REGIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION
Tensions throughout the world remain with the
Israeli-Palestinian/Lebanon dispute, the US & NATO presence in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and terrorist incidents worldwide.
People still have various, often understandable, concerns about
travelling at the moment, and to the Middle East in particular. Please
find further information given below to cover our response to the
situation, and how it is likely to affect our holidays.
We keep in constant contact with our representatives, agents, and
staff in all the countries in which we operate our tours, as well as
with the Foreign Office here in the UK. All of this information is
used daily to help us decide how and whether to run or change a
particular tour.
When regional tensions are high, our guides and tour leaders are
instructed to contact their base office as often as possible. This
helps us to maintain a direct line of communication to our clients and
groups, so that we can act to change itineraries or cancel tours
immediately if necessary.
Regular updates are posted on our
community website when serious events occur that may affect our tours or the regions in which we operate.
Current
After over a year of the interim government including the Maoist CPN, which followed 10 years or so of insurgency by Maoist rebels, Nepal's new constitution has still not been finalised. The Maoists withdrew from the government and resigned the prime-ministership in May 2009 after a heated debate over the control of the civic authorities over the army, particularly over the appointement or sacking of the army chief.
A new prime-minister has been sworn in and a new interim government is being formed, though there is fierce horse-trading between the 21 parties (out of 24, not including the Maoists) who support the new government, over who will get which ministerships and form the cabinet.
Whether this new government, without the support of the Maoists who have nearly 40% of the seats in the parliament, will be able to push through a new constitution remains to be seen.
Background (Since the insurgency erupted in 1996)
Over the past 10 years or so, tourists have still been enjoying visiting Nepal, and
we have been running most of our tours there as normal. However, this was always
against an ongoing background of an increasing number of armed clashes between
the Maoists and government forces, especially against Army and Police installations,
albeit usually in the outlying regions in the East and West of Nepal.
Tourists were not targeted directly by force, though it became increasingly
more common for trekkers to be ‘taxed’ on several of the trekking routes.
There were irregular anti-government demonstrations in Kathmandu, intermittent
curfews, and general strikes or ‘bandhs’ imposed by the Maoists, during which
nearly all travel throughout the country stopped and shops closed down.
During the last year or so, after the end of the Maoist insurgency, the country has been much more peaceful with no 'trekking taxes', though there are still problems with irregular strikes blocking roads.
As such we still strongly recommend you update yourself with the latest:
We are running all of our Nepal tours as normal at the moment, and expect to do so into the foreseeable future. The only problems we are having relate to the occasional strikes which cause delays and blocks on the roads, particularly in the lowland Terai region. When these do happen, we occasionally need to make alternative transport arrangements or adjust itineraries slightly.
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