House of Himalayan Crap?

Signs below are a parody of wannabe bullies at unethical Himalayan Crap House (sub-standard printing house in the bowels of Kaydoo).

Image below offers a depiction of Pawan-ne to the left, Udyog-ne to the right, locked in a full-on disaa (crapping) contest...usual flunkies of Crap House will be sniffing around, #LOL

Pawan-ne -- left, Udyog -- right in a disaa (sh*tting) contest with each other. Crap House flunkies will be sniffing around

Himalayan Crap House Mobile Print Shop

#CrapHouse, #Ratmandu, #Corruption

Nobel Prize Winner Gets It...and you, gentle aid agents?

"Mr. Deaton is a strong critic of foreign aid. He believes that the approximately $5 trillion given by governments of rich countries to poor countries over the past 50 years has undercut good governance by making poor countries’ leaders less accountable to their own citizens." --excerpt from piece by David Henderson, The Wall Street Journal

Angus Deaton, 2015 Nobel Prize winner in Economic Sciences, gets it. How about you gentle aid agents? With all due respect, please be sensible and awaken to the reality of the stifling effects of aid despite decades of good intentions.

Unfortunately, aid tends to endow (knowingly and most often unknowingly) dysfunctional elements of the status quo including ruling gangs with unearned status and leverage. That perpetuates and prolongs the very problems that aid is endeavoring to solve and dis-empowers people. Despite the best of intentions (which are not in doubt), the people endure chronic poverty and its lethal effects.

For once, will the aid industry at least consider that they might be doing some harm? This question is not unreasonable, especially when hundreds of millions of people are suffering every day and have been suffering for decades upon decades for want of progress, health and opportunity. Might intervention be causing harm? Should not that be the first question of all before an aid entrepreneur packs his/her bags to effect change in a distant foreign land?

Until then, until we see clear, transparent, and objective proof worthy of trillions of dollars and years and years of critical time gone--lost time and lost opportunity borne by an impoverished people--people without a defender, without an advocate, without a champion, without representation--then, I will continue to believe the aid machine is generally misguided and tends to abet the very people keeping the poor undeveloped and paralyzed in failed governance and failed aid folly.

If foreigners truly want to assist and cannot resist trying; if they believe that they can effect change in a far-flung land (typically, enjoying high salaries that put them in the 1% of the very people that they aim to ‘aid’), then the best thing imaginable for development and progress would be to free the people from oppressive and corrupt governance including unethical bureaucrats from top to bottom and entitled gangs with unearned privileges. Without state and foreign interference, then the people could pursue their own dreams and ambitions with their own talents and capabilities.

Wall Street Journal - VIDEO (most interesting from 2:30)

Structural representation of the folly of aid? photo © Alonzo Lyons, all rights reserved 

#Angus, #Deaton, #NobelPrize, #Economics, #AidRiddenNepal, #DonorDarlings, #FreeNepal, #DambisaMoyo, #AidBully, #AidEntrepreneur, #Corruption, #DeadAid, #HowtToRobAfrica, #LetMyPeopleGo, #Nepal, #YellFire, #UNDPNepal, #SNVNepal, #USAIDNepal, #DFIDNepal, #WorldBankAsia

Rebuilding Nepal: The rubble must go -- A Skeptic's Take

With all due respect to the talented author, her primary sources for the Al Jazeera piece (Rebuilding Nepal: The rubble must go) are organizations with vested interests--NGOs, the UN, the government—entities that have earned skepticism over decades of aid-industry ventures in Nepal. Rather than pay them more heed, the citizens of this great nation would do well to hold these groups up to greater scrutiny and demand transparency and hard evidence with quantifiable metrics, e.g., poverty reduction, worthy of 5-6 decades of aid and billions of dollars spent including dazzling salaries that put aid entrepreneurs in the top 1% of Nepal society, the very society that they endeavor to assist.

More reliable and convincing sources of information in this piece about the afflicted areas would be residents themselves from the rural areas most affected by the quake. A relatively small percentage of Nepal was badly damaged by this natural tragedy and people in these areas are receiving humanitarian aid and are also working together as communities to rebuild themselves. These worst hit areas will likely need a lot of continued assistance but this fraction of Nepal is not representative of the entire country regarding reconstruction needs by a wide margin.

