Policemen remove a roadblock set up by opposition party supporters in Katmandu, Nepal, Tuesday April 11, 2006. Although most parts of Katmandu remained peaceful opposition party supporters clashed with policemen in isolated pockets.Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Left endorses US stand on Nepal as it asks PM to push it forward
Ananda Majumdar
Posted online: Wednesday, April 12, 2006 at 0000 hrs
Posted online: Wednesday, April 12, 2006 at 0000 hrs
NEW DELHI, April 11: Despite its strong anti-American stand on Indo-US engagement, the Left parties find themselves on the same platform as the US on the question of restoration of democracy in Nepal as they push the UPA Government to mobilise international opinion to bring popular rule to the Himalayan Kingdom.
So much so that when US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack issued a statement that King Gyanendra’s decision to impose direct palace rule had failed in every regard and he must now restore democracy immediately and begin talks with political parties, the Left endorsed that as a “strong statement.”
One difference between the US and the Left is that while Washington does not recognise the Maoists, the Left—despite their strong battle with the Maoists in India—have brought them into the negotiations on Nepal’s future.
Using the US statement as a sign of growing international opinion against Nepal’s monarchy, CPM’s Sitaram Yechury and Nationalist Congress Party’s D P Tripathy met the Prime Minister today. The two, part of India’s 12-party Nepal solidarity committee, made two specific suggestions to Manmohan Singh: India use its good offices to mobilise international opinion and be sympathetic to Nepalese who flee from repression.
The PM responded that India wanted establishment of multiparty democracy in Nepal, and had suspended arms supply."
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So much so that when US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack issued a statement that King Gyanendra’s decision to impose direct palace rule had failed in every regard and he must now restore democracy immediately and begin talks with political parties, the Left endorsed that as a “strong statement.”
One difference between the US and the Left is that while Washington does not recognise the Maoists, the Left—despite their strong battle with the Maoists in India—have brought them into the negotiations on Nepal’s future.
Using the US statement as a sign of growing international opinion against Nepal’s monarchy, CPM’s Sitaram Yechury and Nationalist Congress Party’s D P Tripathy met the Prime Minister today. The two, part of India’s 12-party Nepal solidarity committee, made two specific suggestions to Manmohan Singh: India use its good offices to mobilise international opinion and be sympathetic to Nepalese who flee from repression.
The PM responded that India wanted establishment of multiparty democracy in Nepal, and had suspended arms supply."
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Nepal King Orders Protesters Shot on Sight
Nepalese policemen during a protest rally. Nepal's government slapped a daytime curfew on the capital and warned violators could be shot in a bid to thwart anti-royal protests as the army said clashes with Maoist rebels left at least 12 dead in the west of the country.
(AFP/Devendra Man Singh)
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Thursday, April 06, 2006
Unrest shuts down Nepal, leaves 22 dead - World - smh.com.au
april 7, 2006
KATHMANDU: At least 22 people were killed when Maoist guerillas attacked a district town hours before a strike against the monarchy shut down Nepal yesterday.
Roads across the country of 26 million people were deserted as the strike, called by opponents of King Gyanendra, began. Businesses and schools were shut despite the Government's call on people not to heed the strike call.
In the capital, Kathmandu, the centre of the campaign, hundreds of riot police and soldiers, some of them in armoured vehicles, patrolled deserted streets, while activists burnt tyres on roads to enforce the closure.
The leftist rebels struck Malangwa, a town 350 kilometres south-east of Kathmandu, on Wednesday.
They stormed through the town, firing at soldiers guarding government offices and security posts and attacked a local jail and freed more than 100 inmates, among them some of their comrades, before fleeing.
Six policemen, six guerillas and two civilians were killed in the fighting, police said.
An army helicopter carrying troops to the area crashed near Malangwa, killing eight of the 10 soldiers on board, an army officer said. The other two men were missing.
