Nepal’s royal regime cracked down on protesters recently in an attempt to stifle further disruption after two weeks of demonstrations aimed at toppling the country’s monarch, King Gyanendra.
Security forces shot dead at least two people in the south-east of the country and announced a shoot-on-sight 18-hour curfew in Kathmandu, in a clear attempt to scuttle opposition plans to bring 100 000 people on to the ring road skirting the capital. Still, opposition leaders met on Thursday and decided to go ahead with protest plans.
Soldiers and police patrolled the capital as thousands of protesters marched toward the city limits. Residents in parts of central Kathmandu came out onto their roofs, whistling and banging plates. ”We are ready to sacrifice our lives for the nation because we are about to be killed, but we are not concerned about that. It is for the nation and without the nation there is no life,” said Sangam Poudel, a 22-year-old student.
Diplomats, journalists and human rights monitors were not issued passes allowing them onto the streets as they had been in the past. Police tried to keep media and rights workers away from any protests, escorting some foreign journalists back to their hotels.
Wednesday’s bloody encounter came in the town of Chandragadi, 480km south-east of Kathmandu, where police sprayed demonstrators with bullets. A Defence Ministry spokesperson said two people were killed, although a United Nations official said five died.
Officials defended the firing, claiming that protesters had defied a ban on gatherings and were sacking government buildings. In the capital, police tried to smother impromptu gatherings, and clashes occurred. One protester said defiance would ”continue until the king leaves forever”.
The palace appears, too, to be in no mood to compromise with the alliance created between the political parties and Maoist guerrillas. Ministers claim Nepal’s left-wing insurgents violently infiltrated the rallies, the politicians using this as a justification for the teargassing and arrests of thousands of demonstrators.
In a clear message to the Kathmandu public more than 200 academics were detained for marching despite a day-long curfew in Pokhara, near the Annapurna mountain range.
There were signs, however, that the palace was trying to win back politicians ahead of talks with Indian diplomats. The government freed two top opposition leaders three months after they had been detained with no explanation. After their release both leaders struck a note of defiance.
”We will launch the protest in an effective way until full sovereignty is returned to the people-,” said Madhav Kumar Nepal, leader of the Communist Party of Nepal.
A diplomatic spat between the palace and Washington also broke out on Wednesday over comments made by the United States ambassador to Nepal. Nepal’s royal government summoned the envoy, James Moriarty, to protest about remarks suggesting that if the Himalayan nation’s king did not compromise with his opponents he could end up fleeing the country.
Human rights groups, meanwhile, called on the international community to ban the king and his court from going abroad and to freeze the regime’s assets.
Despite a general strike squeezing Nepal’s poverty–stricken economy experts say the country could withstand weeks of disruption and even sanctions by donors.
The World Bank’s country director for Nepal, Kenichi Ohashi, told Reuters: ”I think evidence is clear that if a country decides to endure some hardship, the economy just doesn’t collapse very easily.”
The Nepali economy was well integrated with the Indian economy, Ohashi added, and the real pressure would come from the streets. ”If a million people came out, I think the king would have certainly have to take notice. Donors threatening to cut aid I don’t think is going to do it.” — Â