It is extraordinary to read of the “urgent…task of reconstruction…small window of time… winter, which will be particularly brutal” juxtaposed with Executive Director of the National Society for Earthquake Technology’s statement, “Timeframe is not an issue…Nepal can be rebuilt in the five years outlined”.

It would be more convincing to hear from voices outside of the organizations that have monopolized aid. Despite the small pockets of Nepal in real need of humanitarian relief, the whole country seems to be portrayed as in dire need of outside help. An unsavory side-effect of that broad depiction is the complete sabotage of one of Nepal’s most vital industries—the hardworking tourism sector. Painting the picture as one of dire need  (e.g., “debris still blocking streets”) unnecessarily scares off potential visitors and is killing an integral industry that could immediately endeavor to revive Nepal’s post-quake economy.

.

The graphic portrayals though meant to help bring in more aid funds do real harm to many people especially, those who rely on tourism and their dependents. From hoteliers, restaurateurs, taxi drivers, goods sellers and suppliers, guides and porters, families and dependents and everyone else in between Kathmandu and tourist destinations and back again, such misrepresentations cause harm.

The following links are a bit scathing but at least might provide a counter-perspective to the implausible pleas in the Al Jazeera article for more money…Can these organisations iron out issues among themselves and get to work with the 4.4 billion USD that has already been pledged? This amount itself can scar Nepal indelibly if it goes to the wrong gang…and elements of that gang are very much aware of the wildly lucrative opportunity born from the true victims of tragedy.

Politely Don't Believe the Hype
&

Working from the Ground on Down

#FreeNepal, #AidBully, #AidEntrepreneur, #AidRiddenNepal, #DonorDarlings, #NepalQuake, #Nepal

"Working from the ground on down"

'Nepal isn't Haiti' aid organizations are urging donors to believe.

They have good reason to be insistent...a vulgar amount of money is at stake--billions...

...billions...

The aid industry is even bullying the media to not report on misdeeds, that is, to not compare Nepal's aid paradigm to Haiti's fiasco--lest potential donors become justifiably wary and pull back. Aid entrepreneurs seem to be fitfully concerned about losing 'their' money and losing a chance at a financial jackpot wrought by a horrific tragedy.

And with a game-changing amount, then perhaps Nepal might become so disfigured as to be rendered unrecognizable--sunk forever if the wrong people receive as much power and leverage as a pornographic windfall would afford the ruling establishment--ever more leverage and more sway over a long-disenfranchised, impoverished citizenry.

"Nepal is not Haiti"...is supposed to reassure potential donors...

Actually, the aid scene in general in Nepal is likely worse than Haiti, and for that matter, perhaps worse than anywhere in the world. Are aid entrepreneurs willing to truly see the suffering behind mounds of expensive paperwork, reams of photo opportunities...to bear witness to the appalling fashion show behind the clutter and faux-scenery of a donor darling playground? For anyone with eyes to see, suffering is palpable in Nepal and deathly. Most donors and aid workers do not see it, pretend not to see it or worst of all, blindly believe that they are championing the very people being oppressed by the establishment, an establishment that aid helps to endow.

Therefore, I kindly request evidence-based reassurances that the aid business is on track and on task. After six decades and billions of dollars and endless schemes, can the aid industry please present evidence in their own defense worthy of six decades of otherwise lost time, effort and money? For example, in flagrante delicto many hydro projects have been funded (profanely funded) without materializing...that money didn't just disappear into thin air...the people should track and chase down and prosecute every last accomplice for stripping them of years and years and years of prosperity and the pox of poverty that took its place. Poverty and its effects include hunger, illness, educational failings and much more up to death associated with it and its lost opportunities.

For once, will the aid industry at least consider that they might be doing some harm (rather than curiously proclaiming that they are not Haiti)? This question is not unreasonable, especially when tens of millions of people are suffering every day and have been suffering for decades upon decades for want of progress, health and opportunity. Will the aid industry ever consider it might be doing some harm? Should not that be the first question of all before an aid entrepreneur packs his/her bags to effect change in a distant foreign land?

