=================who should we blame on this ??=================


Villagers recruited by Maoist rebels to build a road called the Martyrs Road are forced carry heavy rocks, working seven hours a day for no money.



The little girl in the green shawl leaned forward slightly, just enough so the large stone balanced on her head would not crush her feet when it fell on to the Martyrs Road near the village of Tila, Nepal.

She tipped it onto the ground, coughed into the damp mountain air, turned in silence and began to walk in her flip-flops back down the 450-meter stretch of steep, curving track that is the largest infrastructure project ever initiated by Nepal's Maoist rebels.

At the end of her walk, a pile of rocks awaited her and the other recruits from her village who, like thousands before them, had been forced to work on this road for seven hours a day, for eight days, for no money, a two-day walk from their homes.

The Martyrs Road, named in honor of Maoist fighters killed in battle, is not even routed through their village.

``Ten,'' the girl said, when asked how old she was. Gayatri Oli was her name, she said.

Nearly everyone interviewed - old women, young men, mothers, grandfathers, boys and girls - knew they were being watched and listened to by other workers or members of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), who were making them work on the nine-kilometer stretch of a road that Maoist planners say will reach the full 91km to the so-called Maoist capital of Thawang within the next three years.

They were only too happy to help the region's development, they said, repeating a party mantra.

Only one man broke the ideological harmony. He declined to give his name and made sure no one could overhear him. ``It's this way,'' he said. ``No one speaks the truth here. The truth lies inside and everyone says what they're taught to say.'' He walked off, heading for the pile of rocks, and refused to make eye contact again.

Nestled between the emerging nuclear superpowers of China and India, Nepal is a country most people think of as the home of the tallest mountain in the world, the mythical yeti monster, Buddha's birthplace, copious marijuana and plenty of hippie travelers to smoke it. It is still that place for many visitors.

But it also is teetering on the brink of a collapse that could result in huge bloodletting and international confrontation, according to diplomats, many Nepalis and other experts. Among the diplomats, there is a sense the coming year or two will prove crucial in determining Nepal's future.

The country's political cocktail is alarming. The Maoist rebels are convinced of ultimate victory. Nepal's king, claiming he was responding to the growing insurgency and the corruption of the democratic parties, seized absolute power this year in a coup, stamping out dissent with an army that has one of the worst human rights records in the world.

Those who would and do dissent - the parties - are considered crooked and almost worthless by most Nepalis.

Under threat from three sides is a population of 27 million. People who are living in a volatile, fragile habitat. They live in a country where they can be lynched by vigilantes, abducted by the Maoists, disappeared by government security forces and tortured or killed by any of the three.

Many - a million so far - have chosen to flee to India rather than live in a conflict zone. Rebels control roads and thoughts and bodies in the countryside and the security services can take control of the courts, the media, the telecommunications systems and people's lives in the cities.

In May, the United Nations opened its largest human rights monitoring office in Kathmandu since it established one in Rwanda. Its mission: to monitor both sides - the king and the Maoists. It also has been investigating the vigilante actions of anti-Maoist militias.









What makes the situation in Nepal so alarming is this: After almost a decade of increasingly intense warfare and the deaths of more than 12,000 Nepalis, no solution appears either clear or likely. Even those whom the Western powers, the United Nations and neighboring India are banking on - the democratic political parties - seem a risky bet at best.

The democratic parties are numerous, but most of the power resides with the Nepali Congress Party and the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist Leninist). While they may represent the country's best chance of representative government, Nepalis tend to see them as corrupt and untrustworthy.

The conundrum for the United States, Britain and India - Nepal's main allies - is this: To support the increasingly autocratic King Gyanendra is hard to justify, especially in the era of US President George WBush's stated aim of spreading democracy.

To weaken the king would be to strengthen the Maoists, whose victory could usher in a rein of even worse terror. So, to Western and regional powers determined to help prevent Nepal's slide into chaos, diplomats say, the democratic parties represent the best of three bad options.

Solutions are hard to identify. But what history has shown clearly is that ignoring a country such as Nepal - or Rwanda, or Bosnia or Afghanistan - as it descends into chaos can have a costly impact later in global stability.

The scene on the Martyrs Road is a snapshot of what Nepal might look like if the Maoist insurgents ever came to power. With a guerrilla army of anywhere between 5,500 and 15,000 - claims and estimates vary - they already control the majority of the Himalayan kingdom's terrain.

Nepalis and diplomats say that while the Maoists are unlikely to gain full control militarily, the worsening political crisis could open the door for a communist party that could turn the nation into the world's next killing fields.

Nepal, much like other ignored and apparently insignificant countries like Cambodia, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and Rwanda, threatens to sneak up on the consciousness and conscience of a world currently preoccupied by the conflicts in Islamic nations.

A failed state of Nepal could also become a highly volatile bone of contention between two immediate neighbors: the emerging nuclear superpowers of India and China. India would be unlikely to stand by and watch its neighbor disintegrate and many of Nepal's population flood its borders. China would be unlikely to tolerate an Indian military intervention on its doorstep.








A Nepal under control of Maoist rebels might resemble those parts of the country already in their grasp, including these activities documented by human rights organizations: Abduction of children and adults for forced labor and military service; ``People's Courts'' in which the accused nearly always are found guilty by an unqualified tribunal that metes out often violent justice; ideological indoctrination of children in schools; assassination and torture of teachers and political enemies, and the seizing of their property; and

attacks on large landowners and redistribution of their lands.

Diplomats and Nepali politicians say this nightmare scenario could be held at bay by a united front of the king, the security forces, a democratically elected government and military aid from America, India and Britain.

But on February 1, the chances of such a strong defensive alliance evaporated. King Gyanendra seized absolute power, claiming he was the only one who could defeat the Maoists. With his coup almost universally condemned by the international community, Gyanendra has spent the past six months weakening the remaining vestiges of the civil society and democracy that had grown up since his country's democratic revolution in 1990.

In June, as a result of the king and his security forces persecuting the democratic parties of Nepal, an alliance of seven democratic parties did exactly what Western governments most feared: They began serious talks with the Maoists, raising the possibility the Maoists could gain control of Nepal through politics where they have failed with guns. The talks continue.

























On Friday, June 24, the Maoists held an inauguration ceremony for the opening of the first 9km stretch of the Martyrs Road. The village was festooned in red banners, multicolored bunting and red flags.

Dozens of Maoist soldiers appeared with their weapons. A collage of Maoist martyrs hung over speakers at the microphone.


The road actually had been finished the day before and, in the darkness of the evening, the first two vehicles ever to come to Tila - Indian-made SUVs - roared into the village like strange contraptions from the future.

One carried a generator and a computer. In one moment, Tila had taken a huge leap into the modern age. The Kathmandu governments - neither those of Nepal's kings nor democratic parties - had ever given the people of Tila so much.

The villagers seemed genuinely overjoyed. Medicine, food, tools, schoolbooks - all these crucial and basic goods now could flow into Tila and beyond. The Maoists had built the road, not the government, people said; they were grateful.

But the laborers who had really built the road, people from around the region, were not there. They had left for home, to their fields and their families.


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