On 3 April I flew to Nepal, where I had previously taught medicine, to give the Basic Trauma Life Support course to a group of student volunteers and offer my skills as an experienced emergency physician to what I thought would be a number of injured people in the coming week, when a nationwide strike had been called by the political parties to protest the King's autocratic rule. After reading threats of shoot-to-kill orders by the Home and Information Ministers, I was expecting the worst. I brought a large amount of medical equipment and purchased stretchers and oxygen tanks in Kathmandu. The following three days I spent training my team, after which we began attending the rallies around the city.
On 7 April we rushed to the Tribhuvan University campus, where we found an injured army intelligence agent, who had threatened students with his pistol, surrounded by a lynch mob calling for his murder. Two of my volunteers and I assisted 4 or 5 journalists and human rights personnel in fighting off the crowd in an attempt to escort him to safety. He stupidly broke free of us at the edge of the crowd and ran down a ravine, hotly pursued by enraged students baying for blood. We also ran off in pursuit over rough terrain. One of my team caught up with him, convinced a small handful of students to help, got him onto our stretcher, and took him to our vehicle to the hospital even as the mob closed in. We then moved to the other side of campus where the police had entered the hostel and were viciously beating students, whom we treated. I spoke to the Senior Superintendent of Police and got him to pull his men back while I negotiated with the students to stop throwing bricks and stones and stay within the campus proper. The standoff then ended and both sides drifted away as we took 8 seriously injured students to the hospital.
We continued to go from place to place treating the injured, protestors and police alike. We never engaged in any protest activities or showed favoritism. On two other occasions we negotiated a "no stones, no tear gas" agreement between crowd and police. On 10 April I jumped into a fire from burning tires to rescue a policeman who had tripped on bricks and fallen into it. We had made it a practice to introduce ourselves to the police at each place and thought we had a good relationship with them.
On 11 April we were in Gongabu, scene of violent demonstrations the day before. At around 1:30 PM we were sitting in our improvised aid station about 10 meters to the side of the interface between the police and protestors. There were chanting and burning of effigies, but no violent acts. Suddenly a large number of club-swinging policemen descended on the crowd, who were savagely beaten as they fled. Two men, one elderly, came to us with heavily bleeding head wounds. As we began to tend to them, SSP Madhav Bahadur Thapa, who was in charge, beat the injured men and knocked them to the ground, then beat one of the volunteers and me. I suffered injuries to my neck, back and right arm. We then saw him gouge a young man in the right eye with the end of his lathi.
We put on our backpacks, grabbed our stretchers and headed back along the road to find and treat the injured, including police. A group of youths was stoning the windows, which had interior steel barwork, of a police official's enormous home. We could see guns being fired out the windows and damage to the masonry of surrounding homes from bullet impacts. We continued to tend to the injured but were soon called to see people shot by the police a few blocks away. Many had been shot in the back, face or abdomen with lead 00 buckshot pellets; one young man had powder burns and the plastic shot sleeve in addition to the buckshot in his chest near the spine, proving that he was shot in the back at point-blank range. We rushed into a small clinic to help the Nepali doctors with them, when 4 more shooting victims, of whom two were children, were brought in. After we left the staff told us that SSP Thapa had entered and beaten one doctor and two assistants clad in white coats.
When we went out onto the street we saw the police defenestrate a woman from the third floor of a building under construction. We were told by many people that the police had carted away 15 bodies in their vans. As we persisted in treating those beaten severely and transported 35 people to TU Teaching Hospital and 2 to the Eye Hospital in our vehicle, we saw that most of those beaten had injuries to their backs and the backs of their heads, proving that self-defense could not have been the motive. Schools were entered and students beaten and, in a few cases, shot. We estimate that we treated a total of over 200 victims that day.
I was sought out by journalists, including those from AP, the Washington Post, BBC, Channel 4 and Kantipur TV, for interviews, in which I described the carnage I had seen. Despite official claims of Maoist infiltration, we saw no weapons in the hands of protestors other than bricks, stones and sticks.
On 12 April we spent most of the day treating leftover injuries from the day before, but at 4 PM I was approached in Gongabu by an SSP and Inspector without nametags and told, "We want you to come to our office. Our IGP wants to apologize and talk to you." They told us, "Best to come in your own vehicle. Just follow us." Our driver, Dr Hensel from Germany, a Nepalese doctor and 5 Nepalese student volunteers went along. We followed a large, gray police truck to the armed police headquarters, where we were told to wait in the lobby.