Until then, until we see clear, transparent, and objective proof worthy of billions of dollars and years and years of critical time wasted--lost time and lost opportunity borne by an impoverished people--people without a defender, without an advocate, without a champion, without representation--then, I will continue to believe the aid industry is generally misguided in Nepal and beyond. Hopefully, I might, even if in the smallest way, be part of a growing voice for overdue change in aid to Nepal...otherwise, taken as a whole, aid tends to support the very people keeping Nepal undeveloped and paralyzed in failed folly. In sum, aid, taken as a whole (from my anecdotal viewpoint), probably could not have done more harm to Nepal had that been its aim.

It tends to subsidize the entitlement gang, political establishment and government functionaries and does so for the worst. Together they generally have drowned the hopes of millions of Nepalis day after day, year after year, decade after decade and so on. Foreign agents tend to align with precisely the wrong gang, prolonging and perpetuating deathly problems. I would love with all my heart for the sake of Nepal and Nepali people to be proved wrong about aid...until then I will fumble along as I speak out against it (and hopefully speak up for Nepal and Nepali people) as much as I can.

And what now is most needed post-quake? In terms of rebuilding in rural areas, structures in the hills collapsed, and mostly homes need to be rebuilt--and many have been already.

This rebuilding is something local people are adept at as a community without much outside support. Many have already accomplished this rebuilding of their own homes through their own and community-wide efforts. This is something they have done since time immemorial without a single rupee or nod from any outside source or consultation. 

Still, pleas for schools pull at donors' heartstrings. What human with red blood can withstand a plea for a school--ultimately for kids, for education and opportunity...Schools have become the target as they are the most likely to reach a soft spot in potential donors' judgment.

But what exactly will be rebuilt here with regards to schools..will they become the same as they were pre-quake...many empty shells where education was desired but not often delivered for want of teachers, staff, salaries, supplies and for want of material, administrative and economic support necessary for a school to function. Basically, will it just be a building with the name of 'school' on the outside?

What I mean to point out is, what of these schools after they are built? Who will staff them, supply salaries and instructional materials and a decent curriculum? Material support was a major issue in most schools pre-quake. Who will follow up once the newly erected structures are in place? Or, is the structure the only goal and education an assumed side-effect that has been greatly missing all along in many rural areas? Is this overlooked or do aid workers believe education will materialize on its own after a basic framework is established (and after hefty salaries and photo opportunities are collected by I/NGO entrepreneurs and administrators)?

Certainly, outside funds might make re-building, education, and nearly everything else easier if they truly hit the target in a transparent way and have proper, unbiased oversight and rigorous follow-up and most importantly community support, too. And that is precisely what is suspicious about the aid paradigm up to now...how infrequently they have hit targets (do most of them even know their targets if not the local language and cultures they are affecting?) and can provide concrete stories of success.

Moreover, at this point, it is not going to kill anyone to not receive more outside funds, whereas, on the other hand, a vast amount of money that helps subsidize and endow a dysfunctional system could potentially do vast harm as it continues to oppress the majority of vulnerable people in a way that results in illness, suffering and yes, even death...one outrageously tragic example, over thirty Nepalis are coming home in body bags a month after perishing abroad in hideous work mostly in Malaysia and the Gulf for lack of opportunity at home--a direct outcome of the flawed establishment that is greatly enabled and endowed by the aid industry. Knowingly and most often unknowingly aid is helping to keep a dysfunctional system in place.

No, now is not the time to defend Nepal's aid paradigm as 'not Haiti' --if that is the best claim and the catchphrase the aid business chooses to put forth right now. They already have 100,000-plus spokespeople on salaries in favor of aid (i.e., Nepal has over 100,000 I/NGOs and therefore, that many CEOs of I/NGOs). Given the tide in favor of a dubious industry, that industry might very well benefit from a few more critics.

In fact, focusing on the rare few in the aid industry doing things right does a disservice to the Nepali people at a time when billions are at stake and more oversight and care is most needed, not less. Overlooking the faults is not the answer if it means overlooking the suffering, the backbreaking suffering that aid has been a party to for the foreseeable past.

Now is the time to #FreeNepal and demand of I/NGOs at the very least transparency (in amounts received, amounts spent and on what and substantial proof of it including amounts of salaries of all members in said aid organization), accountability, oversight...or better yet, free Nepal of foreign intervention altogether by throwing a malnourished, abused baby out with the bathwater and pull the plug on a dysfunctional status quo rather than inoculating the zombies with billions...billions...

