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Maoist rebels lift blockade of Kathmandu `for present'

"If the government ignores our demands, we will launch protests and blockades more serious than the present ones."

a statement from Nepal's Maoist guerrillas

Nepal's capital Kathmandu was returning yesterday to normality after Maoist rebels who control much of the countryside lifted a blockade of the city but gave the government one month to compromise.

The mainly peasant guerrillas fighting to overthrow the monarchy announced late Tuesday they were lifting a mostly symbolic ring around the city of 1.5 million people that had sent produce prices soaring.

Cars and trucks clogged the streets of the Himalayan capital yesterday and fruit and vegetable vendors said costs were already going down.

"We didn't suffer a lot of losses in the blockade, but we had to pay five or 10 times more to truckers to cover their risks. Hopefully this won't happen again," said Rajan Bharati, selling vegetables by the bag at a central market.

The withdrawal of the blockade, which was enforced through fear rather than force, came hours after some 29 soldiers were reported killed in northern Nepal in the deadliest Maoist attack in weeks.

Analysts saw Tuesday's events as a bid by the Maoists to prove both their military strength and flexibility. The rebels have staged ruthless attacks around their rural strongholds but have twice entered ceasefires.

A Maoist statement said the blockade was being suspended for "about one month" after appeals from a wide range of society.

"If the government ignores our demands, we will launch protests and blockades more serious than the present ones," the statement warned.

Some 10,000 people have died since 1996 in the civil war. The government has received military and political support from Britain, India and the US.

The Maoists had said the blockade was to press the government to free colleagues allegedly in detention and to stop classifying the guerrillas as terrorists.

It was also seen as an attempt to restart peace talks on the guerrillas' terms: that the discussions focus on setting up a special assembly to draft a new constitution, in which the Maoists are likely to push to end the monarchy.

Government refusal of the Maoist demand for an assembly led to the collapse of peace bids in 2001 and last year, which were both followed by surges of bloodshed.

Lok Raj Baral, a political scientist at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, said the Maoists' one-month deadline would give the government time to sort out its position and resume peace talks.

"Secretly the government is surely doing its homework to make sure negotiations are successful," he said.

The Maoists never physically surrounded Kathmandu, where army trucks and helicopters escorted hundreds of vehicles in and out of the city each day, although suspected rebels killed two men in shootings during the blockade.

The guerrillas have so far not called off a separate blockade due to begin Saturday at the sole border crossing with Tibet.

The rebels, who have virtually replaced the government in vast but remote stretches of the kingdom, have little open support in Kathmandu, whose elite enjoys lifestyles similar to those in the developed world.

A cross-section of Kathmandu society ranging from social activists often at odds with the government to industrialists had protested at the blockade.

"This was a high-risk strategy for the Maoists. They tried to feel the pulse of the people but they paid a high price in alienating the common people of Kathmandu," said Kapil Shrestha, a professor and human rights activist.
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