The signing of MoU with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (Editorial: 'Understanding the memorandum', #243) is nothing to be happy about. Nepali human rights activists and western diplomats who think they pursued a rightful cause for Nepal suffer from their own personal aggrandisement. They have scant knowledge on how the international system of human rights works. You in the media also have the habit of looking into things in surprisingly ignorant ways. If you think Nepal has become Somalia, Sudan, Congo, Haiti or Iraq, needing such intervention, then God help you. We have a democratic constitution. We still have a functioning democratic mindset, despite the recent chill, and civil society is more powerful here than in most other places. These factors will guarantee that extremism will never rule. There is also a system of independent judiciary and rule of law which these insurgency-affected countries will have to work for at least two decades to achieve, if not more. Our economy is a guarantee against any further slide into lawlessness. We certainly need UN assistance to meet the crisis situation but the UN OHCHR field presence is not a requisite model for human rights protection in a country like Nepal. And it doesn't have a better ability than those who are already doing the job. By bringing the OHCHR to Nepal, these petty activists have delivered a serious blow to the National Human Rights Commission and many institutions working in the country to deal with the crisis situation. With the takeover of power by the king, the human rights sensitivity of the Royal Nepali Army has been further strengthened. Local human rights organisations will now have to compete with the OHCHR for money and resources, and will have to deal with an ignorant mass of foreign consultants, who will just end up living in Nepal as tourists. It is sorry to see that we Nepalis know the problem so well but not the solutions. Now it looks like the solution is costlier than the problem.

Sita Dahal,
Australia

. Haven't we learnt our lessons of what bloated, overpaid, ignorant UN bureaucrats can do with the waste and confusion they sowed in Congo, East Timor and Haiti? Or stealing money from food for oil like in Iraq? Do we want Nepal to become another hotspot in which fat cat UN types stand idly by with their hands folded?

Oscar Sedlak,
email

. Anne Cooper's interview 'One of the biggest press freedom crises in the world' (#243) misrepresents the scale of the press freedom curbs in Nepal. All she needs to do is refer to The Worst Of The Worst: The World's Most Repressive Societies published by the United Nations this year to see how much ahead Nepal is compared to other countries in terms of press freedom. In the same report you will find that Belarus blocks Internet sites that is critical of the government or suspends independent newspapers, in Burma journalists have been sentenced to death for reporting something that the government did not like, in Cuba reporters have been sentenced for years for 'minor infractions'. Do you see these in Nepal? Does Nepal have a problem with allowing absolute press freedom? Perhaps it does but if the freedom of press was as bad as Cooper thinks it is, or one of the worst in the world as she puts it, I don't think her comments would be allowed to be printed in the first place.

Sushil Bogati,
Seattle, USA