Lack of money is likely not the root of problems, nor are funds the likely solution. Will more money lead to any resolution and progress and if so, can the aid industry provide substantial proof of that?  
Until evidence arrives, more funding seems to have had the opposite effect...which leaves me to ponder the earnestness in proclaiming that 'Nepal is not Haiti'? 

"The [aid industry] doth protest too much, methinks" -- paraphrase of Hamlet, Shakespeare

"There are good deeds and good intentions and the distance between them is as far as heaven and hell...and you're working your way from the ground on down." --Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals

Live from Mars, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals
"There are good deeds and good intentions and the distance between them is a far as heaven and hell."

Great Himalayan Fiction

(Advisory: Scathing, yet, hopefully realistic assessment--don't mind.) 

I am certainly not the only one who sees the Great Himalayan Trail (Trick?) to be a well-funded (Himalayan) snow job. Although, I might be one of the few Himalayaphiles willing to call it out publicly (many others have shared their disbelief with me in private), especially in the face of a moneyed industry that has grown up around the fictional line on a map. A corps of well-paid and articulate people have worked feverishly to will the concept into being with exuberant energy and talent despite Himalayan obstacles and Himalayan chasms and lack of a any semblance of a contiguous trail.

Even the talented gentleman who wrote the eponymous guidebook makes a striking confession. In his Acknowledgements he mentions the three Sherpa guides who made it possible by joining him 'every step of the way'. 

Three Sherpa?

Ever step of the way?

This is a skilled, veteran trekker with many seasons of experience in Nepal. If he needed three Sherpa guides every step of a cross-country journey to find the way, negotiate logistics,  technical sections and survival, then what hope is there for the average trekker to pick up a guidebook and go?

In fact, an elite, world-class trail runner tried that and was dangerously off course within days, losing personal items and forced to return to Kathmandu by vehicle, perhaps lucky something worse did not happen.

Again, if a elite, seasoned trail runner was immediately lost, then what hope is there for an average trekker?

"One Trail to Rule Them All" was put forth with a grandiose, kingly name at a time when Nepal had just ousted a 239 year-old tyrannical crown--perhaps a more appropriate motto during that dynamic time might have been One Trail to Unite Nepal or even The Trail to Unite Them All. After all, the country was just out of a ten-year civil war and working to come together as a newly born democratic republic. Yet, even my above alternate names would miss the mark considerably until there actually is a trail. 

There is no one such trail or even a contiguous series of trails. If a person is lucky and with adept guides and tremendous logistical and technical gear and support (arranged with a great amount of funds), then they might be able to trek across the country from the eastern to western border, but certainly not on any singular trail, or even one contiguous route linking trails. There simply are not trails linking other trails in a number of remote areas even as maps might hazardously make it seem unless some very lengthy detours and wild zig-zags are undertaken to connect sections (such detours are not indicated on any of these maps).

Moreover, the seasonal window for crossing secluded, technical, mountain passes on a cross-country high traverse is relatively short and through isolated, rugged, uninhabited highland areas along the ramparts of the Himalaya. Spending time in this no-man's land at altitude including traversing technical passes requires not only the aforementioned expert guides with technical skills but a good deal of supporting gear and food and staff to help with both and not just route-finding. Certainly, such an expedition-style journey is outside the ken and budget of casual trekkers and even elite trekkers for that matter.

Additionally, there is no Lower GHT. It is simply a conceptual line on a map, and I personally know the two guys who casually placed that line on a map. They did it from an office in inner-city Kathmandu far away from any remote trails. One of them never trekked in his life, the other manages a company that specializes in taking foreigners to Annapurna, Langtang and Everest and did no recce whatsoever in the majority of the country. 

Please don't get me wrong. People have hiked cross-country, and of course that is totally possible. Some people did near cross-country walks decades before the 'launching' of this posh project, but no one has hiked the so-called Lower GHT route, because it  simply does not exist (the highly sponsored and talented group who hiked border-to-border followed a myriad of trails and not an advertised route). 

