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Ex-British Gurkhas ask for equal treatment

Kathmandu, 9 March: Retired British Gurkhas have asked the world community and human rights activists to support their movement for equal pay, pensions and other facilities from the British government. Gurkha Army Ex-Servicemen`s Organisation (GAESO) organised an international conference in Kathmandu to discuss the discrimination meted out to them by the British government. GAESO says that British Gurkhas do not get pay and pension at par to other British soldiers.

The four-day international conference titled International Human Rights Conference: Discriminatory Treatment of British Gurkhas that began today aims at informing human rights organisations about the discrimination against British Gurkhas and mobilising international support for their movement.

GAESO says that British Gurkhas get far less than what the British nationals get for the same work in the British Army. They have put forward four demands before the British government, which include, equal pay, equal pension, compensation to those who were forcibly retired and education for the children of British Gurkhas.

Human rights activists and others participants from Nepal, Indian, Bangladesh and United Kingdom took part in the conference inaugurated by former Prime Minister Kritinidhi Bista. Speakers at the inaugural said the discrimination of British Gurkhas by the British government is a violation of human rights. www.nepalnews.com

10.9 percent increment for ex-British Gurkhas - 8 March 2001

The British government announced a 10.9 percent increment in pensions for ex-British Gurkhas as well as for widows of British Gurkhas effective 1 April, the British Embassy said Tuesday. Free or partial concession on treatment for former soldiers or widows at three hospitals in the capital, Dharan and Pokhara has also been announced. Ex-servicemen have been pressing the British government for equal pay and pensions at par with their British counterparts. London says the pay scale of the Nepali soldiers is pegged to Nepali soldiers serving with the Indian
army through a tripartite treaty between Nepal, India and the United Kingdom. “This is part of an annual review of pensions in line with inflation. Last year there was an 11.9 percent increment,” a British Embassy official said. Nepali soldiers in the Indian army receive equal pay and pensions. www.nepalnews.com

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Where to find highly professional, strictly apolitical, combat-hardened soldiers willing to risk their lives at a moment's notice? At the top of the world, among the Himalaya peaks of Nepal, country of Mount. Everest and birth Place of Gautam Buddha (Lord of peace). No wonder the country of Gajhe Ghale, Bal Ram Rai and so on.

'Warrior tradition.' For nearly 200 years, Nepalese Gorkhas, who were first recruited by the British Raj from martial hill castes such as the Gurungs, Rais and the Magars, have been celebrated as some of the finest warriors in existence. Trained to exacting British military standards, they developed a worldwide reputation for ferocity, valor and discipline. Yet from a World War II peak of a quarter-million men, the Gorkhas serving in the armies of Britain, Nepal and India have been reduced to a few thousand. This is because of the lack of a mission, not a dearth of eager, able recruits. At the annual competition for enrollment in the elite corps, some 10,000 applicants vie for 150 prized slots. Those who don't make the cut are forced to work as laborers in one of the world's poorest nations.

If you go to the mountains of Pokhara, you'll see why Gorkhas have little trouble with the rigors of military life. Wiry porters haul bone-crushing burdens up 40-degree hillsides, wade barefoot through rivers of snowmelt, brave altitudes that make hearty mountaineers collapse in agony - all for the equivalent of $5 a day. Suddenly, Serb irregulars don't seem quite so intimidating.

'Refugee calculus.' The idea of a Gorkha U.N. rapid reaction force is not new: It comes up every time Western powers find themselves caught in a military morass they can't avoid and won't win. British Prime Minister John Major put the idea before the U.N. in 1991, but it was deemed too expensive. Since that time, Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti and now Zaire have proved how much cheaper prevention is than cure. The world community has been paying $300 million per year to run camps in Zaire for 1.1 million refugees who need never have been refugees. Canadian Gen. Romeo Dallaire, who commanded U.N. forces in Rwanda, has said that a mere 2,500 crack troops (half the 5,000-man unit that experts propose) could have nipped this genocide in the bud.