The seven main political parties had called for the strike, defying a government ban on protests. Although the guerillas, who are fighting to establish a communist state, are supporting the political groups as part of a pact against the king, they are not taking part in the protests.
Activists and politicians were detained on the eve of the strike in an effort to scuttle it, and a curfew was imposed to prevent Maoists infiltrating the protests. Sphere: Related Content
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Maoist blockade hits Nepal firms
Thursday, March 16, 2006 02:09:57 pm
REUTERS
REUTERSKATHMANDU: A blockade ordered by Maoist rebels kept most vehicles off roads across Nepal for a third straight day on Thursday, disrupting supplies and hitting businesses hard, industry officials and residents said.
The rebels, who have been fighting since 1996 to replace the monarchy with a communist republic, called the blockade of Kathmandu, district capitals and other cities in a bid to end the absolute rule of King Gyanendra, who seized power last year.
Authorities have urged drivers to defy the rebels, offering armed escorts to vehicles willing to risk it, but most roads across the mountainous nation were all but deserted.
"Industries are on the verge of being closed due to the blockade," said Bijay Sarawagi, chief of the Birgunj unit of the Federation of the Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Birgunj is a major business centre in the southern plains.
"We can't send our products to the market and bring raw material from outside because transport vehicles are not running," Sarawagi said. "If this situation continues we'll have no alternative but to close down factories."
Trucks carrying goods from India, which supplies the bulk of essential supplies to the landlocked nation, were backed up at border crossings because drivers were scared to defy the Maoists.
"I saw nearly 50 Nepal-bound trucks loaded with goods waiting on the Indian side of the border," journalist Kulmani Gwyanli said from the western town of Bhairahawa, a major trading point along the border with India.
Ordinary Nepalis were also feeling the impact of the blockade.
Kathmandu housewife Lila Poudel said she had stocked 200 kg (440 lbs) of rice for a family of four but was worried that fresh vegetables would soon disappear from the markets.
"The price of tomatoes has more than doubled to 40 rupees (55 US cents) a kilo and prices of other vegetables have also increased by more than 50 percent in just two days," Poudel said outside a vegetable shop in the capital.
"But I don't care about the price as long as I get what I want," she said. "Soon things may not be available."
Officials said the capital, home to more than 1.5 million people, had enough food grains for two months and supplies of petrol, kerosene and diesel for two weeks.
Nepal is among the 10 poorest countries in the world, and its tourism- and aid-dependent economy has been shattered by the 10-year Maoist rebellion.
The Asian Development Bank, a key donor, said in a recent report that economic growth slowed to 2 percent in the financial year ending July 2005 from 3.2 the previous year.
Sarawagi said the industries hardest hit were those exporting vegetable oil, plastic bags and iron goods to India. In Birjung alone about 500 companies, employing 30,000 workers, have been hit by the rebel action.
Nepal has been in turmoil since King Gyanendra seized full power in February last year, sacking the government and suspending some civil liberties.
He justified his move as necessary to quell the Maoist conflict, that has killed more than 13,000 people, but the fighting rages on leaving the king more isolated than ever.
Nepal seven main political parties, which reached a loose accord with the Maoists in November to restore democracy, have opposed the blockade, saying it can only hurt ordinary Nepalis.
Sphere: Related Content
The rebels, who have been fighting since 1996 to replace the monarchy with a communist republic, called the blockade of Kathmandu, district capitals and other cities in a bid to end the absolute rule of King Gyanendra, who seized power last year.
Authorities have urged drivers to defy the rebels, offering armed escorts to vehicles willing to risk it, but most roads across the mountainous nation were all but deserted.
"Industries are on the verge of being closed due to the blockade," said Bijay Sarawagi, chief of the Birgunj unit of the Federation of the Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Birgunj is a major business centre in the southern plains.
"We can't send our products to the market and bring raw material from outside because transport vehicles are not running," Sarawagi said. "If this situation continues we'll have no alternative but to close down factories."
