Terror In Kathmandu As Army Runs Amok

by Ranjit Devraj

(IPS) NEW DELHI -- Sujata Koirala says her decision to escape from the Himalayan nation of Nepal was made after soldiers began to harass her when her 81-year-old father, Girija Prasad Koirala, was put under house arrest.

His seizure followed King Gyanendra's coup on Feb. 1.

The daughter of the prominent former Nepal prime minister and several politicians from her father's party then made a six-day trek overland -- walking and at times hitching rides on motorcycles -- to neighboring India.

On her way down south, Koirala saw pitched battles between the Maoist rebels and the Royal Nepal Army (RNA) in remote areas near Chitwan district, near the Nepal-India border.

But she said the Maoists appeared to be having the upper hand. "It was scary because I could have been killed by either the rebels or the army."

Koirala said it was only a matter of time before the Maoists, who are believed to outnumber the RNA.

"How long can they (RNA soldiers) fight when they have been busy selling arms to the Maoists and making a business out of the civil war?" she told a gathering organized by the Delhi- based Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union.

On Feb. 1 Nepal's King Gyanendra went on state-run television and said democracy in his country was in peril and the "Nepali people's right to live peacefully" was being threatened by a long-running Maoist insurgency since 1996 that has seen over 10,500 people killed.

He then accused the government of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba of failing to conduct parliamentary elections and being unable to restore peace in the country.

Soon after the king's address, a state of emergency was declared and Indian news agencies reported that all telephone lines and mobile phone networks were shut down -- effectively cutting the country off from the rest of the world.

According to reports from the Nepali capital Kathmandu some 1,000 leaders and activists from political parties, student groups and trade unions had been rounded up nationwide. Royal Nepal Army spokesman Brigadier General Dipak Gurung said that a security committee under the Home Ministry would determine how long activists remain locked up. "They can be detained for three months," the general said.

Koirala said Nepali soldiers had posed as Maoist rebels after the king took over and started to harass political leaders, including her father.

"First, they came as Maoists and threatened him. The next day, the same people came as army people, detained my father and asked him to testify that I had links with Maoists," she said.

She said she feared for her father's safety.

"He might be subjected to mental torture and I fear that they would apply slow poison to harm his life," she said.

"I also fear that he may be killed on some pretext -- so many people have disappeared in Nepal in the last few days and we hear of torture and killings coming in from towns other than Kathmandu," Koirala added alarmingly.

She described conditions in the Nepali capital, which she fled six days ago as chaotic with soldiers going from house to house terrorizing people and openly taking away valuables and vehicles and then laying the blame on Maoists.

"With an information blackout, atrocities done by the RNA can easily be attributed to the Maoists and anything can happen to ordinary people with anyone daring to speak quickly silenced," she said.

Voicing serious concern over the ban on private radio channels in Nepal following the royal takeover, the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters urged the new government to remove the ban on community radios to broadcast news and current affairs programs.

After King Gyanendra imposed a state of emergency and swore in a new government, the army started to crackdown on private radio channels and publications -- including newspapers -- in the name of ensuring security in the country. The FM stations were told to broadcast only entertainment programs.

Meanwhile on Saturday, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) condemned the declaration of emergency in Nepal and appealed to King Gyanendra to initiate meaningful dialogue with all political parties in order to restore democracy.

The ICFTU also urged the United Nations and the International Labor Organization to send a fact-finding mission to look into cases of violation of trade union rights and atrocities on workers.

The call for dialogue was also repeated by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during a visit to the southern Indian city of Bangalore on Saturday.

Singh said India hoped the elected government and the royal family could co-exist without friction in Nepal.

"Constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy are twin pillars of Nepalese society. It is our hope that Nepal will move in that direction," Singh told reporters.

But Koirala said the monarchy has lost the confidence of the people, but was managing to survive with the help of the military.

"The 'twin pillars' of a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy has never really worked in the country," she said. "It's a feudal and dictatorial regime in Nepal."