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.
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) purge of his most senior general is driven by his effort to both secure “total control” of his military and root out corruption, US Ambassador to China David Perdue said told Bloomberg Television yesterday. The probe into Zhang Youxia (張又俠), Xi’s second-in-command, announced over the weekend, is a “major development,” Perdue said, citing the family connections the vice chair of China’s apex military commission has with Xi. Chinese authorities said Zhang was being investigated for suspected serious discipline and law violations, without disclosing further details. “I take him at his word that there’s a corruption effort under
China executed 11 people linked to Myanmar criminal gangs, including “key members” of telecom scam operations, state media reported yesterday, as Beijing toughens its response to the sprawling, transnational industry. Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in Myanmar. Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from victims around the world. Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work. In the past few years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation
The dramatic US operation that deposed Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro this month might have left North Korean leader Kim Jong-un feeling he was also vulnerable to “decapitation,” a former Pyongyang envoy to Havana said. Lee Il-kyu — who served as Pyongyang’s political counselor in Cuba from 2019 until 2023 — said that Washington’s lightning extraction in Caracas was a worst-case scenario for his former boss. “Kim must have felt that a so-called decapitation operation is actually possible,” said Lee, who now works for a state-backed think tank in Seoul. North Korea’s leadership has long accused Washington of seeking to remove it from power
RSS