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.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image