To the credit of SNV (the Dutch INGO that funds along with help from DFID, the aid wing of the UK, the heavy promotion and dazzling salaries of a multitude of people both foreign and domestic working on promoting the GHT fantasy), they have retreated from 'One Trail to Rule Them All' realizing at least that the initial title was total fiction, although not sure how it was vetted in the first place with the many paid experts that were on board.

Further retreats have been made, yet whatever the amorphous conception has been molded into at this point, with all due respect, the cash-infused notions of the GHT and Lower-GHT are nothing like the names suggest. I humbly request that people affiliated with the swanky campaign might reconsider associating their good names with it no matter what the financial rewards might be.

At this point, with all due respect, great Himalayan truth needs to trump all else now more than ever as Nepal re-builds post-quake and I/NGOs and government agencies, agents, and accomplices might do well to consider a new, more transparent paradigm. If nothing else, then do it for the safety of trekkers who might be fooled into attempting a long-haul hike on a non-existent route.

Follies like this prompted a Nepali journalist to cry out, "Does Nepal need DFID or does DFID need Nepal?!" It is a fair enough question, especially for a citizen of a country burdened by indefinite 'aid'. Nepali journalists should turn the heat up by continuing to ask valid, hard-hitting questions of these outsiders operating in their homeland and demand credible, evidence-based answers.

Outside of humanitarian quake relief, Nepalis might do very best with the opportunity to choose their own programs and own targets without outside intervention that often enables dysfunctional elements of the status quo and therefore, empowers and embeds the wrong people while disempowering and disenfranchising the citizenry through mis-governance and paralyzing entitlements. 

Removing the deadweight, malignant establishment players and entities will be the best anyone could possibly imagine for development. It would allow the Nepali people the freedom to follow their own dreams with their own capabilities and efforts unencumbered by donors, diplomats, politicians and an entitled gang.

Many cheers for your patience and consideration regarding my comments above and please keep on trekking, sightseeing and adventuring. Nepal offers endless cultural and natural treasures along with a legendary hospitality that will charm visitors in an enchanting Himalayan land. And to the misguided of the aid workers, donors and I/NGO staff who've traveled overseas to effect change in Nepal, please give renewed consideration to the trekker's maxim, "The Himalaya might change you, please don't change the Himalaya."

#FreeNepal #DonorDarlings #myGHTbs

Another day, another bandh

Actually, Nepal has been in an endless #bandh (closure) for the foreseeable past -- a bandh that has crippled the people...a bandh resulting from the political establishment and entitlement gang and their dysfunctional status quo -- a self-serving status quo that is supported and underwritten (knowingly and mostly unknowingly) by foreign agents (including diplomats, I/NGOs, donors, and aid workers).

And then there are the day-to-day bandhs of a restless people wanting change, wanting freedom and making an impact the only strongest way they seem to know how -- shutting everything down that they can in a dysfunctional system. Despite the negative effects on commerce in a depressed economy, the long-running bandh spawned by corrupt officials and the vehicle halting bandh of the day, for me the latter type of Valley bandh is a chance to walk along uncluttered roadways. Yesterday, I made a comparatively quiet stroll to Basantapur from Thamel along narrow and uncrowded passageways.

Bandh or no bandh the ticket takers at the monument sites are always at their stations and ready to collect fees (a money-grubbing habit they learned from foreign advisers) that never seems to trickle back to the area for which entrance is gated.

One astonishing discovery du jour was Seto Machindranath Temple...a compound behind a wall that collapsed off a main thoroughfare near Ason Chowk. Just behind the crumbled wall the glorious temple can now be seen; otherwise, it had been hidden from street view. I have passed by this very busy area many times without the slightest notion Seto Machhindranath Temple was awaiting discovery there.

The temple is dedicated to one of Kathmandu's preeminent deities, Seto Machhindranath (similarly, Patan has its  famous Rato Machhindranath). Except damage to the minor retaining wall at its perimeter, the temple is fine and intact post-quake.

Below are photos from today of this mystical site revered by locals.

