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The ruling Communist Party of Nepal has repeatedly expressed its commitment to battling car­tels and syndicates in every sector. It has done a few things too. The registration of various transport cartels has been cancelled. The syn­dicate involved in exploiting Malay­sia-bound Nepali laborers has been busted. The government also seems to be getting tough on the syndicates on daily edibles. And yet most peo­ple seem unsatisfied, or unsure of the government intent. “The government is advertising that the syndicates in different sectors have been broken. But the reality is that most consumers are yet to see any tangible change in their daily lives,” says Jyoti Baniya, a senior advocate and President of the Forum for Protection of Consumer Rights Nepal.

The battle against the syndi­cates began in April 2018 with the issuance of the Transport Manage­ment Directive that threatened to break transport monopolies. The government decision was met with massive protests of transport entrepreneurs amassed under the umbrella organization of the Federa­tion of Nepalese National Transport Entrepreneurs Association.

Unlike what happened in former times, the government of the day did not budge to this pressure tactic. After making various arrests and cancelling the route permits of the protesting companies, the trans­port federation backed off and new bus companies were added on the Araniko Highway, which had been at the heart of the power struggle between the government and the transport syndicates.

Subsequently, Mayur Yatyat, Sajha Yatayat, City Metro, Mahanagar Yatayat, Shiva Darshan, Madhya Upatyaka and Annapurna received ‘direct permits’ from the govern­ment and have since started their services. “But these buses are not enough to meet the high demand,” says Baniya. The consumer rights activist believes that many more transport companies need to be introduced to completely do away with the syndicates in the sector.

Moreover, the government intent to take on transport syndicates has been a suspect following some questionable transfers of the bureaucrats involved in recent syn­dicate-busting activities.

Manpower mess

The government recently can­celled the registration of a few com­panies that had created a syndicate for Malaysia-bound workers.

Since 2013, four different compa­nies—the One Stop Solution (OSC), the Malaysia VLN Nepal Pvt. Ltd, the GSG Services Nepal, and MiGram—had formed a syndicate that together earned Rs 4.6 billion on the pretext of providing medical checkups, visa stamping, security clearance, pass­port collection and online registra­tion services to the Malaysia-bound laborers. On assuming office, the Minister of Labor, Employment and Social Security Gokarna Bista swiftly revoked their license and had those who had restricted free competition for bio-metric health checkups of migrant workers arrested.

Manpower company operators, however, believe the government acted in haste. “The companies involved were established in coor­dination with the Malaysian govern­ment. Shutting them down without proper homework could affect thou­sands of Nepali workers set to leave for Malaysia,” says one such opera­tor on the condition of anonymity.

“The government always attacks us without justification. We are a remittance-based economy and without recruitment agencies like us handling the demand and supply of workers, how does the government expect to increase remittance?” he asks. This manpower operator says he alone spent over two months and around Rs 5 million to create demands for Nepali workers in Malaysian compa­nies, to no avail.

Having set a strong precedent in the case of Malaysia, Nepal could be forced to get tough on labor export to other Gulf countries as well. Emulating Malaysia, Qatar, another big destination for Nepali migrant workers, is preparing to install a ‘one-door mechanism’ of its own to hire workers from Nepal and seven other countries. Qatar plans to open a private recruitment company that will take care of all migrant labor-related issues, from recruitment to departure. The extra costs will undoubtedly be passed on to the laborers applying to go to Qatar. Government officials declined to comment when APEX wanted to know if the government would also look to get tough on the prospective suppliers of manpower to Qatar.

Fruits of labor

Cartels are also responsible for artificially inflating the prices of daily commodities. Take the case of fruits and vegetables. The two main wholesale fruits and vegeta­bles markets in Kathmandu—Kali­mati and Balaju—have drawn the government’s attention following complains of irregular and unscien­tific pricing there.

Minister for Agriculture Chakra Pani Khanal made a surprise inspec­tion of the Kalimati market this week and identified various cartels. “We have shortlisted 434 businessmen who are involved in creating a syn­dicate in the vegetable market,” says Bomlal Giri, media coordinator for minister Khanal. “We have issued them stern warnings and have asked them to furnish clarifications.”

One example of the syndicates operating in Kalimati wholesale market is the one related to rent of the stalls there. The ministry found that a few businessmen have been occupying the same stalls for over 15 years. These businessmen pay around Rs 8,000-10,000 in rent to the market operator while they sublet the same space for up to Rs 200,000. This naturally translates into inflated end prices for the final consumers, much to their chagrin.

“I have been in the business of selling vegetables for a year now but I still have not been able to find the logic behind the pricing,” says Avilash Pantha, a shopkeeper who runs a vegetable store in Ranibari, Kathmandu. “The prices are raised in the wholesale markets but it is us, retail shopkeepers, who have to face the wrath of the customers.”

