Nepal’s King Gyanendra vowed to give up power but not the throne on Friday in a last-ditch attempt to placate protesters and win over political parties who want to end the 237-year-old rule of the Shah dynasty.
A pale-looking monarch took to the airwaves on Friday night to announce he would give up the absolute powers he seized 14 months ago and accept a government formed by the main political parties.
In a little more than two weeks, the kingdom has gone awry. Demonstrators have poured on to the streets of the capital despite bans and curfews — more than 100 000 converged on the western edge of Kathmandu on Friday. At least 14 people have been killed in the violence and hundreds injured.
In an address broadcast on state television the monarch thanked the army for its ”discipline and valour”, but conspicuously did not refer to the dead or injured protesters. His concession was that ”executive power … shall, from this day, be returned to the people”. Groups gathered around Kathmandu after the speech, with some marchers chanting ”Hail democracy! Gyanendra leave the country!”
Within minutes, the largest political party, the Nepali Congress, dismissed the king’s gambit, saying the monarch had ”not clearly addressed the road map of the protest movement”. The demonstrations, which the party helped to orchestrate, would continue, the spokesperson added.
Since last November the seven largest parties and the Maoist guerrillas have come to an understanding that would see the rebels give up the gun in return for elections to an Assembly that would rewrite the Constitution, making the crown powerless or obsolete. Sujata Koirala, of the Nepali Congress, said the king was not making ”a major concession at all. We have asked to reactivate the Parliament so that a new constitutional settlement can be worked out. He has not listened.”
Analysts also pointed out that under the king’s gesture the army would remain loyal to him, not the politicians. ”This makes the politicians very nervous,” said Yuvraj Ghimire, editor of Samaya, a political weekly. ”The first issue for any new Parliament is to put soldiers under their control and in the current Constitution they are not. After all, what is to stop the king from just seizing power again?”
Whether the offer restores peace in the Himalayan state will depend on the reaction over the weekend from the crowds of young people who have presented the monarch with his most uncompromising foe. Most have grown up since democracy arrived in the country in April 1990 and in the intervening 15 years they have seen corrupt and feckless democrats, a decade-long bloody Maoist rebellion and, since February last year, bruising direct royal rule.
Tens of thousands of people again tried to enter the city limits from the suburbs on Friday despite police orders that they withdraw. They burned tyres and tore up pavements. Many more endured charges by security forces. Most vowed that the battle would continue off the streets until Nepal became a republic.
Taking off his shirt to reveal a deep red welt across his back, Kamal Jirel said that he had been beaten as he ran from cane-wielding police officers, staggering into the arms of paramedics. ”I do not know what happened. One minute we were protesting and the next they were beating us.”
The 22-year-old marketing executive said that he returned to the rally in the eastern suburb of Chabel because the king had to go. ”There is no other alternative. This is the end of the king in Nepal. We want a republic.”
In another part of the city, one group of protesters destroyed a police checkpoint, throwing furniture into the street. They then vandalised a government office, tossing out portraits of King Gyanendra before setting the building alight.
The role of the Maoist guerrillas, who have remained largely silent during the protests but have peacefully participated in the demonstrations, came under the spotlight on Friday. Two senior opposition leaders involved in negotiations with Maoist rebels were arrested as they tried to return to Kathmandu. Despite the new rhetoric of democracy, the rebels were until last year executing politicians they regarded as class traitors. However, their pact with the parties, say some, ”leaves them as part of the solution, not part of the problem”.
”You see, under the king’s announcement the Maoists are excluded. He wants to split this partnership. But you have to bring these people inside,” said Gopal Chintan, who runs a network of human rights activists in areas where the rebels roam. ”Otherwise they go back to the gun.”
It is also clear the king acted only after diplomatic arm-twisting, principally from India and Washington.
Earlier in the day, the United States ambassador, James Moriarty, bluntly warned that the king’s ”time is running out”. India’s top foreign diplomat and its special envoy to Nepal, Karan Singh, flew in earlier this week to spell out how grave the situation had become. New Delhi once supported constitutional monarchy and democracy in Nepal. In recent weeks, diplomats have spoken only of democracy. — Guardian Unlimited Â