#FreeNepal, #DonorDarlings, #Corruption, #Bandh

Politely, don't believe the hype, and by all means, please don't spotlight the hype

Totally alarmed at sensational photos of Kathmandu and Nepal still being posted on social media. With the exception of a comparatively few places (which have been identified and are receiving care and attention), Nepal is doing quite fine. The images are alarming and turning potential tourists away precisely when the economy needs them most. Posting them is not doing one of Nepal’s most vital industries any favors and directly injures the many people who rely on tourism from hoteliers, restaurateurs, taxi drivers, goods sellers and suppliers, guides and porters and everyone in between from Kathmandu to Everest Base Camp and back again. Posting gratuitous images seems a self-serving ploy to elicit money for dubious projects without regards to a greater whole affected by a graphic mis-portrayal. 

With the exception of a very few places, Kathmandu and all of Nepal are open and ready for tourists and the people are totally looking forward to receiving visitors, again.

One illustrative example, a friend’s home was damaged in a remote village of Gorkha District, not far from April 25th quake's epicenter. His father received 15,000 rupees (about 150 USD equivalent) from the local administration. With those funds he has already fixed up the home and built a new two room shelter that is quake-resistant. The community there has worked together and swiftly rebuilt each other's homes and more.

Contrast that with many mind-blowing stories of deception including filing of false pleas from people with undamaged property to gain (and get) sympathy money—actively doing a disservice to real victims in true need.

It is sickening dishonesty when the task of recovery is acute for some people. I don't know how people can justify taking the opportunity to feed off the misfortune and misery of others, and that includes carpetbagger foreigners capitalizing, too. Sensational photos are not helping and can paint a false image of the situation and discourage visitors and sabotage a hardworking industry that could otherwise immediately endeavor to revive Nepal.

With all due respect, the best a foreigner can do is visit and encourage others to visit this enchanting land. Nepal will be glad to welcome all with a legendary hospitality and endless natural and cultural treasures.

#NepalQuake #DonorDarling #Corruption #FreeNepal

Why the 'World's Biggest Democracy' Still Fails

An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions -by Amartya Sen and Jean Drèze
was written about India and applies directly to Nepal as well. Below is a telling excerpt from The Economist review of it.

"The authors argue that the state fails mainly because of deeply entrenched inequality. A ruling elite defined by caste, but also by gender, education and income, has an utter lack of interest—verging on contempt—in improving matters for the rest. Newspaper editors and readers, judges, NGO activists and academics are also drawn largely from privileged backgrounds, and care little."

#Corruption #FreeNepal #Nepal

Nepal's constitutional jeopardy

Continued in-depth coverage and insights by Bell…still, he only briefly mentions the foreign agents (diplomats, INGOs, donors) subsidizing and motivating (directly and indirectly) the miscarriage of duties by the entitlement gang.

Hopefully, he will soon take aim at ill-informed, ill-acting foreign agents, particularly the ones controlling massive funds that give themselves and the political establishment enough leverage and clout to continue a deadly game of charades for all but themselves.

The following regarding the aid paradigm in Africa relates directly to everywhere that ‘aid’ runs unsupervised …

How to Rob Africa by Anas Areyemaw Anas

&

Dead Aid by Dambisa Mayo



#ThomasBell #NepalQuake #Nepal #Corruption #FreeNepal #DeadAid #AnasAreyemawAnas #DambisaMayo

'The Revolution Will Not Be Funded'

INGOs and foreign agents, with all due respect, please go home...your hearts might be in the right place...and effects on a one-to-one basis might be terrific  -- overall the effects of non-emergency aid are a total disaster and holding down the very people and communities advertised as being lifted up.

With all due respect, please get yourselves out of the way and let the talented and capable people follow up on their own dreams and skills without interference from wayward bureaucrats and an establishment with unmerited power (bolstered by INGOs and foreign agents directly and indirectly).

For Unsettling Reference:

http://www.incite-national.org/page/revolution-will-not-be-funded-anthology

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/6/in-haiti-the-aid-industrial-complex-revives-colonial-stereotypes.html

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/6/10/un-forces-trade-aid-for-sex.html

http://www.news.com.au/finance/money/more-aid-workers-in-top-pay-brackets/story-e6frfmd9-1226626158592

And the wise and wonderful, talented and daring Anas Areyemaw's, How to Rob Africa

#Corruption #FreeNepal #NepalQuake

'Volunterrorism' in aid-ridden Nepal

For the people traveling overseas to effect change in a faraway country, may the Himalayan trekker’s adage light the way, ‘The Himalaya might change you, please do not change them.’

