At a small tea shop in Ghartigaun bajar, Dil Kumari Dangi, 28, is busy baking chapattis and heating chickpea and potato soup (see pic). Customers sit on wooden benches sipping lemonade as they wait for food. A plastic sheet protects them from the rain.

This shop is a must stop for travellers walking up from Dang to Libang. Cadres from the Maoist army are the most regular customers, not only because the food stop lies on one of their travel routes but also because it is one of their few rebel-run 'cooperative hotels'.

"The locals helped us build the shelter for free while we three invested at least Rs 60,000 to run it," says Dil Kumari shyly as she blows into the fire. She and her partner Mina Dangi are 'whole timers' (WT) in the Maoist party. The third partner is Ganesh Magar, whose daughter was a Maoist but drowned three years ago on a tour of duty.

The owners have to turn over 20 percent of their profits to the Maoists. According to the rebels the accounts are regularly updated and from their 20 percent take, 10 percent goes to their 'war fund' while five percent is allotted to each of their 'emergency' and 'social' funds.

"We want to promote businesses and cooperatives because we need to finance the struggle," says Tara, a member of the Maoist local government in Ghartigaun which is designated Area Number 5.

There are said to be at least three other rebel-run shops as well as communal farms in northern Rolpa that use the cooperative system. The Maoist-built Martyr's Highway from Nuwagaun to Tela cost Rs 10,025,000 and rebels say Rs 25,000 was raised from a cooperative hotel run by the road construction committee.

"It is easier to work in a group," says Dil Kumari, "The money we make can be used to educate our children and run our daily lives while our husbands are serving away from their homes." The fact that Dil Kumari doesn't try to hide her identity shows she is not nervous about the security forces destroying her business.

"We respect labour and ard work," she says, "if they destroy it we will build it all up again."