The four day general strike called by the SPA from April 6-9, 2006, brought normal activities across the length and breadth of the country to a standstill.

In a run-up to the strike, the Government attempted to stall the protests by ordering security agencies to bar all passenger buses plying to the capital, Kathmandu. These orders were duplicated in other urban centres by local administrations. All passenger booking-counters at various bus stops in the Dolakha and Ramechhap Districts suspended the booking of tickets for an indefinite period, while the local administration in Baglung, Parbat, Kaski and Myagdi Districts ordered transporters not to ply long-route passenger bus services that connect to Kathmandu, as well as major cities in the country, from April 5. Further, the District Administration offices at Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur in the Valley imposed a curfew within the Ring Road areas in Kathmandu and Lalitpur, and in certain places in the Bhaktapur and Kirtipur municipality. “Residents should not come out of their houses. Security forces could shoot violators or police could arrest them and jail them up to one month”, the notices stated. Further, authorities also disrupted mobile telephone services from the morning of April 8. Nepal Telecom officials said these services were disrupted following a Government order.

In view of possible active support of civil servants for the general strike, the Government, on April 2, ordered all Government employees not to participate in the SPA’s protest demonstrations. The warning came in a letter sent to all the ministries and Constitutional bodies by the Office of the Council of Ministers.

To bolster the strike, as well as to clear any accusations of active participation in the protests and comply with the requests of the SPA and civil society, Maoist ‘Chairman’, Prachanda, announced that it would observe a ‘unilateral cease-fire’ within the Kathmandu Valley with effect from the evening of April 3, and until further notice. The statement, however, reiterated the Maoists’ active support to SPA’s peaceful protest programmes and appealed to people at all levels “to come out on the streets to create a new history of a Loktantrik Nepal.”

And, indeed, out they came. Over 400 protesters were arrested in Kathmandu alone, and dozens of others injured on the first day of the general strike on April 6, even as violent protests were reported from the Kalanki, Naya Baneshwor, Chabahil and Kirtipur areas where the protesters set ablaze tyres on the streets, while the police baton-charged and fired several rounds of tear gas shells to disrupt the protests. Marketplaces, industries, schools and colleges remained closed in the capital and no vehicles, except for the diplomatic and UN vehicles, plied. The Home Ministry said that 167 persons were arrested while defying prohibitory orders effective within the Ring Road area in Kathmandu and Lalitpur.

The second day saw worse. The District Post Office in Lalitpur was set ablaze and students at the Tribhuvan University in Kirtipur ransacked the Dean’s office, briefly holding several officers hostage. Presidents of Government and corporation employees’ unions said they had extended support to the movement to safeguard their professional and trade union rights. They said employees of the Nepal Electricity Authority, various corporations and banking sectors stopped work on April 7 to express solidarity with the movement, an apparent snub to the earlier Government order issued to employees. Close to 751 protestors were detained in Jumla, Morang, Pokhara, Lamjung, Hetauda, Chitwan, Lahan, Kalaiya, Baglung, Charikot, Dipayal and Butwal.

The protests took an uglier turn on April 9, when three persons were killed and over 26 protesters injured in security forces firing in different parts of the country. In Syangja, Nepali Congress district leader Kedar Kafle was also critically injured.

As the situation continue to worsen across the country, authorities issued curfew orders in the western city of Pokhara, while fresh curfew orders were issued in Surkhet, Butwal and Chitwan Districts. Meanwhile, in Nepalgunj, the curfew period was extended by four hours with effect from April 8 till further notice.

As protests mounted, the Maoists, on April 9, predictably announced a nationwide campaign of escalating demonstrations including the defiance of curfew orders, the ‘capture’ of highways and the breaking of Royal statues. In a statement mailed to media offices and signed by Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai, the Maoists also reiterated support to the SPA’s call to step up its pro-democracy campaign. The SPA has also extended its ‘General Strike’ indefinitely, in view of the Government’s repression.

Nevertheless, the ‘honeymoon’ between SPA activists and the Maoists continue to leave huge holes at the ground with reports of intimidation and assault by the latter. On April 2, Maoists assaulted dozens of cadres of the People’s Front Nepal (PFN) in the Betahani village of Banke district. The central committee member of PFN, Bed Prakash Acharya, said that the Maoists assaulted them because they expressed their reluctance to participate in the insurgent’s functions. He added, further, that the incident has raised serious question about the sincerity of the insurgents in the 12-point agreement.

Even as the Maoists extended their ‘support’ to the parties, their main agenda of bludgeoning the King’s Forces continued. On April 5, in Sarlahi District, they launched simultaneous attacks on all security installations and Government offices in Malangwa and the Arjun Band Barracks of the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) at Nawalpur. Sources said that Maoists freed over 129 inmates from the District Prison, including at least 22 Maoists. The District Administration Office, District Police Office, District Development Committee Office, District Prison and other Government offices were damaged in the attack, even as five security personnel and four Maoists were killed.

In a similar attack in Butwal on April 7, the Maoists targeted the area Police office, the western regional Police Training Centre and the Army Training Centre at Golpark after entering from the Basantapur Forest region and the upper part of the Jyotinagar and Chure forest region. In the ensuing clash, four Maoists and a civilian were killed.

Ignoring the ground realities, the administration continues to build castles in the air, with Government spokesman, Shrish Shumsher Rana, describing the Malangawa attack as a minor incident. “It is just a move of the terrorist to show their existence,” Rana said, adding that since the February 1, 2005, Royal takeover, “Now there is not a single place where they (Maoists) can claim their control.”

The King, on the other hand, stressed on the need for “permanent peace”, though there is little evidence of any movement “towards this noble cause”.

With the country already struggling with dwindling economic resources, foreign agencies have announced a further slashing of aid. DFID, the British Funding Agency, cut aid from # 47 million proposed in 2004 to below # 32 million in 2006. “We will now decrease it further as there is no sign of peace and democracy,” said Mark Mallalieu, head of DFID in Nepal. This aid cut will impact on rural road projects, support to local Government and water resource development. Denmark, among Nepal’s top-five bilateral development partners, has also slashed aid from 205 million Danish Kroner in 2004 to 143 million Danish Kroner in 2005. The Finnish Embassy in Kathmandu also disclosed that it had frozen two rural water supply and sanitation projects worth 22 million Euros. Further, on April 3, the Swedish Government withdrew its $25 million aid commitment for the diversion tunnel of the multi-million dollar Melamchi Water Project.

As it sought to grapple with the fallout of the demonstrations and repression unleashed by its own Forces, the regime also held forth a meaningless offer of talks with the SPA, through the Home Minister Kamal Thapa, who asked the Parties to renounce their “collaboration with the terrorists”. The Parties responded with an announcement of even more protest programs for April 10.

These crises can only be compounded by the SPA’s now-extended General Strike, as the dice continue to roll in favour of the Maoists. The directionless violence of the regime is taking a toll on the RNA’s soldiers as well, with the Kathmandu based Informal Sector Service Centre study finding that security personnel were increasingly facing psychological problems and trauma owing to the conflict-related stress and mounting pressure. At least in some cases, this has led to the rising incidence of indiscriminate firing on civilians. The last thing the Government needs in the present situation would be an Army running out of control. The King, however, appears to have no coherent plan, either to reclaim the country from the Maoists, or to bring the SPA back into the political process through an offer of meaningful concessions. A continuous erosion of control, long sought and planned by the Maoists, consequently, seems to be increasingly inevitable.

The writer is a Research Associate at Institute for Conflict Management, India.

Courtesy : South Asia Terrorism Portal

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