Trucks carrying goods from India, which supplies the bulk of essential supplies to the landlocked nation, were backed up at border crossings because drivers were scared to defy the Maoists.
"I saw nearly 50 Nepal-bound trucks loaded with goods waiting on the Indian side of the border," journalist Kulmani Gwyanli said from the western town of Bhairahawa, a major trading point along the border with India.
Ordinary Nepalis were also feeling the impact of the blockade.
Kathmandu housewife Lila Poudel said she had stocked 200 kg (440 lbs) of rice for a family of four but was worried that fresh vegetables would soon disappear from the markets.
"The price of tomatoes has more than doubled to 40 rupees (55 US cents) a kilo and prices of other vegetables have also increased by more than 50 percent in just two days," Poudel said outside a vegetable shop in the capital.
"But I don't care about the price as long as I get what I want," she said. "Soon things may not be available."
Officials said the capital, home to more than 1.5 million people, had enough food grains for two months and supplies of petrol, kerosene and diesel for two weeks.
Nepal is among the 10 poorest countries in the world, and its tourism- and aid-dependent economy has been shattered by the 10-year Maoist rebellion.
The Asian Development Bank, a key donor, said in a recent report that economic growth slowed to 2 percent in the financial year ending July 2005 from 3.2 the previous year.
Sarawagi said the industries hardest hit were those exporting vegetable oil, plastic bags and iron goods to India. In Birjung alone about 500 companies, employing 30,000 workers, have been hit by the rebel action.
Nepal has been in turmoil since King Gyanendra seized full power in February last year, sacking the government and suspending some civil liberties.
He justified his move as necessary to quell the Maoist conflict, that has killed more than 13,000 people, but the fighting rages on leaving the king more isolated than ever.
Nepal seven main political parties, which reached a loose accord with the Maoists in November to restore democracy, have opposed the blockade, saying it can only hurt ordinary Nepalis.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Sexual minorities face police brutality
15 Mar 2006 18:36:22 GMT
KATHMANDU, 15 March (IRIN) - For Kala Rai, the freedom she so desperately craved as a 'meti', or transgender person living in Kathmandu, has never come easy. Arriving in the Nepali capital three years earlier from the small town of Dharan in Sunsari district, 600 km from the city, her plight is indicative of many in this particularly marginalised community.
'As a meti, I have always faced problems with my family and had limited opportunities,' the demure 25-year-old explained, adding: 'All I wanted was to live my own life.'
But living that life comes at a price in this conservative Himalayan nation of 27.6 million.
'I am constantly harassed by the police, who taunt me, take my money and even beat me if I don't do what they demand,' she maintained, claiming she herself had been raped by the police on at least three different occasions.
Such acts have not gone unnoticed, however, with repeated calls on the government by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission to work for greater tolerance of sexual minorities.
According to the Blue Diamond Society (BDS), Nepal's only organisation for sexual minorities, more than 200 cases have been reported since the NGO first began recording such human rights abuses in 2003, but it believes many cases go unreported, particularly outside the capital.
'The situation with regard to the meti community in Nepal has gone from bad to worse, with routine incidents of police brutality being reported,' Sunil Pant, BDS's founder and director, said on Wednesday in Kathmandu, citing routine incidents of physical and sexual abuse, blackmail, extortion and even attempted murder.
"The human rights abuses faced by metis are generally worse than [those experienced by] other sexual minorities in Nepal," he added.Indeed, on Monday, one day before 'Holi', a national holiday marking the advent of spring all over Nepal, 27 metis were systematically rounded up by the police and are currently being held at Nepal's district headquarters without charge."Usually there are never any formal charges placed against them," Pant conceded, voicing his frustration at trying to secure their release from jail. Many of them were simply picked up off the street or even from their homes.
