BHARATPUR: With rumours of an impending Maoist blockade of the country’s highways, many people in Nepal are dreading another round of price hikes of fresh vegetables and shortages of items like cooking fuel, flour and sugar. Businesses anticipate long delays getting their goods to market and higher charges from those transport firms willing to risk the roads. But in the central plains district of Chitwan a group of farmers believe they have a formula to keep their business thriving. Their Egg Collection Cooperative Centre is one of a variety of responses to the challenges of operating in areas no longer directly managed by the state — it is estimated the Maoists control as much as 80 percent of Nepal’s territory. Other enterprises have simply given in to rebel demands to pay a “fee” and register with its “government”.
The cooperative’s office and warehouses are located just a 15-minute walk down a rutted road from the centre of this district headquarters town. During the last traffic blockade that ended Feb. 27 its vehicles continued running the country’s roads without hindrance while private businesses risked the Maoists’ wrath if their trucks were stopped.
“We continued collecting eggs and supplying them to the major cities during the 15-day blockade. The security agencies also cooperated with us during the crisis,” said the cooperative’s managing director Dinesh Chuke.
The cooperative began one year ago and now counts 70 farmers and a couple of businesses among its members.
Showing journalists around two, single-storey brick warehouses where hundreds of boxes of eggs awaiting delivery rested in groups on the floor, Chuke explained that Maoists had phoned and tried to extort money from the cooperative months earlier. “I told them, ‘this is not mine; this is the farmers’ business. You already take money from the farms; why do you want to take it from here’?”
Since then, the cooperative has not heard from the rebels, he added. “Maoists cannot challenge cooperatives because they belong to the poor and grassroots people,” said Deepak Baskota, executive chairman of the National Cooperative Federation of Nepal. “Maybe they don’t like (cooperatives) — including some people in the government sector — but they can’t speak out against them.”
While the government has promoted the private sector since 1990’s “democratic spring, left to their own devices cooperatives have flourished, added Baskota in an interview in his Kathmandu office. In 1990, pro-democracy students and politicians forced King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah, Gyanendra’s brother, to relegate his authority from an absolute monarch to that of a constitutional one.
About 8,000 cooperative societies are operating in the country today. On the other hand, some private businesses have paid off the rebels or “registered” with the insurgents — a requirement the Maoists force on those operating in their area in a bid to legitimize their presence, said a senior official of the country’s business lobby.
The official says business has recommended that the military focus its resources on the highways entering the Kathmandu Valley from the east and west. “If you cannot maintain supply along these routes, you’ll have to compromise on your stand (vis-a-vis the Maoists) very quickly,” predicted the official.
But continuing to work in rebel-held zones or during a bandh can be a double-edged sword, pointed out a retired senior civil servant: such activity raises security forces’ suspicion that people are collaborating with the Maoists.
That accusing finger has been pointed at UN staff and employees of other NGOs as well as at local government workers. “I’ve had several problems with the Ministry of Defence ... because they say food aid could be used by Maoists,” one employee of the Ministry of local government said.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.`
