Pressure mounts on Nepal king, protests to continue

Kathmandu, Apr 11: Pro-democracy campaigners in Nepal vowed to defy curfews and launch a sixth day of mass protests today against the king's absolute rule as the monarch came under global pressure to end his crackdown.

The street campaign is the most intense since King Gyanendra sacked the government and grabbed political power 14 months ago and some analysts say it is only a matter of time before he runs out of options.

Five days of demonstrations and clashes between troops and activists, in many places in defiance of shoot-on-sight curfews, showed that more ordinary people were coming out in the open against the king, they said.

''We will continue with this for a few more days. If this does not work, we will change our tactics,'' said Ram Sharan Mahat, a top leader of the Nepali Congress, one of many politicians coordinating the campaign from hiding.

Supporters of Nepal's seven main political parties leading the mass campaign would continue to defy day curfews likely to be imposed for a fourth day in Kathmandu and district towns today, their leaders said.

The latest series of demonstrations and a nationwide general strike began last Thursday in an attempt to force Gyanendra to step down and hand power to an all-party government.

The campaign, backed by Maoist insurgents, had been due to end on Sunday but was extended indefinitely as stringent security measures prevented big rallies against the king.

So far three people have been killed and more than 300 wounded in clashes as government forces opened fire on demonstrators, used rubber bullets and tear gas and beat them with batons.

Troops also beat up four Nepali journalists as they reported on the troubles yesterday, one local TV channel showed. The parties said that about 1,500 protesters had been detained.

STRONG US PRESSURE

Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said 97 journalists had been detained and 24 wounded across the country since the protests began. While the mass campaign has plunged the troubled Himalayan nation deeper into turmoil, the king has stayed away from the capital for nearly two months, making an extended tour of the countryside.

The king says he was forced to take absolute power after politicians failed to quell a violent Maoist revolt aimed at toppling the monarchy which has killed more than 13,000 people in the impoverished country.

The revolt has also wrecked the economy of one of the poorest countries in the world which lives off aid and tourism.

The United States issued a sharp rebuke to the king yesterday for his handling of the protests and said the decision to impose palace rule had failed ''in every regard''.

''The king's continuing failure to bring the parties back into a process to restore democracy has compounded the problem,'' State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a toughly worded statement.

''The United States calls upon the king to restore democracy immediately,'' he said in Washington.

Rights group Amnesty International urged the royalist government to rein in security forces, saying it feared an increase in violence in the coming days.

''Restricting peaceful demonstrations by ban orders and curfews and arbitrarily arresting hundreds of people only inflames an already volatile situation,'' it said in a statement.

But the state-run newspaper Rising Nepal said the campaign was not peaceful and Maoist rebels had infiltrated the protests to create trouble, a charge the political parties denied.

''The seven political parties would be responsible for any unfortunate event that may occur during their protests,'' it said in an editorial today.

''Thus, they have to break their alliance with the terrorists (Maoists) and also call off their ongoing protest programmes,'' it said.

REUTERS

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