We waited idly for an hour and a half, at which time I told the uniformed woman at the desk of the circular lobby pavilion that we would like to reschedule the appointment because we had work to do and it seemed that the IG was busy. She said nothing but called someone on the phone. Immediately one Inspector Tamang, a short bald man with four stars, came out and told us we were under investigation as criminal suspects and could not leave. I asked if we were under arrest and he said no. I then walked outside to the vehicle with Inspector Tamang and several other police, some with lathis and some with submachine guns, who told us to get into the vehicle. We complied, but when two policemen with SMGs pushed their way into the vehicle and told our driver to do as he was told and called my team filthy things in Nepali, I got out and walked over to a UNOCHCR team that had just left the building and was walking to their blue and white Land Cruiser.
I told them I had been denied 3 requests to contact the US and German Consulates or to call Yubaraj Sangroula, Dean of the Kathmandu School of Law whom I wanted to file a Habeas Corpus petition. They used their radios and satellite phones to alert our Consuls.
An Inspector Jagat Koirala, a very obese man in white shorts and T shirt, appeared arrogantly refused my request for consular assistance, telling me, "This is my country. You have no rights here. If they [consular officers] come, we won't let them in." The others got out of the vehicle to join me but were surrounded by 8 to 10 police, most with SMGs.
The Inspectors went inside and there was a conference on the first floor balcony overlooking the carpark. We could see people pointing to us from time to time and hear the murmur of discussion. This was at about 6:30 to 7. The UN team told me the US Consul was coming and that he believed phone calls were being made about us at high levels. At about 7:30 to 8 the Inspectors emerged and again told us to enter our vehicle, which I refused to do. I had also whispered to the Nepalese to use aliases and taken their ID cards and placed them in my pocket.
Shortly after this Inspectors Koirala, Tamang and several other SPs approached us and told us the CDO wanted to meet us. I told them I respectfully declined the invitation because we had already been lied to and intimidated, and that our continued detention despite repeated denials that we were under arrest, while being told we were not free to leave, was unlawful. Then, with the UN team at our sides, Dr Hensel and I were roughly handcuffed, told we were under arrest, and forced at gunpoint into a large gray police van; I am not sure if it was the same one we had followed or not.
With the Nepalese and some police in our van following and the UN team behind them, we were taken to the Chief District Officer's office, where a certain Mr Ghimire was introduced to us as the CDO. My right hand, now uncuffed, was bleeding onto his chair so he allowed one of my volunteers to bandage it. He seemed nervous and had an obviously forced laugh and had himself served with tea as he told us this was just a routine visa check for tourists. However, he said he was under orders but refused to say whose. The US Consul spoke with him on the phone for about 5 to 10 minutes, after which he told Dr Hensel and I, whose passports were in our hotels, that if I left my US driving license we could go and return the following day with our documents, but that the Nepalese would be kept in the jail - at this point he made threats to them in Nepali - to ensure our return. I spoke to the UN people and then told Mr Ghimire that if the Nepalese went to jail, I would go with them. He then talked privately with the UN team and agreed to release them with us if one of them would accompany me on Thursday morning.
At around 10 PM we went to our vehicle and went to our hotel. The following morning I went, as instructed, to the Immigration office with Alys Spensley, the US Vice Consul. As demanded, one of the Nepalese appeared with me, and Dr Hensel arrived with two German consular officials. We met with the Immigration officials, who told us we were illegally working. They showed us the regulations in English, from which it was clear that giving first aid as individuals was not illegal. Nonetheless, we were offered the choice of voluntary departure or official deportation with no right of return. We obviously chose the former. My driving license was returned and we signed statements saying we were voluntarily leaving and aware that it is illegal to work in Nepal with a tourist visa.
Ms Spensley had me fill out an affidavit regarding the incident and took down some more details herself. I went in the US consular vehicle with Ms Spensley and an immigration officer to the airport where I boarded Biman flight 702 to Dhaka. My flight had been advanced by a Nepal friend from a travel agency that morning. I arrived safely and am now resting comfortably, since Friday is the holiday here.
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