Asia-Pacific, Headlines, Human Rights

POLITICS-NEPAL: Bombings Sow Fear after Collapse of Peace Talks

Damakant Jayshi

KATHMANDU, Sep 10 2003 (IPS) - A statement by top Maoist rebel leader Baburam Bhattarai – ”a victory of the progressive forces is a foregone conclusion, although the cost may be too high” – has acquired ominous tones in the wake of bomb blasts in the Nepalese capital following the collapse of peace talks last month.

Through these violent incidents, Nepal has already begun paying this high cost and is bracing for more, irrespective of who prevails in the seven-year-old conflict by Maoist rebels seeking to overthrow the constitutional monarchy and replace it with

On Monday, 12-year old Deepak Gurung, a Grade Five student, succumbed to his injuries sustained in a bomb blast inside a toilet in a government office adjacent to his school.

The toilet in the school where Gurung studied was under construction, so the students had been using the government one.

Ten other persons were injured, some seriously, in serial bomb blasts in the Kathmandu Valley, all allegedly perpetrated by the Maoists. Between 8:45 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. that day, the Maoists exploded six bombs, officials said.

This has sent shock waves in the capital, where people fear that more blasts taking innocent people’s lives are likely.

”God, we do not know when will these killings end,” Chandra Maharjan, real estate agent and owner of a tea-cum-bakery shop here, said in an interview. ”More such blasts are going to occur and it is so risky to visit any government offices now.”

One notable and scary change from the past bomb blasts in the capital caused by the Maoist guerrillas is the timing of the blasts, at least in two incidents.

The one that took Gurung’s life, near the prime minister’s official residence, went off at 9:31 a.m. The one that shook the building of the Land Revenue Office in neighbouring Bhaktapur was a pressure-cooker bomb that exploded almost 15 minutes later.

In the other four incidents, the bombs were kept in bags and left behind after warning the employees.

All, like in the past, were targetted at government-related offices.

Previously, Maoists ensured that blasts occurred in toilets or deserted building floors before 9 a.m., the time when government offices and business establishments open for the day.

Police believe the recent change in tactics is symptomatic of urban guerrilla warfare launched by the rebels.

”They have been targeting vital installations, public offices and VIPs,” said superintendent of police Kuber Singh Rana of the Kathmandu district police office. ”All this indicates a full-fledged urban guerrilla warfare.”

Already, the Maoists have tried to kill ex-prime minister Sher Deuba – on Aug. 25 near a jungle in Kailai in far west Nepal. On Aug. 28, they shot dead a colonel of the Royal Nepalese Army in his house in Kathmandu – they blame him for the killing of their 17 unarmed comrades in cold blood in Doramba in East Nepal on Aug. 17.

That was the day the third round of peace talks resumed between the government and the Maoists in west Nepal. The colonel, Kiran Bahadur Basnet, was the chief of the eastern division headquarters of the Nepal army.

Clashes have been reported from many parts of the Himalayan kingdom since the Maoists ”temporarily” suspended the seven-month-old ceasefire and the peace talks with the government from Aug. 27.

More than 8,000 people have been killed since the Maoist conflict began in 1996.

Arjun Bhandari, political analyst and a keen Maoist watcher said, ”I fear more bloodbath during a short period. The Maoists know that if they create terror in the capital, the government will be more under pressure.”

He also said that the rebels have stepped up their violence to force the government – and King Gyanendra, who appointed it – to concede their demands to new constitution drafted by a constituent assembly. The Maoists want this process to lead to the replacement of Nepal’s constitutional monarchy with a republican state.

The government had previously rejected this demand, a key factor in the collapse of the peace talks.

The government, led by Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa, has been under pressure to quit from the time the talks collapsed.

The capital is rife with rumour that either Madhav Kumar Nepal, general secretary of Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) or ex-premier Deuba might be appointed the new prime minister after King Gyanendra returns from London on Wednesday.

However, a senior government minister dismissed the speculation as ”baseless rumour”.

But the five political parties, in their seventh phase of ”decisive movement” against the king, whose removal of the elected government of Deuba in October they are angry about, think otherwise.

Nepali Congress party president Girija Prasad Koirala believes that King Gyanendra will ”correct” his mistake this time round and reconcile with the parties, which have been demanding the revival of the parliament the king dismissed.

He said this a few days ago, addressing his partymates in the capital. Even CPN-UML’s Nepal has asked his cadres to tone down their rhetoric against the monarch.

Bhattarai too hinted at a change at the helm of affairs of the government in ”coming weeks”.

But even if another prime minister, the 14th change in 13 years, takes over, things are unlikely to improve.

No solution is in sight for the stalemate in the peace process. The Maoists are not willing to consider anything less than elections for a constituent assembly, one that would make a new constitution.

Neither the political parties nor the king’s handpicked government are willing to consider the demand either.

”I doubt if there is going to be any easy solution soon. This will linger for years. At least the stalemate is going to suit the palace’s purpose, so I do not see any possibility of king truly reconciling with the parties,” Bhandari said. ”Until then, more will die.”

 
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