Some Notes on Peacebuilding in Nepal
The sun shines brightly on the snow-covered mountains all around. Children dart out from behind buildings to have a look at the stranger in the village; they disappear when you smile at them. Over to my left woman are already in the fields harvesting by hand what they will later in the day, over an open fire, turn into a few pieces of flat bread. This is Nepal, high up in a remote hilly region where there are no roads and remarkably over 150,000 people live in villages strung out over hills and down into valleys like a string of cheap beads. I had been dropped in by light plane, its return would depend on the weather and a host of variables not least the reliability of the plane itself. On another trip after I had got out of the plane it simply refused to start. Great bellows of black smoke was all it offered. Left to the morning it started first time. Reminds me of a car I used to have.
What am I doing here? Sometimes I ask myself that question as well. I suppose like all associated with MNI trying to make things a little better, or at least not any worse.
The 10-year bloody civil war here ended with a peace agreement in November 2006 having killed at least 14,000 people, goodness knows how many injured and still today over 1000 people missing. But as always implementing a peace agreement is perhaps just as difficult as making it. The political in-fighting continues day after relentless day.
A few months after arriving here in 2006 I gave a short presentation on peacebuilding to the staff team, mainly Nepali, of the United Mission to Nepal (UMN) This large institution to which I had been assigned for a 4 year term as conflict transformation advisor has been involved in development work since 1953. At the end of what was probably a pretty boring and pretentious presentation a rather dour Nepali colleague took me to one side and said, “Joe we are always fighting, it’s the way we are. Its been going on for generations, but do your best”. Suddenly I felt very much at home. Here was good old norn iron writ large.
In what must have been a sort of prophetic statement sometime in my twenties my father warned me never to work in or travel to a country, which ended in stan. Perhaps even then he saw my interest in the chaotic, noisy, bitterly cold or hot and sweaty places of the world. I thought of him recently when a parcel arrived from home, posted by one of my 3 faithful sisters. The newspapers and chocolate were wrapped in the familiar brown paper he had salvaged from the wholesale grocery he worked in for 50 years and closed when he retired. Well at least Nepal doesn’t end in stan.
Conflict transformation advisor means you know more about conflict than others. Thats not such a big deal here since despite the war most people effectively ignored it. At least those with education in Kathmandu where it never really reached with a vengeance, probably shrugged and left it to the politicians. The idea that peace is everybody’s responsibility is still taking root. All the big INGOs are here and have been for over 20 years. However blending conflict transformation in and through development work seems not to have happened in the past. Like people everywhere the INGOs have taken a long time to re-calibrate their traditional work. Sadly a recent research report talks of development work done from the relative comfort of Kathmandu. What was really happening outside seemed not to be recognised. Until due to the conflict the space for development work shrunk to an extent that the large donors then demanded more work on the conflict rather than traditional development in a conflict country.
In the hilly region on this trip I will meet up with the small UMN regional team living and working among the local people. In particular I will spend time with the conflict transformation officer, one of 7 my Nepali colleague and I recruited and trained. Each is based in a regional team in seven of the poorest and most desolate parts of the country. Others will have responsibility to support local NGO projects in health, education, HIVAids, food security and other general development work. On this trip I might share some pearls of wisdom, but mostly I work to support, encourage and train the young team of conflict workers. As in N. Ireland peace will come not through some smart outsider, but because local people want it more than war. To-morrow as required I will need to check in with the local authorities. At the police post I produce my dog-eared photo-copied passport, fill in and sign various forms, take a glass or two of sweet tea. The more junior officers under paid and over armed will be happy to practice their English. Wherryoofrrom? How arr you? When however the superintendent appears in front of his officers he is like a bank manager behind his desk reviewing a rather disappointing balance. Yet relationships are everything here and my rather greying hair and age are a distinct advantage. Sometimes I am even called sir, a title I rarely got while teaching up the Shankill. More tea and hand shaking and we are the best of friends.
If my officer is on the ball he may have arranged a seminar on family violence, or trauma healing or peacebuilding and pulled in the great and the good from around the area. Here people always get a small allowance for attending seminars or training events as well as food in the middle of the day. These often take place in poorly lit and often damp rooms where people sit on the floor on small cushions. A sort of flip chart and pens are provided. Electricity is rarely available in remote areas. In another region the NGO is working with widows from both sides of the war. Widows are about as low caste as you can get. Seen as bad luck they usually are turned out of their husband’s Hindu extended family home and have to fend for themselves and any children they have. In yet another area small centres have been set up by a woman’s co-op. Disputes over water, firewood, grazing animals and the like are resolved through a mixture of western mediation and traditional elders’ consultation.
In all of these places you get wonderful pictures, meet amazingly friendly and helpful people and sometimes pick up a very powerful stomach bug. Often this lasts longer than the memories.
One young woman about 23 years old was very obviously disabled and as a result not good marriage material. The gunmen had swept through her village when she was 17. All families were to “donate” a young person to the cause of freedom. Her brother was taken. Her parents went into a permanent state of mourning for their only son. The Hindu culture demands that he light the funeral pyre for his parents after death. They remained inconsolable for many days. Finally this brave young woman made contact with the local commander and arranged to take her brothers place. The exchange was made. Then after over a year of active service she sustained a gun shot wound to her foot which stubbornly refused to heal. She was discharged and with the poor medical care these remote people have come to accept the infection spread. The rest as they say is a lonely poverty stricken life.
This is Nepal beyond Kathmandu and the familiar trekking trails where life is getting better but only very slowly.
Joe Campbell .
