USD Magazine Spring 2007

the Tense New Dawn G R E E T I NG

When the people rose up and took to the streets in Nepal, the IPJ was there

by Thomas Larson

Last April, Dee Aker and Laura Taylor, peace-builders with the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice, flew to Kathmandu, Nepal. It was their third trip in seven months, each flight taking 38 hours with a 10-hour layover in Bangkok. Before leaving San Diego, Aker and Taylor had read State Department warnings: Nepal was still unstable and had been since Feb. 1, 2005, the day King Gyanendra had declared a state of emergency. Frustrated by a decade-old Maoist insurrection, he had closed the country, jailed political dissenters, shut down radio and TV stations, and cut electric communications, even cell phones. In the interim, some liberties had been restored, but much of the country continued to struggle under martial law. On previous visits, Aker and Taylor had experienced disruptions of their work. Once they had to hide some of the student leaders from security police; another time, they got a whiff of tear gas. Arriving this time, they wondered how they’d find the familiar, vital capital of 1.5 million. Smog usually obviated the view of the nearby Himalayas, but on this clear spring day the snowy peaks were crystalline close.

MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

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