Road Construction

As the GTZ, itself explains, in a communiqué published in coordination with other foreign development agencies, it will withdraw from the RCIW program in the West Nepalese District of Kalikot (Karnali Region), because it cannot assure the security of its personnel. Last weekend rebels beat up several GTZ workers and threatened to kill them. Earlier the GTZ was forced to suspend its cooperation on the "Green Road" in the Gurkha District because of massive threats from the Maoist rebels. ¹⁾The construction project, co-financed by GTZ, is supported by the Nepalese government and carried out in regions known to be strongholds of the guerilla movement. The GTZ pays the indigenous workers 4kg rice per workday, while simultaneously expanding the transport possibilities and effective radius of action for the Nepalese military.

Experience

The GTZ has been accused in the past of participating in road construction projects to build transport routes for the military in civil war regions. In the mid-90s the agency was involved in the "Bondoc Development Program" (BDP) in the Philippines. According to critics, transport routes were laid, within the framework of this project, for the Philippine military in a region controlled by the New People's Army (NPA), the Maoist guerrilla. ²⁾Along the route of this network of roads, the GTZ organized "model villages," whose inhabitants received economic support - thus, in order to enhance the fishing industry, artificial reefs were created by dumping automobile tires. In exchange, the inhabitants of the GTZ model villages, were obliged to exercise surveillance on the roads of their district and report rebel activities to the local authorities.

Exports

The GTZ's involvement in the Nepalese Civil War goes along with German arms exports to the Nepalese army. Through decades of plunder by foreign firms and the cooperating monarchic elite, a large proportion of the population in Northern and Western Nepal are living in dire poverty. Malnutrition is widespread and insures a broad base of popular support for the guerrilla. On the other hand, the Nepalese government is relying on a mixture of "development aid" and brutal repression. Road construction, aimed at pacifying the population, while simultaneously allowing the army more mobility are being accompanied by massive military operations, and severe human rights violations. Alone in the years 1999 - 2002, the German government approved exports of weapons' components, valued at 2.2 million Euros, to this civil war riven land. ³⁾

Development

As is made clear in the publications of the GTZ, the agency links its "development aid" to a strengthening of German economic influence in the country. At the World Expo 2000, in Hannover, associates of the agency at the Nepal Pavillion of GTZ, passed out brochures with the title "Not Only as a Tourist, But Also as an Investor You Are Warmly Welcomed to Nepal." In the brochure Nepal is praised as an excellent location for German off-shore investments: this underdeveloped country offers the achievements of the highest rates of profit ratios, because of very low labor costs, very low taxes, a "non-bureaucratic administration," the possibility of a one-hundred percent foreign ownership and a direct outlet to Indian markets. Besides the monarchy ruled government gives every imaginable "guarantee against nationalization."

1) Donors suspend work after Nepal Maoist attack; news.webindia123.com 15.05.2005
2) Karl Rössel: Operation Bondoc. Deutsche Entwicklungshilfe zur Aufstandsbekämpfung, Osnabrück 1995
3) Otfried Nassauer, Christopher Steinmetz: "Made in Germany" inside. Komponenten - die vergessenen Rüstungsexporte, Studie in Kooperation von Oxfam Deutschland e.V. und Berliner Informationszentrum für Transatlantische Sicherheit, Berlin 2005