A divided kingdom

Charles Haviland on the struggle between the King of Nepal and the Maoist insurgents

Kathmandu, dawn on Sunday

Under the early sun, a silver disc in a grey sky, candles flicker on the walls of the pagoda temples. People offer morning prayers at shrines. Women from the countryside sit by the roadsides, smoking and selling armfuls of white radishes. Spring is already here; the Himalayas, visible on crisp winter days, have disappeared in a smoggy haze, and the stench of human waste and litter is once more wafting up from the sacred Bagmati river.

Later there’s a big military pageant on the central parade ground, for this is Democracy Day, the anniversary of the ruling Shah dynasty regaining power in 1951 from a rival family, the Ranas. Flowers are dropped from helicopters and a cardboard cut-out of King Tribhuvan, the present monarch’s grandfather, is greeted. Martial arts performers head-butt blocks of ice. King Gyanendra publishes a special message, but makes no public appearance.

The eulogies to democracy and the unchanging rhythms of life belie the turmoil gripping Nepal. Armoured vehicles have been on the streets for weeks now. To a large extent Nepal is a country under military rule. On 1 February 2005 the king seized direct power and now heads the cabinet, loyally backed by the Royal Nepalese Army. For the first few months of his rule, army censors visited radio, television and newspaper offices. This month municipal elections attracted a meagre 20 per cent turnout, people voting under the gaze of soldiers. Hundreds of non-violent opposition supporters and civil society activists are locked up without trial, many in military barracks.

The king is fighting two battles — a military one against Maoist guerrillas and a political one against seven parties. It was under the reign of those parties, and also of King Gyanendra’s murdered predecessor and brother, Birendra, that the Maoist insurgency began a decade ago. Six years earlier, people power had brought multi-party democracy to a feudal kingdom, its population riven by caste and ethnic discrimination and kept down by centuries of venal central rule.

Democracy brought markedly improved health, education and women’s rights. But the parties were corrupt and bitterly frac tious. The rolling hills and rice paddies of rural Nepal had long been a breeding ground for communism. That tendency only increased after 1990, especially following an army campaign of torture in a communist district in the west. Shortly after issuing a list of demands for social reform, a communist faction claiming to draw inspiration from Mao abandoned parliamentary politics and went underground.

The war has claimed 13,000 lives in a decade. Some 80 per cent of those killed have been civilians. It is impossible to keep track of the relentless, daily cycle of murder.

The Maoists themselves still attract support for their social message, but their violence estranges many more. Usually they ruthlessly pinpoint victims, such as government officials. But there are those such as Ishwor Gurung whom they accuse of helping the army, often on flimsy evidence. ‘Why didn’t they kill me, why did it have to be my son who everyone loved?’ his mother, her eyes drenched in tears, asked me in the Annapurna mountains.

Unfortunately the state has responded in kind and has killed nearly twice as many as the rebels — again, often people it accuses, dubiously, of helping its enemy. Recent victims have included two teenage girls and three students celebrating a religious festival. The state has made many people disappear, like 25-year-old Baikuntha Bhujel two years ago. ‘One soldier pointed the gun at my forehead and said, “If you say too much we will shoot you,” his mother told me. ‘I could hear my son crying outside the house while they took him away.’ But the king has also opened battle against the mainstream political parties. After his 1 February putsch King Gyanendra jailed or confined their leaders and other activists, some for months. Politics became surreal; newspapers printed editorials on socks or ballet to avoid the censor’s knife. Mobile phones were cut off for many months. Detainees were released on supreme court orders and immediately re-arrested.

Consequently the parties now scorn Gyanendra and mostly believe that Nepal should be a republic. Their attitude toughened after the king failed to join a four-month Maoist ceasefire last September. The palace said the rebels would only use the truce to re arm. Maoist extortion did continue, but their violence plummeted, while the army was widely accused of killing unarmed Maoists. People in conflict-ravaged areas were mystified at the government’s lack of response.

During the ceasefire the parties went further. They and the Maoists signed an agreement to work against the king, aiming towards elections for an assembly to create a new constitution. The Maoists even said they subscribed to multi-party democracy. The accord has increased the king’s isolation. Even those who want to support him — Washington, London, Delhi — accuse him of foolishness in alienating the parties, thereby uniting them with each other and the Maoists as never before. In his Democracy Day message Gyanendra vaguely urged politicians to ‘listen to others’ and ‘do away with discord’. The next day he ordered a 90-day extension of the house arrest of one of the main party leaders.

Recent Maoist violence, though, has shown that they are equally the problem. They have attacked a string of towns, killed local election candidates, and a government official has died in murky circumstances while captured by them.

Simultaneously they have tried to wage a charm offensive, their reclusive leader known as Prachanda or ‘The Fierce One’ — giving interviews and saying the Maoists might even countenance the continuation of the monarchy. That is what he told me in his first television interview. But he seemed to speak with another voice, too. I asked him where the king would be in five years’ time. ‘The king, I think, will either be executed by a people’s court, or he might be exiled,’ he answered.

The question is whether that remark showed Prachanda’s true colours, or whether it was just tough talk. The US ambassador here, James Moriarty, is convinced it was the former. He says continued rebel terror has undercut the notion that they are preparing for peace. But many Nepali observers believe the Maoists are looking for a face-saving way to lay down their arms and must be drawn into peace by any means. Ameet Dhakal of the Kathmandu Post criticises ‘US-style paranoia’ over the Maoists, but also says the onus is on the rebels to prove they are serious about competitive politics and abandoning violence.

Nepal’s political future is uncertain, but Nepalis have been getting more and more used to the abnormalities that govern their lives. Kathmandu was under night curfew for a week in January after rebel attacks. Mobile phone lines were cut again. Wouldbe demonstrators against the king were incarcerated in their hundreds. The rebels enforced a four-day nationwide shut-down, killing a taxi driver who defied it. There is no end to Nepal’s troubles, and the egos of its main players are keeping peace at bay.