These arrests reportedly occurred less than a week after the US State Department's report on the human rights situation in Nepal was published, acknowledging violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons by members of the Nepalese police, his group said on Tuesday. "We were allowed to talk to them for just two minutes," the activist said, noting many of those being detained had complained of cold, the denial of food and a lack of clean bedding. "We weren't even allowed to get their names," he complained, referring to his morning visit on Tuesday. But such incidents involving Nepal's sexual minorities are far from unusual. On 9 August 2004, the police similarly rounded up 39 metis, keeping them incarcerated for 13 days before any charges were finally brought against them.
"It was only after mounting international pressure and a media campaign that charges of public offence were actually made against them," Pant said, noting such acts serve only to marginalise the meti community further, many of whom have been driven to prostitution in the city of 2.5 million just to survive. Nepal ranks among the world's poorest countries with a per capita income of around US $300, making the chance of metis securing any form of employment all but impossible. "No one wants to give them jobs. Even finding jobs cleaning restaurants has proven difficult for them. They do what they have to survive," Pant explained."A lot of metis couldn't go to school because the schools wouldn't accept them," he added, underscoring the desperation and climate of discrimination they face.
Although there are no exact figures on the number of metis in the country, BDS counts between 500 to 700 transgender individuals regularly active within their organisation. Moreover, BDS asserts the ongoing conflict between the government and Maoists has forced more metis to move to the capital for safety. But advocating for gay and transgender rights in a country like Nepal continues to be a challenge, with BDS currently awaiting a Supreme Court decision on a petition calling for the NGO's ultimate closure – much to the chagrin of outside observers. "Nepal's government must decide whether it wants to enforce homophobia or protect basic human rights," Scott Long, Director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Project at HRW, said, commenting earlier on the April 2004 incident.
According to the international watchdog group, although there was no provision in Nepalese law that explicitly criminalised homosexual activity, the country's civil code punished "any kind of unnatural sex" with up to one year in prison – precisely the provision used to justify arrests of men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender individuals in the kingdom.
Sphere: Related Content
'As a meti, I have always faced problems with my family and had limited opportunities,' the demure 25-year-old explained, adding: 'All I wanted was to live my own life.'
But living that life comes at a price in this conservative Himalayan nation of 27.6 million.
'I am constantly harassed by the police, who taunt me, take my money and even beat me if I don't do what they demand,' she maintained, claiming she herself had been raped by the police on at least three different occasions.
Such acts have not gone unnoticed, however, with repeated calls on the government by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission to work for greater tolerance of sexual minorities.
According to the Blue Diamond Society (BDS), Nepal's only organisation for sexual minorities, more than 200 cases have been reported since the NGO first began recording such human rights abuses in 2003, but it believes many cases go unreported, particularly outside the capital.
'The situation with regard to the meti community in Nepal has gone from bad to worse, with routine incidents of police brutality being reported,' Sunil Pant, BDS's founder and director, said on Wednesday in Kathmandu, citing routine incidents of physical and sexual abuse, blackmail, extortion and even attempted murder.
"The human rights abuses faced by metis are generally worse than [those experienced by] other sexual minorities in Nepal," he added.Indeed, on Monday, one day before 'Holi', a national holiday marking the advent of spring all over Nepal, 27 metis were systematically rounded up by the police and are currently being held at Nepal's district headquarters without charge."Usually there are never any formal charges placed against them," Pant conceded, voicing his frustration at trying to secure their release from jail. Many of them were simply picked up off the street or even from their homes.
These arrests reportedly occurred less than a week after the US State Department's report on the human rights situation in Nepal was published, acknowledging violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons by members of the Nepalese police, his group said on Tuesday. "We were allowed to talk to them for just two minutes," the activist said, noting many of those being detained had complained of cold, the denial of food and a lack of clean bedding. "We weren't even allowed to get their names," he complained, referring to his morning visit on Tuesday. But such incidents involving Nepal's sexual minorities are far from unusual. On 9 August 2004, the police similarly rounded up 39 metis, keeping them incarcerated for 13 days before any charges were finally brought against them.
