Nepal Blocks Protest Rally with Arrests and Curfew

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Nepal Blocks Protest Rally with Arrests and Curfew

Newspaper article

By: Somani Sengupta

Date: January 21, 2006

Source: The New York Times, January 21, 2006.

About the Author: The New York Times is an American daily newspaper that was first published in 1851, with a circulation of over one million copies. Somani Sengupta is a staff writer for the newspaper.

INTRODUCTION

Nepal is a small, poor country located between China and India. It is known both for the world's highest mountains, including Mount Everest, and for its troubled political history. In 2006, pro-democracy protests ended the absolute reign of Nepal's king.

Nepal gained independence from Great Britain in 1923, but independence did not bring democracy. In 1948, the country produced its first constitution. However, members of the Rana family continued to hold complete control of the government. In 1959, the first free elections were held and a new constitution approved. In 1960, King Mahendra banned all political parties and suspended the Constitution until 1962. In May 1980, an election resulted in the return of one-party rule. A February 1990 protest by 10,000 people turned violent and resulted in a constitution that permitted multiparty rule. Meanwhile, the Maoists, a strongly republican and nationalistic group, aimed to abolish the monarchy and expel all Indian interests from the country. By drawing on ethnic and socioeconomic grievances, they gained supporters in every part of Nepal. The war with the Maoists claimed 10,000 Nepali lives by 2001.

On June 1, 2001, Crown Prince Dipendra gunned down the king, queen, and most of the royal family before committing suicide. The new king, Gyanendra, found himself thrust into a role that he had not been trained to perform and he had little support among the people. Many Nepalese suspected him of engineering the royal massacre. At the time of the murders, the parliamentary opposition had been refusing to cooperate with the government for several months and the country was shut down for three days by opposition groups calling for the resignation of the prime minister. Nepal was on the brink of being a failed state. Observers expected that either the new king or the army would take control and crush the young democracy. The 1990 constitution granted the monarch emergency powers that could be exercised in the event of continued internal strife. Accordingly, King Gyanendra unleashed the Royal Nepalese Army against the Maoists. In February 2005, he appointed himself head of the government and suspended parliament.

PRIMARY SOURCE

NEW DELHI, Jan. 20— Flouting international condemnation, Nepal quashed a pro-democracy protest scheduled for Friday in the capital, Katmandu, with an all-day curfew enforced by soldiers and the police and mass arrests of organizers.

The police said 200 people had been detained for curfew violations, and armored personnel carriers mounted with machine guns were posted on the streets of the capital, Reuters reported from Katmandu. The leaders of the country's major political parties, which had called for the rally, were placed under house arrest, Reuters said.

The government of King Gyanendra announced a ban on public demonstrations earlier this week, on the grounds that Maoist insurgents waging a decade-long war against the state would use it to foment violence. On Thursday, the police rounded up about 100 people, mostly political party workers involved in the preparations, and blocked telephone communications.

A coalition of seven political parties, once stridently opposed to the rebels and now increasingly vocal against the palace, had planned the rally to call for a full restoration of political rights.

The arrests on Thursday prompted critical statements from the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, as well as from the United States, the European Union and India, a powerful neighbor of Nepal. On a visit to New Delhi on Friday, R. Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs, criticized the king and the rebels.

"The United States is very concerned by the actions of His Majesty the King and arresting and detaining of members of the political establishment in the last couple of days," Mr. Burns said.

The fresh crackdown comes nearly a year after King Gyanendra took absolute power, suspended civil liberties and arrested hundreds of political leaders, journalists and others opposed to the royal takeover in an effort to crush the insurgency. The king lifted a state of emergency three months later but kept in place many restrictions on press and political freedoms.

The United States, once an important backer, India and Britain suspended military aid after the takeover by Gyanendra on Feb. 1, 2005.

A unilateral cease-fire declared by the Maoists in September expired this month, raising fears of a resumption of guerrilla attacks.

The Associated Press reported that gunmen suspected of being Maoist rebels killed six police officers late Friday in western Nepal.

King Gyanendra has called for municipal elections to be held next month. But the country's main political parties have vowed to boycott them, and the Maoists have threatened to disrupt them.

The home minister, Kamal Thapa, this week invited the political parties to resume talks with the palace and warned them against supporting the rebels.

SIGNIFICANCE

The weeks of street protests that produced bloody clashes with security forces led to international condemnation of the monarch as well as increased internal demands that he relinquish control. King Gyanendra surrendered to pro-democracy protesters by giving up power at the end of April 2006. By June 2006, the king had become a powerless ceremonial monarch. While he lost support, the notion of a monarchy remains popular. Gyanendra is not well-liked but the monarch is regarded as being semi-divine. A February 2006 article by the respected Nepali Times found that among 5,000 people polled, seventy-seven percent supported a ceremonial role for the monarch while only ten percent wanted a republic.

Elections to the new Nepali Congress are scheduled for mid-April 2007. The new assembly will draw up a new constitution and review the monarchy's future. The Maoists have been invited to join the new government. It is not clear if these steps will bring peace to the small Himalayan nation.