In insurgency-wracked Nepal, support is fast waning for both the king and the Maoist rebels, as the fate of democracy in the Himalayan nation hangs in limbo.
When King Gyanendra, a constitutional monarch, seized power and declared a state of emergency on Feb. 1, many Nepalese thought the move would salvage their country from political chaos and end a festering Maoist rebellion that has claimed more than 10,500 lives. But more than a month after the royal takeover, the king is losing ground. Even royalist politicians want the monarch to retreat.
Support for the communist rebels, who say they are inspired by Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong (
"Violence gets you nowhere. If the Maoists were to succeed they would have done it by now," said Mohan Chandra Adhikari, once hailed as Nepal's Nelson Mandela. Adhikari was jailed for 17 years after trying to wage an armed rebellion against the monarchy in the 1970s and a royal pardon saved him from being hanged.
The rebels, Adhikari said, would never win their war, nor would they ever lose it to the king.
"Though they call themselves Maoists, they have long deviated from Mao's ideals and even techniques," Adhikari said, pointing to the rebels' hit-and-run guerrilla warfare, which failed communist insurgents in many Latin American countries. "It only makes more and more people turn against you."
The Maoists have killed more civilians than soldiers. People in rural Nepal, where the rebels have a stronghold, are increasingly turning against them. Earlier this month, angry villagers in the Kapilvastu district of southern Nepal lynched nearly two dozen rebels.
Growing resentment against the Maoists, however, has not pushed people to the king's side. On the contrary, the monarch's own followers have disapproved of his actions last month.
This past week, Pashupati Shamsher Rana, the chief of Nepal's main pro-monarchy party, said he believed in "a national consensus on tackling the Maoist problem" and that the power grab by Gyanendra was "a setback to the process of building such a consensus."
Rana has called for lifting curbs on political parties, release of all detainees, and the restoration of civil liberties abrogated under emergency rule. "The political parties and fundamental rights are the pillars of constitutional monarchy," he said.
Police have detained more than 500 political workers, rights activists and journalists and put several top politicians under house arrest in a bid to prevent political mobilization against the emergency. The Nepalese media have been censored from publishing or broadcasting any criticism of the monarchy and political protests have been banned.
Officials in the royal government say the measures have helped improve the security situation in the country.
An American scientist convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while he was at Harvard University has rebuilt his research lab in Shenzhen, China, to pursue technology the Chinese government has identified as a national priority: embedding electronics into the human brain. Charles Lieber, 67, is among the world’s leading researchers in brain-computer interfaces. The technology has shown promise in treating conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and restoring movement in paralyzed people. It also has potential military applications: Scientists at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have investigated brain interfaces as a way to engineer super soldiers by boosting
Indonesian police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of alleged abuse against small children at a daycare center went viral, sparking outrage across the nation, officials said on Monday. Police on Friday last week raided Little Aresha, a daycare center in Yogyakarta on Java island, following a report from a former employee. CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most younger than two, lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags. The police have confirmed that the footage is authentic. Police said they also found 20 children crammed into a room just 3m by 3m. “So
Jailed media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai (黎智英) has been awarded Deutsche Welle’s (DW) freedom of speech award for his contribution to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The German public broadcaster on Thursday said Lai would be presented in absentia with the 12th iteration of the award on June 23 at the DW Global Media Forum in Bonn. Deutsche Welle director-general Barbara Massing praised the 78-year-old founder of the now-shuttered news outlet Apple Daily for standing “unwaveringly for press freedom in Hong Kong at great personal risk.” “With Apple Daily, he gave journalists a platform for free reporting and a voice to the democracy movement in
PHILIPPINE COMMITTEE: The head of the committee that made the decision said: ‘If there is nothing to hide, there is no reason to hide, there is no reason to obstruct’ A Philippine congressional committee on Wednesday ruled that there was “probable cause” to impeach Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte after hearing allegations of unexplained wealth, misuse of state funds and threats to have the president assassinated. The unanimous decision of the 53-member committee in the Philippine House of Representatives sends the two impeachment complaints to deliberations and voting by the entire lower chamber, which has more than 300 lawmakers. The complaints centered on Duterte’s alleged illegal use and mishandling of intelligence funds from the vice president’s office, and from her time as education secretary under Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Duterte and the
RSS