My apologies if the message is harsh, especially to the rare aid worker making a true diffeence...however, the effects of foreign intervention on a country I love has been deathly harsh. Therefore, I feel the need to speak out now more than ever as Nepal re-builds.

If anything, work to free people of oppressive governments, that is the best that we can do for those of us who cannot resists getting involved one way or another. Then the freed people will be free to pursue their own dreams and life with their own skills and talents.

#Corruption #FreeNepal #NepalQuake

'Dead Aid' by Dambisa Moyo

The following is a chilling excerpt from Dambisa Moyo's website: http://dambisamoyo.com/publications-articles-videos/books/dead-aid/

"In the past fifty years, more than $1 trillion in development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Has this assistance improved the lives of Africans? No. In fact, across the continent, the recipients of this aid are not better off as a result of it, but worse—much worse.

In Dead Aid, Dambisa Moyo describes the state of postwar development policy in Africa today and unflinchingly confronts one of the greatest myths of our time: that billions of dollars in aid sent from wealthy countries to developing African nations has helped to reduce poverty and increase growth.

In fact, poverty levels continue to escalate and growth rates have steadily declined—and millions continue to suffer. Provocatively drawing a sharp contrast between African countries that have rejected the aid route and prospered and others that have become aid-dependent and seen poverty increase, Moyo illuminates the way in which overreliance on aid has trapped developing nations in a vicious circle of aid dependency, corruption, market distortion, and further poverty, leaving them with nothing but the “need” for more aid.

Debunking the current model of international aid, Moyo offers a bold new road map for financing development of the world’s poorest countries that guarantees economic growth and a significant decline in poverty—without reliance on foreign aid or aid-related assistance.

Dead Aid is an unsettling yet optimistic work, a powerful challenge to the assumptions and arguments that support a profoundly misguided development policy in Africa. And it is a clarion call to a new, more hopeful vision of how to address the desperate poverty that plagues millions."

#DeadAid #DambisaMayo #AidRiddenNepal #DonorDarlings #FreeNepal

RE: Do they have what it takes to rebuild Nepal? ...in other words, coitus interruptus

Another perceptive article by Mister Bell. One bone of contention is his curious opinion that “the government and donors…deserve great sympathy and consideration”…for the very problems their coital relationship has spawned.

Heaps of profiteering on the backs of average citizens “deserves great sympathy and consideration” because...the bullies are experiencing conjugal problems (coitus interruptus between the donors and government) of how to move forward with…likely more of the same? Six decades of feeding off impoverished citizens is enough.

The Nepali people have long been without a champion, those who come to assist often end up aligning with patriarchal, ruling conservatives and the entitled establishment (with unmerited power and privilege), thus perpetuating a deathly tragedy.

With over 100,000 I/NGOs operating in Nepal, and sixty years of ‘development work’ you might imagine it to be a dazzling gem of advancement on par with Switzerland…instead, Nepal has been stagnant if not backsliding. The only thing that appears to be dazzling are the salaries, perks and lifestyle of the ‘donor darlings’ and the ruling class and government functionaries fostered by ‘aid’.

In fact, rather than receiving sympathy and consideration, the bullies themselves would do well to have sympathy and consideration for the society from which they profit, especially considering that their lucrative employment places them in the top 1% of the society that they traveled overseas to change.

The 99% have to put up with INGO bullies and the government bullies they undergird -- a government bottom feeding in annual corruption indices. Let the I/NGOs and diplomats at least consider that over half century of aid has propped up and bolstered the myopic old-guard ideology and its oppressive ways and means with lethal results.

Conservative rulers have dominated for centuries, and their leadership has done immeasurable harm to Nepal. Yet, wayward leaders and their entourage are continually able to bend the ears, minds and hearts of diplomats, donors and expats in their favor (often fueled by drinking rumpuses and banquet dinners).

The dereliction of office is tantamount to waging war on Nepali citizens. The real effects of malfeasance can certainly be as ravenous as war (e.g., sections of Kathmandu, including the Bagmati and Vishnumati rivers were post-apocalyptic pre-quake).

