MEETING SUPPOSED TERRORISTS

This happened in 2003.

I always wanted to write but at the time this happened my journalistic antennae were not very sharp. In fact, they still aren’t now, the things that amaze me are rarely the things that get into the papers. This is only one of many many things that happened when I was in that country.

I was in Nepal doing voluntary work, building a school, somewhere similar to this…

The village was around 12,500 feet, around 4000 metres.

At the time (2003) the civil war in Nepal was in full swing. the army/royalists are bastards. The maoists/rebels arent a great deal better.

The standard scenario is that the rebels turn up in your house at night and demand your rice and food and pressgang any children you may have into their army. However, there are spies on both sides in every village street or town. So, two weeks later the army turn up and arrest you for helping the rebels even though you had no choice in the matter. They are stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea in that country.

I made a point of trying to interview some of the rebels, which I really shouldn’t have. I should have from the standpoint of trying to get to the truth but I really did put the people I was living with at unnecessary risk and in some ways I wish I hadn’t done it.

Before me, not many westerners had got to speak to the Nepali rebels and it took a lot of work but I managed it. They came to speak to me and a friend.

It was very strange, the guy was about the same age as I was at the time (about 25) but i could see cold murder in his eyes. He was telling me how 75 of his friends had been killed by the army and by god was he going to take revenge. He meant it.

So the rebels are supposedly maoists. However, they are not supported by China in any form. They have more to do with some of the factions in India but they are still autonomous and don’t have a great deal to do with them either. And they arent really maoists they are straight up communists.

Interviewing the 25 year old guy, he also had his henchman with him, or better put, his henchboy. A 14 year old pointing a rifle at me the whole time I was speaking to him. For the first 10 minutes or so this completely freaked me out but after that I got a hold of it and figured he wasn’t going to shoot me unless I gave him a reason to and I certainly wasn’t going to do that.

When I was talking to the guy I was trying to ask him interesting questions but every answer I got back was a textbook marx communist party manifesto answer…example…

Q. 35% of the maoist soldiers are women. That is very unusual in a hindu country like nepal. Why?

A. The revolution is here to save everyone regardless of class, gender etc etc et fucking cetera

So, after the initial shock of the gun thing I actually started to get bored. I kept telling him that I had read the communist party manifesto and that I wanted to know what he thought and not what that said because I already knew what that said…

Incidentalluy, I am only telling part of this story. After about half an hour of this I was bored because he had clearly decided he didn’t trust me and he wasn’t going to say anything so I decided ok, last question, fuck it – go for it.

What is the last question you would expect a group of guerillas like that to answer?

I asked it.

Q. Where do you get your guns?

and he told me! straight up.

Rebel dude – “they’re British”

Me – “huh”?

It turns out that in the interest of fairness britain sells guns and weapons to India AND Pakistan. Some people there want to make a quick buck and so out the back door people in both armies are happy to sell to whoever comes calling and the Nepali rebels obviously wanted guns so they were able to buy them.

Now the morals of this story are completely up in the air and the morality of the civil war in that country is completely up in the air too but if I was a bastard I could have made a career for myself from that story (BRITISH GUNS RACKET etc) but I didn’t.

This story could have been a great deal longer.