“Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?” asked Kanak Mani Dixit, the editor and publisher of Himal magazine in Kathmandu as he sat down. He looked at me directly and seemed in no hurry for a reply. I realized he was talking about the political situation in Burma.

“There is a distant light, yes,” I replied slowly. “In fact, it's like walking the streets of Kathmandu at night.”

I explained how last night I had wandered around the backstreets of Thamel, an area usually bustling with foreign visitors, which was in total darkness due to the general strike. I still hadn't eaten dinner and thought that everything was closed. Then I found a marvelous bar-restaurant tucked away down an alley. It was full of revelers and the atmosphere was fantastic.

“It was like finding an oasis in the desert,” I said, and Kanak nodded to show he understood the metaphor.

We raised our glasses to the prospects of change in Burma, then Kanak dutifully began unraveling for me the factors behind the political winds in Nepal, a country, like Burma, that is no stranger to corrupt government, uprisings and political chaos.

In December, a couple of days after my airplane touched down at Tribhuvan Airport in Kathmandu, the opposition Maoist party called for a three-day general strike. All the shops were closed and public transport halted. The streets in Kathmandu were quiet, dark and dusty. Garbage was piled high at the side of the streets and dogs competed with sacred cows for rotten food.

The December general strike was considered to be the largest protest in the country since Maoist party Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal resigned on May 4 and the Maoist-led coalition government was toppled.

Nepalese riot police armed with batons, tear gas and automatic weapons clashed with Maoist sympathizers in the Nepalese capital. The Maoists claimed that 100 demonstrators were injured and the local news reported that police arrested about 70 people on charges of vandalism.

After two and a half days, on Dec. 22, the Maoists called off the nationwide strike. At noon, motorcycles, vehicles and an army of rickshaw drivers (who had made relative fortunes during the strike as they were the only ones who were allowed to operate) suddenly hit the streets. The mood changed and smiles came back quickly to people's faces as the city returned to its noisy, vibrant self. 

Maoist Chairman Dahal, also known as Prachanda, concluded the three-day strike by saying that it was pointless to hold talks with the 22-party coalition government since they were backed by New Delhi. “We [the Maoists] are ready to hold talks with New Delhi,” he declared.

Kunda Dixit, the editor of the Nepali Times and brother of Himal editor Kanak, said that whenever Nepal faces a domestic crisis, “We all look to India.”

Nepal's giant neighbor (some Nepalese call it a bullying big brother) wants to see a stable and democratic Nepal, but it has also expressed a desire to see a professional Nepalese army that refrains from interfering in politics. India would probably be willing to throw its weight behind a united Nepalese army if the country slid into bloodshed and violent confrontation in the near future, local analysts said.

New Delhi is reportedly concerned that the integration of Maoist fighters into the Nepalese armed forces will ultimately impede the army's integrity.

So far, approximately 19,000 former Maoist fighters are confined to camps monitored by the United Nations. These fighters are supposed to be integrated into the country's security forces and army, according to the peace agreement between the Maoists and the coalition government. However,  they have faced resistance from their former enemy.

In one of the world's poorest nations, the Maoists have had strong support from the rural masses for decades. They have also been accused of holding the country to ransom with terrorist tactics and policies garnering fear and intimidation.

“They are the Khmer Rouge of Nepal,” thundered Kunda Dixit whose office was attacked in December. Much of the educated class in Nepal quietly agree.

Intellectual Nepalis and journalists in Kathmandu accused the UN office and some Western countries of favoring the Maoists.

As in Burma, many European and Scandinavian donor countries are involved in development projects. In heated teashop conversations, UN officials and reports from the Brussels-based International Crisis Group are openly derided. “They just come and go, but we live with the reality,” said one local aid worker.