Nepal issues curfew to stop rally

CNN
Apr. 19, 2006

KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) -- Nepal's government has issued an 18-hour curfew for Kathmandu in an effort to prevent pro-democracy demonstrators from staging a major rally in the capital city.

Activists distributed pamphlets urging every household to send at least one person to Thursday's planned demonstration in the capital.

The government set the curfew Thursday from 2 a.m. until 8 p.m. (0815-1415 GMT) and refused to issue curfew passes for the media.

Nepal has been gridlocked by two weeks of protests against the rule of King Gyanendra, who took full control of the government last year.

On Wednesday, two protesters were killed and 500 were injured -- including the local police chief -- in the eastern Nepalese district of Jhapa, police sources said.

With the deaths, eight protesters have been killed in the ongoing demonstrations.

Amid the increased tensions, India dispatched two of its top representatives to Nepal on Wednesday in an effort to resolve the Himalayan kingdom's leadership crisis.

India, the world's largest democracy, has close diplomatic and economic ties to neighboring Nepal.

Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran met Wednesday Nepal's army chief Gen. Pyar Jung Thapa, who is considered the real power behind the throne.

India's special envoy, Karan Singh, plans to meet with King Gyanendra on Thursday. Singh has marital ties to the Nepalese royal family.

Many countries, including the United States, have urged the king to loosen his grip on power, blaming the monarch for failing to restore democracy after he dismissed the previous government, censored the media and seized total rule in February 2005.

Other nations have urged him to step down.

King Gyanendra insists his steps were justified, arguing that the government had failed to protect Nepal from Maoist rebels who wanted to install a communist government.

In a conciliatory gesture, the king Wednesday ordered the release of Nepal's former deputy prime minister and senior communist leader, Madhav Kumar Nepal, who has been under house arrest for three months.

Kumar Nepal is en route to Kathmandu, where he will meet with India's special envoy.

Nepal imposed a curfew on the popular tourist town of Pokhara on Wednesday, after the previous day's clashes between police and protesters.

State-run Radio Nepal warned that anyone violating the curfew would be shot. Police arrested 250 college and university professors who defied it.

With shops closed and vehicles off the streets, food and fuel are running short in the Himalayan kingdom. Armored military vehicles brought supplies to Kathmandu for the first time since the general strikes began.

Seven major political parties -- supported by Maoists -- called for the protests, and vowed to keep defying curfews and shoot-on-sight orders until the king leaves.

From 1990 to 2001, Nepal was run by a democratically elected government. In 2002, facing a communist insurgency the king suspended parliament and appointed his own leaders saying the political parties had failed to control the Maoist rebels

Last year he took over full political powers in the country.

When he took power many Nepalese believed the king's promise he would break the insurgents who wanted to establish a communist government in Nepal.

But the king has failed to deliver and the Maoists are now more powerful than ever, supporting the political parties in their ongoing demonstrations against the king.

The Maoist insurgency has killed at least 13,000 people since 1996. The rebels are listed as terrorists by Washington and New Delhi.

For their part, the king and his supporters say many people are being forced to attend demonstrations and they say the international community should be issuing stern messages to the protesters.

"Instead of pontificating to the king to reach out to the political parties, somebody should be telling the political parties instead, to reach out to the king. I am surprised nobody is doing that,'' says Shirish Shamsher, the minister for information.

Student leader Thapa says there is no point in talking to the king. Unlike his parent's generation, younger Nepalese don't revere the king. Instead, he says, they believe he's a white elephant, a burden that's way too heavy for a poor country like Nepal.

"Until and unless we overthrow the monarchy, Nepal is not going to progress.''