Minister Khanal’s visit to the Kali­mati market was followed by pro­tests by local businessmen, along with threats of imminent strikes. “But the ministry is ready to take them all on,” said a source at the agriculture ministry. In fact, with the help of the home ministry, the ministry of agriculture is planning to remove middlemen in vegetable markets across the country.

All in all, the all-powerful left gov­ernment has made some right nois­es and taken some bold decisions. But again, unless these cartel- and syndicate-busting measures trans­late into lower costs and ease of access for end consumers, they will be meaningless. That, in the end, will be the real test of the popularity of Oli government.

Over the past 16 years, each one of the mountain expeditions in Nepal has suc­cessfully reclaimed the $4000 (in the case of Everest, and $3,000 in the case of other mountains over 8,000m) deposited with the Department of Tourism. This means our mountains are spotlessly clean, as a mountain expedition forfeits the deposit if it is found to have littered a mountain. But as there is little monitoring of the activ­ities of mountain expeditions, this legal pro­vision of monetary fines has failed to deter mountaineers from polluting the mountains they are climbing.

As a result, the piles of garbage on Nepali mountains have been mounting, even though there is no hard data on how much garbage is actually out there. “But there surely is a lot of it,” says Nga Tenji Sherpa, a regular mountain climber.

There is a provision whereby every climber has to bring back eight kilograms of garbage to the base camp. A government liaison officer sta­tioned at the base camp is supposed to ensure that the mountaineers are doing so. But most of the times these officers are not even present at the base camps.

“There is now no alternative to banning expe­ditions on polluted mountains like Everest and Manaslu for, say, five years and start cleaning them up,” says Maya Sherpa, the president of Everest Summiteers Association. “Otherwise the government could lose all the revenues it currently earns from mountaineering.”

This year, a lot of garbage has been depos­ited above Everest base camp 2, says Nga Tenji Sherpa. “When I was returning after cresting Everest earlier this month, I found tent clothes, used utensils, gas cylinders, and other plastic and rubber items left behind at various camps.”

There is still a tradition of expeditions bury­ing their wastes under the snow; and the wastes show up as soon as the snow starts melting. “The climbers are supposed to bring back eight kilo waste but it appears that they are doing the opposite: leaving behind eight kilo. No one is monitoring them. In this state, how can our mountains be clean?” he asks.

The Department of Tourism has been return­ing anti-dumping deposits on the basis of rec­ommendations of bodies like the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (in Khumbu) and the Annapurna Conservation Area Project (in Manalsu region). “But these organizations have zero knowledge about whether a partic­ular expedition has adhered to government’s anti-dumping rules,” says Santa Bir Lama, the president of Nepal Mountaineering Association. “Unless these organizations and the offending liaison officers are punished, there is no possi­bility of cleaning up our mountains.”

This climbing season alone, the government generated Rs 380 million in revenues from Everest. Likewise, it earned over Rs 450 million from other mountains. But little of this money is being spent in cleaning up the mountains.

Lack of awareness about the damages caused by the left-behind garbage among mountain­eers and government workers, unaccountable trekking agencies, and poor oversight are responsible for the garbage problem, according to Ram Prasad Sapkota, an information officer at the Department of Tourism.

Besides Everest and Manaslu, the other mountains with documented accu­mulation of garbage are Nangpai, Mustang, Dhaulagiri, Sarewung, Arniko Peak, Makalu, Lhotse and Nuptse.

By CHHETU SHERPA | KATHMANDU

The government has asked for the closure of the Kath­mandu office of the United Nations Department of Political Affairs (DPA) as the office was deemed to have completed its mission. The DPA was established in 2011 after the wind-up of the UNMIN, the UN body responsible for supervising the demobilization and disarmament of the then Maoist combatants. With the UNMIN gone, a mediatory body like the DPA, it was felt, was needed in order to oversee the completion of the ‘peace and constitution’ process that had started with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agree­ment (CPA) in 2006. The new federal government thinks that the peace and constitution process has been completed with the holding of all three constitutionally-mandated elections and subsequent formation of three tiers of government. In other words, now that most of the outstanding political issues have been settled and the new constitution has become fully functional, there is no need for an outside observer like the DPA whose chief mandate is to help ‘resolve conflict’.

One could argue that the peace and constitution process will not be completed so long as the two transitional justice bodies—related to truth and reconciliation, and enforced disappearances, respectively—don’t satisfactorily complete their work. If the conflict victims feel they have been denied justice, there will always be a possibility of the country’s relapse into conflict, and hence the continued need for something like the DPA.

