April 25, 2005: Headlines: Figures: COS - Nepal: Politics: Congress: Rochester Press Democrat: RPCV James Walsh leads delegation to express concern and disappointment over anti-democratic actions of Nepal's king
Peace Corps Online:
Directory:
Nepal:
RPCV James Walsh (Nepal) :
Special Report: RPCV Congressman James Walsh:
April 25, 2005: Headlines: Figures: COS - Nepal: Politics: Congress: Rochester Press Democrat: RPCV James Walsh leads delegation to express concern and disappointment over anti-democratic actions of Nepal's king
RPCV James Walsh leads delegation to express concern and disappointment over anti-democratic actions of Nepal's king
RPCV James Walsh leads delegation to express concern and disappointment over anti-democratic actions of Nepal's king
Memory of an idyllic Nepal fuels Walsh effort
Erin Kelly
Washington bureau
(April 25, 2005) — WASHINGTON — Rep. Jim Walsh, an Irish American who grew up in Syracuse as the son of the mayor, has distinguished himself in Congress in a way he never dreamed he would. He is the only member of the House or Senate to speak Nepali.
The 57-year-old congressman served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal from 1970 to 1972 and has retained a love of the country and its people.
This month, he led a bipartisan group of 11 House and Senate members to meet with the Nepalese ambassador to the United States to express concern and disappointment over anti-democratic actions the country's king has taken in recent months.
According to the State Department, King Gyanendra has declared a state of emergency and "suspended almost all fundamental rights," including freedom of speech.
The king — who is supposed to be heading a constitutional monarchy — has said the dramatic measures are needed to protect the country from Maoist insurgents who kidnap, torture and kill innocent villagers.
But Walsh said the king should not strip law-abiding citizens of their rights in the fight against the insurgents.
The U.S. government has given nearly $22 million in military aid to Nepal since 2002, but Walsh questioned whether that should continue given the loss of civil rights.
Walsh said that as U.S. troops are working to bring democracy to other regions of the globe, it was important "to alert Nepali officials that, as U.S. government officials, we cannot condone these recent actions."
"Democracy in Nepal had slowly evolved over the last several decades, and it's been a painful process," Walsh said. "It's important that the kingdom not turn back now."
Walsh, who has served in the House nearly 17 years, said he is particularly distressed by the current chaos in Nepal because he remembers the country as a poor but peaceful and picturesque place.
"I lived in a little village with four thatched huts with mud floors — one of them was mine," Walsh said.
"I boiled water from the irrigation canal to drink. The only real sense of time we had was that a Thai jet flew over our village twice a week. Other than that, there was no real reason to know what time it was."
Walsh said he reveled in the kindness of the people and the beauty of the country: the clean, blue skies, the rice fields and banana trees and mango orchards, the river where he used to fish and the green mountains nearby.
His job was to teach scientific methods of agriculture, such as how to plant in rows, rotate crops, irrigate and use fertilizer so that farmers could increase their yield.
Walsh returned to Nepal for the first time about six years ago and met with some of the people he had known as a young Peace Corps volunteer.
"They were a lot older, and of course I was, too," he said. "It was wonderful re-connecting with some of the people from my village. Being there in the 1970s was such a transformational time in my life. I really saw the world for the first time. Before that, I had lived a pretty sheltered life."
Walsh, the son of former Syracuse mayor and congressman William Walsh, said most upstate New Yorkers don't have any idea of his work with Nepal and probably couldn't care less.
"I've been very involved in Ireland and I've got lots of Irish-American constituents who care about that," said Walsh, who chairs the Friends of Ireland, a bipartisan group of House members involved in Irish-American relations. "But you can't get people interested in Nepal. There are too many other things going on in the world competing for their attention."
Walsh said he understands.
"When the Peace Corps called to tell me I was going to Nepal, I said, 'That's great. Where is it?' I had no idea. But once you've been there, you don't forget it."
EKELLY@gns.gannett.com
When this story was posted in April 2005, this was on the front page of PCOL:
Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
| The Peace Corps Library Peace Corps Online is proud to announce that the Peace Corps Library is now available online. With over 30,000 index entries in 500 categories, this is the largest collection of Peace Corps related stories in the world. From Acting to Zucchini, you can find hundreds of stories about what RPCVs with your same interests or from your Country of Service are doing today. If you have a web site, support the "Peace Corps Library" and link to it today. |
| RPCVs and Friends remember Pope John Paul II Tony Hall found the pope to be courageous and capable of forgiving the man who shot him in 1981, Mark Gearan said the pope was as dynamic in person as he appears on television, Maria Shriver said he was a beacon of virtue, strength and goodness, and an RPCV who met the pope while serving in the Solomon Islands said he possessed the holiness of a man filled with a deep love and concern for humanity. Leave your thoughts here. |
| Friends of the Peace Corps 170,000 strong 170,000 is a very special number for the RPCV community - it's the number of Volunteers who have served in the Peace Corps since 1961. It's also a number that is very special to us because March is the first month since our founding in January, 2001 that our readership has exceeded 170,000. And while we know that not everyone who comes to this site is an RPCV, they are all "Friends of the Peace Corps." Thanks everybody for making PCOL your source of news for the Returned Volunteer community. |
Read the stories and leave your comments.
Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.
Story Source: Rochester Press Democrat
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Figures; COS - Nepal; Politics; Congress
PCOL20029
87
.