Fresh general strike brings Nepal to a halt

KATHMANDU, Feb 28 (Reuters) A strike called by an umbrella group of indigenous groups demanding more political rights shut schools and shops today across Nepal.

It was the latest ethnic protest to hit the Himalayan country as it emerges from a peace deal ending a decade-old civil war with Maoist rebels that killed more than 13,000 people.

The Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities includes lower-caste Hindu groups, poor highlanders and Madhesis, an ethnic group who have been a focus of anti-government protests this year in which at least 25 people have died.

The federation is demanding more seats for indigenous groups in parliament. Nepal plans to elect an assembly in June that will prepare a new constitution and decide the future of the monarchy.

In Kathmandu, the hill-ringed capital, hundreds of police guarded government buildings but there was no violence, officials said.

Strikers gathered at road crossings and turned back the few private vehicles travelling on largely deserted streets.

''The government should make arrangements for proportional representation of all indigenous people in the constituent assembly,'' federation chief Pasang Sherpa said.

Activists say these communities lack adequate representation in parliament and in the administrative services.

Tensions still simmer among various political and ethnic groups.

A teenager was killed yesterday in a clash between Maoists and Madhesi supporters during a separate transport strike in southwestern Nepal, an official said. Another 14 people were injured.

Madhesi activists blamed the former guerrillas, whose leaders now sit in Nepal's interim parliament.

''The Maoists chased the villagers, beat them and killed the young boy who was a member of our forum,'' said Sarbadip Ojha, chief of the local unit of the Madhesi People's Rights Forum.

Last month, a similar clash between Maoists and forum supporters in the eastern town of Lahan sparked the unrest in which at least 25 people were killed.

The forum, which represents ethnic Madhesis in the southern plains, had called the weeklong transport strike from Monday to demand autonomy and concessions from the government.

Madhesis make up about a third of Nepal's 26 million people.

REUTERS BDP VC1722