serendipityoucity

My friend Shirley Blair, left Canada to become the director of the Shree Mangal Dvip Boarding School in Nepal.  The school is for Tibetan & Nepali kids who would otherwise not get an education.  She even has a few kids who have gone on to University abroad, a rare feat as international universities normally turn down applicants from Nepal. The system is notoriously corrupt.

The situation in Nepal is volatile to say the least and she has +/-500 kids caught in the middle of this. Her worries are:

No curfew passes means no eyes on the street.

Shirley is asking us to read the Nepal updates on the International Crisis Group Site and Nepal Crisis Watch.  The Nepal’s Crisis: Mobilising International Influence briefing is excellent. 

She asks us Canadians to contact our Local MPS and ask them to push for the items requested in the briefing:

A Contact Group should focus on:

• immediate practical planning, including on the contingency of a sudden change in government; preparations for a small international ceasefire monitoring mission; and establishment of a channel of communication with the Maoists;
• maintaining pressure for a peace process, including by introducing targeted sanctions on the royal government (a visa ban, investigation of overseas assets in preparation for freezing them and restriction of army participation in UN peacekeeping operations);
• supporting the democratic mainstream politically and practically, in particular by assisting parties to prepare for negotiations and interim arrangements; and
• keeping pressure on the Maoists to move towards peace and give tangible proof of their willingness to abandon violence by warning them that if they obstruct progress towards a peace process or fail to respect the understandings they have entered into with OHCHR, donors and the mainstream political parties, Contact Group members will coordinate efforts to apprehend senior leaders and interdict any cross-border movements.

A broader Peace Support Group, bringing together major bilateral and multilateral donors, should work in parallel to:

• review development assistance;
• prepare to support transitional processes such as constitutional reform and viable elections; and
• start planning for how to deal with a possible “peace dividend”.