Observations during the State-of-Emergency: Kathmandu, December 2001

Accustomed to sharing my flights to Kathmandu with large numbers of people dressed in trekking gear, I sat in Vienna Airport and wondered when my fellow passengers would arrive. It took me a while to realize that the trekkers had all stayed away, with the exception of two young couples. The plane that held over 250 people had a mere 40 on board. Approximately half were Nepalis: some returning from overseas trips, and others visiting. The remainder of the passengers were an assortment of foreigners: business people, development workers, foreign residents, the four trekkers, and me. Within minutes of boarding the plane the only two other passengers seated near me at the rear of the plane began a conversation about ‘the Maoist situation’. “Bad, bad,” I overheard the Kathmandu politician comment, to which the development worker asked, “What do you think will happen?” As the conversation continued it became harder to hear the whispers and I lost the thread of the discussion, but not before I heard the development worker comment, “We have had to close projects, staff have been threatened by the Maoists and offices ransacked.” The politician added, “Perhaps things will be sorted out now that the army are involved, we don’t know what will happen, nobody knows.”