Bheri river, there is little outward sign that these areas have been the battle ground of such a recent feud. Villagers are out ploughing the fields with sturdy pairs of oxen, noisy children run around the houses, and along the paths everyday goods are carried along on the backs of sweating porters.

There are some tell-tale signs, however. For every house we pass, dodging looks are thrown at us. We greet with namaste, but get little or no response. My colleague explains: the conflict has made people extremely sceptical of strangers. You never quite know who you are facing. (Well, I can’t really quite blame them for being sceptical of our little group which includes two pale white, blond women in splash orange t-shirts.)

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School children performing dances and songs

Our little trek coincides with the Hindi festival Tihar, and along the way we meet numerous dancing troops – some seriously organised with matching outfits and elaborate performances, others more ad hoc school classes running around – presenting dances and songs at every small cluster of houses they come to.

It turns out that many of their songs are home-made, put together by the youth themselves. They sing of the conflict, of friends they have lost or who have fled, of the fear they can remember feeling, and of the peace accord. Some echo the promises they have heard from political leaders for many years now: “In the new Nepal there will be books and pens, in the new Nepal there will be education for all!” I can’t help feeling quite cynical about when they will see the new Nepal come true, as their political leaders bicker over when they might hold elections for a constituent assembly.

Later we are gathered for a community meeting in an area where many families have now returned back and are rebuilding their lives. The local Maoist leader is invited and sits down next to the Nepali Congress leader, old time rivals. As people introduce themselves around the circle, their stories also come out. Some have suffered at the hands of the army, others at the hands of Maoists. Some tell of how they were badly beaten after refusing to pay “donations” to the Maoists. I watch the Maoist leader as the stories are told. He wasn’t the Maoist leader here during the conflict, I am told, but still, I think, something must be going through his mind as he hears what people have suffered under his party.

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Maoist leader addressing a sometimes sceptical audience

I ask one of my colleagues about it afterwards, wondering whether people are not afraid to tell their stories so bluntly when they are at the same time accusing other people in their community for what they have suffered. She seems almost surprised at the question – don’t I know that the conflict is over now?, things have changed – and tells me that she took the Maoist leader aside herself after the meeting and asked him if he wasn’t ashamed at everything he heard.

I have to smile at the ease with which she says it, as if this is the most straight forward thing. Maybe a new Nepal is growing in the hills after all.

More pictures from the Mid-West hills here