Background
This entry provides a brief summary of the political background to Nepal today, and provides the context for the encounter described in my subsequent entry.
Since February 1996, the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN), more typically known as the Maoists, has been undertaking a peoples war against the Nepali state. Their struggle remains confined to the hills and backcountry areas of Nepal only, particularly in the rural areas of Central and Western Nepal. Tough state security, characterised by barricaded checkpoints operated by the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) and Nepalese armed police, and strict stop-and-search procedures for all traffic entering urban areas has ensured that the Maoist activity has so far failed to penetrate any of the cities.
The Maoists peoples war started after the party presented to the then prime minister a 40-point charter of demands under three broad headings of nationalism, public welfare, and peoples living. Some of the demands are compelling, for example:
No.19 Girls should be given equal property rights to their brothers
No.37 Arrangements should be made for drinking water, good roads, and electricity in all villages.
No.39 Orphans, the disabled, the elderly, and children should be given help and protection.
Other demands, especially those encouraging an aggressive nationalist position, are perhaps less helpful to the Maoists cause and to the welfare of the people they seek to represent.
The Government chose not to respond to the charter, and within 10 days the Maoists had attacked police stations in two Western districts, and began an insurgency which to date has claimed some 9,300 lives (source: Reuters).
In rural areas, regular engagements take place between the Maoists and the Royal Nepalise Army, backed up by the Nepalise armed police. The most recent high-profile encounter was on 23 March in the small town of Beni, where up to 200 Maoists were killed (Himamlayan Times, 5 April)
The Maoists represent the most extreme end of a continuum of popular dissent and dissatisfaction with the existing constitutional Hindu Monarchy in Nepal. At the other end of that continuum, students, lawyers, and other professionals are now regularly engaging in protest marches in Kathmandu, supported by a broad alliance of the countrys five parliamentary parties who share their anger towards the monarchy, and especially towards the current King Gyanendra.
The dissent has become much more extreme very recently, chiefly precipitated by the royal massacre, and the subsequent enthronement of the new king in 2002. You may recall the news items of two years ago, when it was reported that the then Crown Prince of Nepal had gone on a patricidal rampage, killing the then King and most of the principal members of the royal family, before shooting himself. Immediately thereafter the Crown Princes brother, Gyanendra, became King. However, the explanation of the events around the royal massacre holds little credibility amongst the Nepali people. Not least because the suicidal gunshot wounds received by the Crown Prince were apparently back wounds. The widely held view amongst Nepalis is that the current king Gyanendra undertook the killings himself, and blamed his unfortunate sibling to conceal his own guilt. Shortly after taking power in 2002, King Gyanendra dissolved the democratically elected parliament and replaced it with his own loyalist cabinet and Prime Minster. With the country run by an un-elected monarch widely believed to have seized power in a bloody coup, its not so hard for an armed guerrilla group promising reform to find popular support.
The most recent example of civil unrest took place in Kathmandu on Friday (9 April) where police arrested up to 1,000 people, including leaders of the five opposition parties following anti-monarchy protests. Some 30,000 people joined the protest despite a sudden ban on rallies imposed earlier last week by King Gyanendra. (Source: Reuters, Kathmandu)
This entry provides a brief summary of the political background to Nepal today, and provides the context for the encounter described in my subsequent entry.
Since February 1996, the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN), more typically known as the Maoists, has been undertaking a peoples war against the Nepali state. Their struggle remains confined to the hills and backcountry areas of Nepal only, particularly in the rural areas of Central and Western Nepal. Tough state security, characterised by barricaded checkpoints operated by the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) and Nepalese armed police, and strict stop-and-search procedures for all traffic entering urban areas has ensured that the Maoist activity has so far failed to penetrate any of the cities.
The Maoists peoples war started after the party presented to the then prime minister a 40-point charter of demands under three broad headings of nationalism, public welfare, and peoples living. Some of the demands are compelling, for example:
No.19 Girls should be given equal property rights to their brothers
No.37 Arrangements should be made for drinking water, good roads, and electricity in all villages.
No.39 Orphans, the disabled, the elderly, and children should be given help and protection.
Other demands, especially those encouraging an aggressive nationalist position, are perhaps less helpful to the Maoists cause and to the welfare of the people they seek to represent.
The Government chose not to respond to the charter, and within 10 days the Maoists had attacked police stations in two Western districts, and began an insurgency which to date has claimed some 9,300 lives (source: Reuters).
In rural areas, regular engagements take place between the Maoists and the Royal Nepalise Army, backed up by the Nepalise armed police. The most recent high-profile encounter was on 23 March in the small town of Beni, where up to 200 Maoists were killed (Himamlayan Times, 5 April)
The Maoists represent the most extreme end of a continuum of popular dissent and dissatisfaction with the existing constitutional Hindu Monarchy in Nepal. At the other end of that continuum, students, lawyers, and other professionals are now regularly engaging in protest marches in Kathmandu, supported by a broad alliance of the countrys five parliamentary parties who share their anger towards the monarchy, and especially towards the current King Gyanendra.
The dissent has become much more extreme very recently, chiefly precipitated by the royal massacre, and the subsequent enthronement of the new king in 2002. You may recall the news items of two years ago, when it was reported that the then Crown Prince of Nepal had gone on a patricidal rampage, killing the then King and most of the principal members of the royal family, before shooting himself. Immediately thereafter the Crown Princes brother, Gyanendra, became King. However, the explanation of the events around the royal massacre holds little credibility amongst the Nepali people. Not least because the suicidal gunshot wounds received by the Crown Prince were apparently back wounds. The widely held view amongst Nepalis is that the current king Gyanendra undertook the killings himself, and blamed his unfortunate sibling to conceal his own guilt. Shortly after taking power in 2002, King Gyanendra dissolved the democratically elected parliament and replaced it with his own loyalist cabinet and Prime Minster. With the country run by an un-elected monarch widely believed to have seized power in a bloody coup, its not so hard for an armed guerrilla group promising reform to find popular support.
The most recent example of civil unrest took place in Kathmandu on Friday (9 April) where police arrested up to 1,000 people, including leaders of the five opposition parties following anti-monarchy protests. Some 30,000 people joined the protest despite a sudden ban on rallies imposed earlier last week by King Gyanendra. (Source: Reuters, Kathmandu)