"It was only after mounting international pressure and a media campaign that charges of public offence were actually made against them," Pant said, noting such acts serve only to marginalise the meti community further, many of whom have been driven to prostitution in the city of 2.5 million just to survive. Nepal ranks among the world's poorest countries with a per capita income of around US $300, making the chance of metis securing any form of employment all but impossible. "No one wants to give them jobs. Even finding jobs cleaning restaurants has proven difficult for them. They do what they have to survive," Pant explained."A lot of metis couldn't go to school because the schools wouldn't accept them," he added, underscoring the desperation and climate of discrimination they face.
Although there are no exact figures on the number of metis in the country, BDS counts between 500 to 700 transgender individuals regularly active within their organisation. Moreover, BDS asserts the ongoing conflict between the government and Maoists has forced more metis to move to the capital for safety. But advocating for gay and transgender rights in a country like Nepal continues to be a challenge, with BDS currently awaiting a Supreme Court decision on a petition calling for the NGO's ultimate closure – much to the chagrin of outside observers. "Nepal's government must decide whether it wants to enforce homophobia or protect basic human rights," Scott Long, Director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Project at HRW, said, commenting earlier on the April 2004 incident.
According to the international watchdog group, although there was no provision in Nepalese law that explicitly criminalised homosexual activity, the country's civil code punished "any kind of unnatural sex" with up to one year in prison – precisely the provision used to justify arrests of men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender individuals in the kingdom.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Mystery "Buddha" boy goes missing
Sat Mar 11, 8:45 AM ET
KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepali police began hunting on Saturday for a teenaged boy who some people believe is an reincarnation of Buddha after he disappeared from the site where he had been meditating for almost 10 months.
Fifteen-year-old Ram Bahadur Bamjon has not been seen since early Saturday, said Hari Krishna Khatiwada, a district official of Bara, 150 km (95 miles) southeast of Kathmandu.
The boy had been meditating there without food or water since May. Some of his followers are also missing.
"So far we have found no trace of them," Khatiwada said.
Sitting cross-legged beneath a "pipal" tree, which is sacred to Hindus, Bomjon drew more than 100,000 people to the dense forests in southeastern Nepal.
But visitors were only allowed to see him from 50 metres (165 feet) away and the boy was hidden from public view at night behind a curtain drawn by his followers.
Sphere: Related ContentFriday, March 10, 2006
Soldiers die in Nepal 'attack'
 Nepal has been fighting a Maoist insurgency for a decade |
Five policemen and a civilian were hurt in the attack on a security checkpoint in Tribhuvan Nagar in Dang district.
The rebels have not commented on Thursday morning's incident.
Violence has escalated across Nepal since the rebels abandoned a four-month unilateral ceasefire in January after the government refused to reciprocate.
A local official told the BBC that the security check post had been sent up to keep a vigil on the movement of suspected Maoist rebels in the area.
Violence
Earlier this week, Maoist rebels freed more than 100 prisoners in an attack on a hill town in eastern Nepal.
At least 12 people, including seven rebels, were also killed in the clashes that followed the attack in Ilam Bazar.
Last week, more than 30 people died in clashes between troops and Maoist rebels in south-western Nepal.
More than 13,000 people have been killed in violence in Nepal since the rebels took up arms 10 years ago.
Sphere: Related ContentTuesday, January 24, 2006
AP - Tue Jan 24, 6:42 AM ET Riot police, unseen, use water cannons to disperse activists of Nepal's seven largest political parties during an anti-king demonstration in Katmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2006. Police clashed with pro-democracy protesters Tuesday, firing tear gas and beating activists with batons just hours after authorities lifted a ban on demonstrations in the capital of this Himalayan kingdom. (AP Photo /Aijaz Rahi)
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Sunday, January 08, 2006
AFP/File - Sun Jan 8, 1:48 AM ET Nepalese soldiers in Kathmandu. Suspected Maoist rebels set off a bomb in a municipal building in southwestern Nepal but caused no casualties.(AFP/File/Devendra M. Singh)
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