August 7, 2003	Thursday	Jumadi-us-Sani 8, 1424

KATHMANDU: Seemingly, it was yet another tale of ‘half widows’ of two journalists, victims of the Maoist civil war in Nepal in which hundreds of media workers have been abducted, arrested and eight killed.

Thakma K.C, 40, was the widow of the well-known Kathmandu journalist and poet Krishna Sen, editor of the ‘Janadesh Weekly’ who is missing but presumed dead, killed in army custody.

Rita Sharma is the 35-year-old widow of Navraj Sharma, editor of ‘Kadam Saptahik’ who was abducted and killed by the Maoist rebels who have been fighting for seven years to turn this constitutional monarchy into a republican state.

Neither have seen the bodies of their husbands, neither had been able to perform funeral rites and achieve emotional or legal closure, stuck in a cultural limbo between ‘suhagan’ (being married) and widowhood.

But in June, Nepal’s National Union of Journalists (NUJ), backed by the International Federation of Journalists, gave 5,000 US dollars as cash relief to the two widows — and shame an insensitive administration into recognizing their plight.

Neither of the two women have been able to get their husbands’ death certificates. The June giving of the grant was planned as a ceremony with the two widows side by side — one of a ‘martyr’ and the other of a ‘traitor’, depending on your side of the conflict divide. But could victimhood be neutral?

At the June 26 ceremony, six months after the ceasefire between the Maoists and the state authority, only Rita Sharma came forward.

Suman Dahal of the organizing committee of the ‘safety fund’ for journalists and their families explained that Thakma K.C had been detained at another ceremony in honour of Krishna Sen’s writings as a poet.

The Maoists had put up notices announcing the death of Navraj Sharma, but the chief district officer of Kalikot district in mid-western Nepal refused to officially acknowledge his death and accused him of being a Maoist.

“I know nothing of Krishna Sen or his widow. He was a Maoist, my husband was not a Maoist,” Rita Sharma said in an interview.

In Kathmandu, Ram Karki of the media cell of the Communist Party Nepal (Maoist) claimed that Thakma K.C did not participate in the June ceremony because she feared jeopardising her government job as a senior lecturer in nursing college in Pokhra.

However, Thakma K.C told IPS that union rules make it difficult to arbitrarily sack anyone in her position, so she had no such fears. Moreover, she had already suffered abduction by “plainclothes army men” who last year had held her for three days and kept her head in a shroud.

As for being reluctant to share a platform with Rita Sharma, she replied, “how can I refuse to accept the NUJ initiative when the journalist community has been in the forefront of campaigning against Krishna Sen’s disappearance?” she said.

Thakma was wearing a version of a ‘mangalsutra’, the married women’s ritually solemnized necklace, and a couple of glass bangles.

Thakma said she was not a great believer in the rituals that defined a Hindu woman’s identity, and had never worn the vermilion mark. But then, she added, “I never saw his body. I have no proof. I haven’t observed any of the funeral rites, so how can I be a ritual widow?”

Thakma has not given up all hope that her husband might one way day come back. “Several people who were declared dead, including a Central Committee member, have come back,” she pointed out.

The Royal Nepal Army denies that Krishna Sen was ever in their custody. Amnesty International refers to the evidence given by a doctor who reportedly did the post-mortem, though the report was never made public.

Thakma is waiting for the government to disclose the whereabouts of 326 other people reported to be missing in Nepal’s conflict, in which 8,000 people have died. As a confidence-building measure for the peace process — the third round will be held this month — the government has revealed the fate of 35 missing. Krishna Sen’s name is not on that list.

According to the Federation of Nepal Journalists, 176 press workers have been abducted in the Maoist ‘Peoples’ War’. The intimidation of journalists prompted the Committee for the Protection of Journalists to call Nepal in 2002 the largest prison for journalists.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.