But it was also hard to see the DPA play any meaningful role in transitional justice after the formation of the strong left government intent on stamping its authority. Prime Minister KP Oli seems to believe Nepalis are now mature enough to deal with their own issues. He also reckons that he has the mandate to regulate the functioning of foreign NGOs and agencies in line with national interest.

The government asking the DPA to wind down, however, is not tantamount to saying that Nepal is now self-sufficient and needs no outside help whatsoever. Or it should not be. Such an approach would be suicidal in this increasingly interconnected world. But it is also well within this govern­ment’s powers to ensure that international organizations working here follow due process at all times. And if certain organizations like the DPA and the Indian Embassy’s field office in Biratnagar have outlived their utility, or if they have somehow breached their code of conduct, it is only right that they be closed down.

For many years to come, the June 12 summit between the American President Donald Trump and the North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jung-un will be studied by the students of international relations. Scholars will keep presenting us with new facts that led to the historic summit in Singapore. But if what transpired in China between Richard Nixon and Chairman Mao in1972 is any guide (since many analysts are comparing Trump and Kim, to Nixon and Mao) we can draw three conclusions from the nice surprise. 

First, the North Korean regime is in dire need of cash, as many analysts have argued, after years of sanctions and heavy expenses on the part of the state to develop hydrogen bomb and ICBMs. Maybe the economic problems led the North Korean government to the talks so that the sanctions would be eased, which, in turn, would not only help get the economy on track but also avoid any popular protests that could signal an end to the Kim regime.

One of the reasons Mao was open to talks with the Americans was that the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) had devastated the Chinese economy. Unable to control the mayhem he unleashed, by 1971 Mao knew that China needed various reforms, including economic, for the CCP’s survival. 

Second, the North Korean regime feared it could be overturned by rebel factions supported by either the American, Russian, Japanese, South Korean or the Chinese (at this point there's no way to know which faction is powerful in North Korea). Perhaps to counter such threats and avoid a Syria-like situation, Kim took a proactive measure and decided that direct talks with America would ensure his survival and would result in little or no bad foreign press when he removes the factions he deems dangerous to his regime.

Another reason Mao was open to talks with the Americans was that he feared he could be overthrown by the pro-Soviet faction in the CCP. Lin Biao, who allegedly plotted a coup against Mao in 1971, was of the opinion that China needed to maintain good relations with the Soviet Union and emulate its development model. Just as Kim got rid of his uncle and other officials he thought could threaten his rule, Mao had Peng Dehuai and Liu Shaoqi brutually tortured, among other prominent communist party members who opposed him. Mao suspected them of being sympathetic or close to the Soviets.

And the third factor, Kim feared a possible joint attack by South Korea and America and maybe even by Japan if he were to continue with the nuclear program and bellicose rhetoric. Shinzo Abe, unlike his predecessors, has made it clear that Japan too would not shy away from proactive measures if its’ or its allies’ interests are threatened.  

Mao was afraid that border skirmishes with the Soviet Union could lead to a full-blown war. Hence he was open to dealing with the Americans, or better yet, to forging a “strategic partnership” to counter the Soviet expansionism. 

Besides these, other factors that could have led to the Kim-Trump historic summit could be:

North Korea feared that Japan would also develop nuclear weapons, which would render its arsenal useless.

Maybe, as many have speculated, Kim felt he already has the weapons needed for his regime’s survival, and it was about time he joined the world community. Because of the hydrogen bomb and ICBM, he could talk with the US president from a position of strength. 

Perhaps Kim realized that if he has to keep relying on China and Russia by antagonizing the rest, soon, the two countries would be calling the shots in North Korea. He probably felt he could be used by them in their dealings with the US, thereby giving North Korea no say in its own affairs. Or he could be the victim in the event of a proxy war between the two countries.

And Trump could have calculated that if he can get this issue resolved, he will have no need to cajole the Chinese and will thus be able to take a tougher stand against China on trade and South China Sea and other issues. He also didn't want any interlocutors so that he himself could take all the credit for resolving the crisis.

Or maybe the Chinese themselves encouraged the North Koreans to hold talks with the US to avoid taking a side in any untoward situation. China realized that it would be in a very difficult position if a war broke out between the US and North Korea. 

Or the summit is a gift from Russia to the Trump, who has shown eagerness to mend ties with it and make it an active member of the international community/organizations including the G7, or to give some positive media to Trump in light of ongoing Mueller investigation into Russia’s role in the US presidential election. 

Perhaps a combination of all these factors were responsible for the June 12 historic summit. For now all we can do is speculate.

Whatever the reasons, both Trump and Kim deserve credit for beginning the talks to achieve lasting peace in the Korean Peninsula. The people who worked behind the scenes, both in North Korea in the US, some visibly and some covertly, deserve some credit too.