BEIJING – Thirty-three years after his death, Mao Zedong is still a god to many in China. And you can see him everywhere.

He’s mostly standing, in a military uniform or a long buttoned-up winter coat, sometimes wearing his symbolic little red-starred army hat, usually waving his right arm high up to the air as if giving a victory gesture or ordering his army to march forward. Occasionally you see him posed as a deep thinker with his hands behind the back, or even sitting on a chair looking into some mysterious future.

VIDEO: Mao, Mao everywhere

He mainly stands in big cities’ center squares, overlooking senior citizens doing tai chi in dawn light or children running around in a park; many times he stands in military barracks or factory blocks, supervising his soldiers in exercise and workers on the assembly line; sometimes he waves his big hand in universities, reminding the students of his renowned remark “you youth are the sun at 8 a.m. or 9 a.m., you are the future of the country”; now and then, he makes surprise appearances in a dingy local clinic, a small Sichuan restaurant, or in the middle of a rundown low-rise housing complex.

He’s mostly cement, gray and stiff, sometimes marble, white and spotless, occasionally bronze, yellow and shining.

There are hundreds of these statues of the late founder of the People’s Republic of China across the country. And Cheng Wenjun, an urban sculpture designer and photographer, made it his mission, which he began in 1997, to make a record of every one.

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KAKUMA, Northern Kenya – They shuffle aimlessly in the dust: 50,000 refugees crammed into thousands of huts made from branches, leaves, mud and plastic in the Kakuma camp in Northern Kenya.

Natives of Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, the refugees have fled wars aggravated by drought, yet even here the supply of water is sporadic. They eat once a day from supplies provided by aid agencies. Kakuma is one of the oldest and largest refugee camps in the world and some people have been here since 1991 when it was established.

They don’t like to talk to strangers about their problems, but the roads are lined by placards, erected by aid agencies, with slogans and exhortations that are like windows into the refugees’ pain.

The most graphic reads: “STOP FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION – IT IS A HEALTH HAZARD (RISK).” The signs are in English, Kenya’s official language, but since the camp’s residents speak a wide variety of regional and native languages, the words are incomprehensible to most refugees.

However anyone can get the message from the disturbing illustration of a woman kneeling with a razor while a mother offers up her infant girl. Female genital mutilation is almost universal in Somalia and common in neighboring countries.

Martin Fletcher / NBC News

A poster in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee telling people to “STOP FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION IT IS A HEALTH HAZARD (RISK).”

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The negotiations took weeks. The tribal council was called to try to convince Hafiz Gul Bahadar, the 42-year-old militant commander of North Waziristan, not to send his fighters to support the Taliban militants in the south.

Elusive and cunning, Gul Bahadar would be a key government ally in any effort to dislodge Taliban militants from the region. The army needed the consent of this bearded, religious scholar before taking on the Mehsuds, a neighboring, but rival tribe, who are loyal Taliban supporters. Without him, there could be no hope of a military success in routing out the militants.

In early September, 27 elders of the Wazir tribes, along with aides of Gul Bahadar, sat down with government representatives in Miranshah, the administrative capital of North Waziristan to work out a deal. Later, the talks moved to Peshawar in the Northwest Frontier Province.

VIDEO: Pakistan mounts assault against insurgents

In the end, the government agreed to most of the tribe’s demands for cooperation; prisoners were exchanged and Gul Bahadar was compensated for losses suffered from U.S. drone attacks and military action in his areas. The tribal council was satisfied, an earlier peace agreement from 2007 was restored, and a feast of roasted goat, rice and sweets was served, according to centuries-old tribal traditions. 

“We will not intervene in the Mehsud’s wars,” said Maulana Sadiq Noor, deputy to Gul Bahadar, referring to the rival Mehsud tribes of South Waziristan from whom the Taliban militants in Pakistan draw most of their support. “Our people have suffered enough at the hands of the U.S. and the Pakistani governments. We want peace in our lands,” he said

Gul Bahadar brought on board his tribal ally, Maulvi Nazir, the commander who holds sway over the border areas of South Waziristan, which encircle the Mehsuds’ strongholds in the center.

“If the government attacks me and my people, then I will reply in the same manner, but I have no interest to intervene between the government and the Mehsuds,” Nazir told NBC News.

The Mehsuds were squeezed. The tribes had switched sides. The Wazirs, led by Gul Bahadar and Nazir to the north and west, and the Bhittani tribes to the east, would remain neutral and not prevent the Pakistani Army’s long planned offensive to attack the Taliban militant’s stronghold. 

The Wazirs, in contrast to the Mehsuds, have never attacked the state outside of their own lands of Waziristan. Their focus has always been to send fighters across the border to fight the U.S. and NATO in the Afghan jihad.

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