The sun shines brightly on the snow-covered mountains all around. Children dart out from behind buildings to have a look at the stranger in the village; they disappear when you smile at them. Over to my left woman are already in the fields harvesting by hand what they will later in the day, over an open fire, turn into a few pieces of flat bread. This is Nepal, high up in a remote hilly region where there are no roads and remarkably over 150,000 people live in villages strung out over hills and down into valleys like a string of cheap beads. I had been dropped in by light plane, its return would depend on the weather and a host of variables not least the reliability of the plane itself. On another trip after I had got out of the plane it simply refused to start. Great bellows of black smoke was all it offered. Left to the morning it started first time. Reminds me of a car I used to have.
What am I doing here? Sometimes I ask myself that question as well. I suppose like all associated with MNI trying to make things a little better, or at least not any worse.
The 10-year bloody civil war here ended with a peace agreement in November 2006 having killed at least 14,000 people, goodness knows how many injured and still today over 1000 people missing. But as always implementing a peace agreement is perhaps just as difficult as making it. The political in-fighting continues day after relentless day.
A few months after arriving here in 2006 I gave a short presentation on peacebuilding to the staff team, mainly Nepali, of the United Mission to Nepal (UMN) This large institution to which I had been assigned for a 4 year term as conflict transformation advisor has been involved in development work since 1953. At the end of what was probably a pretty boring and pretentious presentation a rather dour Nepali colleague took me to one side and said, “Joe we are always fighting, it’s the way we are. Its been going on for generations, but do your best”. Suddenly I felt very much at home. Here was good old norn iron writ large.
In what must have been a sort of prophetic statement sometime in my twenties my father warned me never to work in or travel to a country, which ended in stan. Perhaps even then he saw my interest in the chaotic, noisy, bitterly cold or hot and sweaty places of the world. I thought of him recently when a parcel arrived from home, posted by one of my 3 faithful sisters. The newspapers and chocolate were wrapped in the familiar brown paper he had salvaged from the wholesale grocery he worked in for 50 years and closed when he retired. Well at least Nepal doesn’t end in stan.
Conflict transformation advisor means you know more about conflict than others. Thats not such a big deal here since despite the war most people effectively ignored it. At least those with education in Kathmandu where it never really reached with a vengeance, probably shrugged and left it to the politicians. The idea that peace is everybody’s responsibility is still taking root. All the big INGOs are here and have been for over 20 years. However blending conflict transformation in and through development work seems not to have happened in the past. Like people everywhere the INGOs have taken a long time to re-calibrate their traditional work. Sadly a recent research report talks of development work done from the relative comfort of Kathmandu. What was really happening outside seemed not to be recognised. Until due to the conflict the space for development work shrunk to an extent that the large donors then demanded more work on the conflict rather than traditional development in a conflict country.
In the hilly region on this trip I will meet up with the small UMN regional team living and working among the local people. In particular I will spend time with the conflict transformation officer, one of 7 my Nepali colleague and I recruited and trained. Each is based in a regional team in seven of the poorest and most desolate parts of the country. Others will have responsibility to support local NGO projects in health, education, HIVAids, food security and other general development work. On this trip I might share some pearls of wisdom, but mostly I work to support, encourage and train the young team of conflict workers. As in N. Ireland peace will come not through some smart outsider, but because local people want it more than war. To-morrow as required I will need to check in with the local authorities. At the police post I produce my dog-eared photo-copied passport, fill in and sign various forms, take a glass or two of sweet tea. The more junior officers under paid and over armed will be happy to practice their English. Wherryoofrrom? How arr you? When however the superintendent appears in front of his officers he is like a bank manager behind his desk reviewing a rather disappointing balance. Yet relationships are everything here and my rather greying hair and age are a distinct advantage. Sometimes I am even called sir, a title I rarely got while teaching up the Shankill. More tea and hand shaking and we are the best of friends.
If my officer is on the ball he may have arranged a seminar on family violence, or trauma healing or peacebuilding and pulled in the great and the good from around the area. Here people always get a small allowance for attending seminars or training events as well as food in the middle of the day. These often take place in poorly lit and often damp rooms where people sit on the floor on small cushions. A sort of flip chart and pens are provided. Electricity is rarely available in remote areas. In another region the NGO is working with widows from both sides of the war. Widows are about as low caste as you can get. Seen as bad luck they usually are turned out of their husband’s Hindu extended family home and have to fend for themselves and any children they have. In yet another area small centres have been set up by a woman’s co-op. Disputes over water, firewood, grazing animals and the like are resolved through a mixture of western mediation and traditional elders’ consultation.
In all of these places you get wonderful pictures, meet amazingly friendly and helpful people and sometimes pick up a very powerful stomach bug. Often this lasts longer than the memories.
One young woman about 23 years old was very obviously disabled and as a result not good marriage material. The gunmen had swept through her village when she was 17. All families were to “donate” a young person to the cause of freedom. Her brother was taken. Her parents went into a permanent state of mourning for their only son. The Hindu culture demands that he light the funeral pyre for his parents after death. They remained inconsolable for many days. Finally this brave young woman made contact with the local commander and arranged to take her brothers place. The exchange was made. Then after over a year of active service she sustained a gun shot wound to her foot which stubbornly refused to heal. She was discharged and with the poor medical care these remote people have come to accept the infection spread. The rest as they say is a lonely poverty stricken life.
This is Nepal beyond Kathmandu and the familiar trekking trails where life is getting better but only very slowly.
Joe Campbell .
Labels: This was written for Mediation Northern Ireland in-house newsletter
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