The US will in the next few weeks offer Nepal US$12 million dollars to bolster the Katmandu government's battle against a violent Maoist uprising, an official said.
The George W. Bush administration asked Congress last year for US$20 million in military funding for the Himalayan kingdom, as the bloody human toll of the anti-monarchist insurgency, which the army says has now killed over 7,000 people, multiplied.
"Congress approved supplemental funding for the fiscal year of US$12 million, instead of US$20 [million]," a State Department official said Thursday on condition of anonymity.
"The total was decreased because of a number of factors, including overall budget stringencies and a shifting of priorities in the war on terrorism," the official said.
The reduction in the anti-terror package could come as a disappointment to Nepalese defense officials, who had expressed hopes they could buy night-vision goggles, helicopters, rocket launchers and automatic weapons with the grant.
Former prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba said during a visit to Washington last May that he had secured a strong vow of support from Bush, but that US$20 million in aid was "not enough."
The State Department's senior South Asia policymaker Christina Rocca made her latest visit to Nepal in late December, and pledged an additional US$24 to US$38 million in development funds separate from the military aid.
The Maoists fiercely resent any financial aid offered by Washington to the Nepalese government. They have twice attacked and damaged Coca-Cola factories in Nepal in protest.
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