THE YAKHA: CULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT IN ...

Department services were operated normally in most of the hospitals in
Kathmandu Valley today, according to the Health MfnistryH, which of
course begged the question as to why they should not have been normal in
the first place (and what had been going on in the minority of hospitals
not represented by the word 'most1, as well es in the Out-Patient
departments). Meanwhile campuses were said to have been closed *due to
lack of academic atmospherea, while the inside pages of the newpaper
discussed the problems of rat infestation in Malawi and beach erosion in
Barbados,
As is usual in such situations, it was by talking to people that we
found out more about what was going on, at least in their own eyes, Our
Nepalese friends fn Kathmandu wers becoming increasingly disiIlusioned
with the police who they felt had gone much too far, alienating even
those who at one time might have been supporters of the status quo, In
response, the government led by Prime Minister Marich Man Singh Shrestha
was taking an increasingly hard line. Things were coming to a head,
Barricades which wers erected at night were no longer dismantled during
the day, and there were increasing numbers of large black circles in the
roads around the city marking the sites where rubber tyres had burned.
An effigy of a yellow doll marked 'the systemi hung from overhead
electricity wires on one of the roads into Durbar Square in the middle
of Kathmandu. This was not removed. The police post further along our
road, a blue hut with glass windows, had been stoned, overturned and
abandoned, Another general strike, Nepal-wide this time, was called for
Friday, Apri 1 6th, Other, spontaneous strikes broke out elsewhere, The
teaching hospital was closed by doctors protesting about the way in
which the police tried to remove bodies of dead demonstrators before