Is it then too far-fetched to suggest that blood is also on the hands of the ‘donor darlings’ and diplomats for abetting (knowingly or through lethal ignorance) a dysfunctional system that imperils the general population causing harm and suffering up to death of men, women, children and infants?

They have even driven many sons and daughters out of Nepal--robbed of opportunity in their motherland--to take on great risks and unmanageable loans to pursue work abroad. Frequently, they end up as slaves with no homeland representation, and on average, over thirty people die every month and their corpses are sent home in body bags.

The Nepali people don’t need to have sympathy for the bullies in government and from abroad interfering and throwing up obstacles and prolonging hopes of real change for the better.

Remove the deadweight, cancerous bureaucrats, politicians and I/NGOs and give the people the freedom to follow their own dreams with their own capabilities and efforts unencumbered by smarmy donors, diplomats and politicians.

#ThomasBell #NepalQuake #Corruption #FreeNepal 

I/NGO Bullies and Tumors They Envenom

Cheers to T. Bell for another insightful article. Donors and the aid cohort would do well to contemplate its message aimed with expert marksmanship directly at them and the cancerous government that they foster.

One minor bone of contention with the piece is the opinion that Nepal’s civil war is partially to blame for lack of development and progress.
At first blush that might seem obviously true, but is that really the correct conclusion to draw about that dynamic period of engagement?

After all, the war was incubated and fought, according to revolutionaries, to remove obstacles to development—a battle they believed was waged against patriarchal, old-guard values, corruption and oppression that have crippled the country and economy for the foreseeable past. Maybe rather than stifling development, the revolution instigated it by systemically shocking the body politic.

That said, there are few to no foreigners who have anything but discouraging words and notions about the Maoists. The popular narrative lays disproportionate blame on the Maoists. They are summarily condemned, not the least because of a very poor branding (many of Mao’s policies have been disabused, even in the People’s Republic of China) and because Nepali conservatives (dominant in the media and public and private sector) with vested interests antithetical to the rebels are able to bend the ears, minds and hearts (and clink glasses in all too frequent drinking rumpuses) of diplomats and expat crowd.

It is easy to elicit reflexive head nods of assent by criticizing the revolutionaries and blaming them for societal ills that were actually centuries in the making.

Does the author truly believe that there would have been anything but more of the same business as usual in that ten year interregnum from 1996-2006 had there been no conflict? In fact, in the rest of the article he widely and rightly condemns the status quo for misdeeds and misappropriations during pre- and post-war periods. Would the state have behaved any more productively for development without the revolution? Conversely, perhaps the revolution even put the brakes on malfeasance and graft for a spell.

The way things had been going up until 1996, all seemed on a trajectory for more of the same, essentially, more unmerited blessings for office holders and the entitled sliver of society and few to no blessings for the majority of the population. In fact, it might be contended that the war in part ameliorated an epoch of wrongdoing with regards to personal rights, particularly for women and people outside the ranks of the ruling gang.

Up to the war and still even to this day, many non-privileged groups have faced deep discrimination akin to apartheid. Conservative rulers (informed by the Hindu religion and its casteism) have dominated for centuries, and their leadership has done heavy harm to Nepal. They truly have squandered the chance to be genuine leaders and have generally opted to exploit personal avarice. In fact, is it too far-fetched to suggest that their derelict leadership has in itself been akin to a war on Nepal? Haven’t the physical effects been as ravenous (e.g., certain sections of Kathmandu, including the Bagmati and Vishnumati rivers were post-apocalyptic pre-quake).

All things considered, despite the heavy and tragic toll on life and property, the revolution at least ousted the royal crown creeping toward tyrannical rule, and a democratic republic was born. The revolution also raised useful questions including the re-drawing of boundaries within the state to be more representative. Whether all that might have happened if there had been no rebellion pushing it to a boiling point is anyone’s guess, but in my modest estimate, without taking up arms, an otherwise extremely passive people with no leverage and little say would not have effected any more change than they had for the previous centuries. What has happened post-bellum is an entirely different topic, and the Maoists certainly share considerable blame for the continued gridlock and poor administration of the state.

Notwithstanding the tragic loss of life, and keep in mind the state was responsible for more civilian deaths than the rebels, it can be argued that the revolution was a catalyst for change relative to other periods.

#ThomasBell #NepalQuake #Corruption #FreeNepal