I read Naresh Newar's dispatch from Dapcha ('Uniform Misery', #174) with sadness and curiosity as I am originally from there. The story depicts, in a microcosm, the traumatic situation Nepalis are experiencing. It is also evidence of how rapidly the Maoist conflict, like other conflicts, can spread its tentacles.

Although Dapcha is only 50km from Kathmandu, it is the periphery. And unless the center comes to grips with the seriousness of this crisis, the conflict will engulf the whole nation. As your case-study from Dapcha tells us, the conflict has its greatest impact on civilians and it is often the civilians, including the children and women who bear the brunt of war. The atrocities by both the state and the Maoists have put innocent people in the line of fire. On the one hand, the army has been killing people in fake encounters. Extra-judicial killings in captivity and disappearances of persons under custody have become common. The Maoists are torturing and killing non-combatants and using them as human shields. Young boys and girls are being forcefully recruited in the rebel army. Many people in the villages have left their homes and lands out of terror. The conflict has impacted the psycho-social wellbeing of civilians, hampering their traditional coping mechanisms. After reading Newar's report, I fear I will be a stranger in my own village when I return.

Poshendra Satyal,
Cambridge, UK

l Your eyewitness reports from the field (\'Spreading east\', #173 and \'Achham\'s agony\', #172) were sad reminders to both the decision-makers in Kathmandu and the Maoist hierarchy in Lucknow. Listen to the ordinary people quoted in the article and act accordingly. They want you to stop this mad struggle for power. They don\'t trust either of you, and know you are cynically using the people as cannon fodder. Everytime the Maoists want to protest against the government, they close schools or kill poor Nepalis who have joined the police to provide for their families. Why punish the people if your fight is against the powers that be? Similarly, instead of trying to wean the people away from Maoist brutality, we have a state that is trying to be even more brutal than the Maoists.
Neither of you are going to win the peoples\' hearts and minds this way.

Name witheld on request,
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