Gorkhas Stand Tall Even Here

Ibl-E-Saqi {Lebanon}: Dec. 18: There is something about the sight of the Tricolour and the Ashoka Chakra that brings on a fission and pleasure even in a forgotten corner of a foreign land. The national flag does not merely float from a pole in this remote village in the south-eastern corner of Lebanon nor has it been raised by the obscure indophile. It is emblazoned on signboards, roadside warnings and message boards in the Indian Army’s friendly way of announcing its presence.

Number 4 Battalion of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon {UNIFIL} is India’s contribution to the multinational peacekeeping force. Since November, the Fifth Battalion of the Ninth Gorkha Rifles {5/9 GR} has been serving as "IndBat", the name UNIFIL has given it. This is the third infantry unit to serve with UNIFIL, after 2/4 Gorkha Rifles, which was here in 1998-99, and 2 Madras, which left in November. These units served on a mission that is military in form but more diplomatic in content.

It is a delicate assignment. The Indian units, which were all based at Ibl-e-Saqi, are at the farthest end of UNIFIL’s deployment. When 2/4 Gorkha Rifles and 2 Madras were in UNIFIL, their area of operation {as of other UNIFIL units} was right inside the zone that Israel had occupied in southern Lebanon.

Israel pulled out in May and the area has nominally reverted to Lebanon. But it has not yet ordered its security forces to guard its borders and neither do its police forces have a marked presence here. In effect, UNIFIL continues as a buffer between the two nations that have not declared an end to hostilities.

Since UNIFIL does not have the mandate to physically separate forces on the two sides or prevent them from fighting, its job has been one of monitoring and reporting violence. After Israel’s withdrawal, this task boiled down to one of reporting border violations and of interdicting contraband, including weapons and drugs, on the Lebanese side of the border. At present, IndBat could be said to have the most sensitive task since there are two spots along the line of deployment where the border question has not been conclusively settled.

There is a different atmosphere in the area where 5/9 Gorkha Rifles operates and this is not mere patriotic bias. Its patrols are more frequent and its checkpoints guarded with far more seriousness than areas under the charge of other units.

There are units from Western and former Soviet bloc armies in UNIFIL. But even the short period in which they have had to measure their professional competence against other armies has been sufficient to enhance 5/9 Gorkha Rifles’ pride in its own and the Indian army’s abilities.

Along with its responsibilities in UNIFIL, 5/9 Gorkha Rifles also needs to maintain its abilities as an effective fighting force. A relatively young unit—it was raised in 1963—it has a glorious history. Within just two years, it won its first battle honour in the Indo-Pakistan war by capturing in frontal assault the road and rail junction of Phil Lora in the Sialcot sector, thus opening the breach for an armoured thrust. More recently, it has won the Army chief’s citation in the Sopore area of Jammu and Kashmir.

Col. Rakesh Virmani, Commanding Officer of the Battalion, and his officers are about to start their annual training cycle mindful that the unit has asked for another assignment in Kashmir after their return in late 2001. They also have the time and opportunity to hone their skills in the art of "winning hearts and minds".

Building on the earlier work done by 2/4 Gorkha Rifles and 2 Madras, 5/9 Gorkha Rifles has extended the services of its medical and dental detachments to the locals. Its veterinary services, administered by an attached unit of Remount and Veterinary Corps, is popular.

Currently, 5/9 Gorkha Rifles is working on improving the water supply to this relatively arid area and exploring the viability of building an indoor stadium for the villagers.

Many Indians, especially in areas wracked by upheavals, both natural and human-made, look up to the Army for succor. Now, people in foreign countries too do the same.

Gorkhas to ward off pirates

WASHINGTON, FEB. 22. Gorkha warriors would soon take on a new assignment to protect ships from pirates in the Asia-Pacific region.

More than 300 of the tough Nepalese warriors, who were demobilised from the British Army when Hong Kong was returned to China, may now be put in groups of four to eight soldiers as guards to ward off pirates, a report in Washington Times quoting Sunday Telegraph, said yesterday. - PTI

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