Yet more instability for Nepal

Nepal’s King Gyanendra added a new dimension to his country’s long-running political crisis on Feb. 1 by seizing power and dismissing the eight-month-old government led by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.

In a desperate move, he cleared the field for a decisive battle to save the 236-year-old Shah dynasty from a nine-year-long Maoist insurgency. In a 35-minute televised proclamation, the king went on the offensive against what he called mismanagement of the country by Nepal’s political parties, held their leaders responsible for bringing instability, declared a state of emergency, ordered the army to put Mr. Deuba, his Cabinet and opposition party leaders under house arrest, suspended fundamental rights, gagged the press, and gave himself three years to bring peace and restore democracy.

Right after the royal address, Nepal was closed to the outside world. All Internet, cell phone and land lines, local and international, were blocked until Feb. 7.

Mr. Deuba, the deposed prime minister, denounced the king’s action as “an anti-democratic step and a flagrant violation of the constitution of Nepal,” and Girija Prasad Koirala, a former prime minister and leader of the Nepali Congress party, called on Nepalis “to take to the streets to restore the sovereign power of the people and safeguard the constitution of 1990.”

Within hours, Maoist leader Prachanda dismissed Gyanendra’s proclamation as an attempt to push Nepal “into the darkness of the 15th century.” Describing the king as a “feudal autocrat and a national betrayer,” Prachanda called upon all democratic parliamentary forces to forge a united front with his party to expel the monarchy and establish a Democratic Republic of Nepal.

On Feb. 4, Prachanda challenged the king to withdraw the royal coup or face a nationwide blockade and traffic strike starting tomorrow, the ninth anniversary of the start of the Maoist “people’s war.”

World reaction was quick to condemn the royal takeover and the king’s use of the army against democracy and the fundamental rights of the people.

India called it “a setback to democracy and a cause for grave concern.” The next day, New Delhi canceled Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s trip to Dhaka, Bangladesh, to participate in a meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which Nepal’s king was to attend. Indian officials said Mr. Singh’s meeting Gyanendra in Dhaka would have endorsed the monarch’s actions in Nepal.

A SAARC summit cannot take place in the absence of any of its seven members.

On Feb. 3, Gen. Joginder Jaswant Singh, chief of India’s armed forces, also declined an invitation from Nepal’s army chief, Gen. Pyar Jung Thapa.

However China, Nepal’s neighbor to the north, described the royal takeover as “Nepal’s internal affair,” apparently in appreciation for Nepal’s closing the office of Tibetan refugees in Katmandu two days before the royal coup.

In London, Nepalese Ambassador Prabal Rana was summoned to the Foreign Office to hear the British government’s “grave concerns” over the king’s actions, while in Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States was “deeply troubled” by the “apparent step back” from democracy and demanded an “immediate move toward the restoration of multiparty democratic institutions under a constitutional monarchy.”

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for an immediate restoration of democracy in Nepal, while human-rights groups, including Amnesty International, expressed concern over any erosion of fundamental rights in the kingdom amid reports of a crackdown on political dissent.

The context of the political crisis in Nepal is the nine-year-old civil war between the government and the Maoist communist party that has taken the lives of 11,000 people. The insurgency is gradually transforming itself into a revolution after the guerrillas won several battles against the royal armed forces and imposed two rebel blockades of the capital, Katmandu, in 2004.

When the Maoists began their people’s war in 1996, the democratically elected government of Nepal took it as a simple “law and order” problem and sought to quell it through police operations. Government leaders failed to understand that the problem was a revolutionary war with a clearly defined political platform.

As the Maoists resisted police operations with human wave attacks, the government began to systematically withdraw police posts from thousands of villages, leaving much of the country open to Maoist political and military activities.

Two unsuccessful negotiations have taken place between the government and Maoist rebels since 2001. Both times, the rebels insisted on elections to a constituent assembly that will define the role, if any, of each political group, including the monarchy. The government refused to discuss the issue of monarchy and rejected the Maoist demand for a constituent assembly, fearing such an assembly would abolish the monarchy.

The failure of the first negotiations in November 2001 led to Maoist offensives against the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA), which, in turn, led the government to declare a state of emergency.

Within six months, the elected government faced unintended consequences. First, the RNA failed to disarm the guerrillas. Next, parliament refused to renew the emergency. As a result, Mr. Deuba recommended dissolution of the parliament and called for elections within six months as required by the constitution. Finally, the government failed to hold elections in the stipulated time and Mr. Deuba sought to defer the date by another 16 months.

These crises led to Gyanendra’s political intervention. He fired Mr. Deuba in October 2002 for “incompetence.” The king made clear that he wants to be a “constructive” monarch, to be heard and seen by the people.

Political parties condemned the royal intervention and demanded reinstatement of parliament, but the king appointed three prime ministers between October 2002 and Feb. 1 this year with a mandate to negotiate peace with the Maoists and conduct elections to parliament. None of the three could negotiate peace with the Maoists or hold elections to parliament.

Since October 2002, while the active monarchists and the political parties locked horns, the Maoist revolutionaries continued to expand their political and military operations throughout Nepal. As a result, the government side could not deal with the rebels.

The royal regime’s international backers — India, the United Kingdom and the United States — which provided arms and money, all advised that the crisis in Nepal had no military solution and emphasized the need for the king and parties to unite to face the Maoist challenge politically.

Cooperation between the king and the politicians remains difficult to achieve because the party leaders feel the world favors democracy and human rights and the international community would not allow the king to tamper with democratic institutions.

The monarchists, who have more to lose from the Maoist revolution, sense that their time is running out and decided to deal with the Maoist threat. The parties, the free press, and human-rights organizations became a thorn in the foot of conservative forces seeking suppression of the Maoist rebellion.

Gyanendra sought at least twice to visit India last fall, apparently seeking political as well as military support from New Delhi. Indian leaders, however, declined to support his wish of minimizing democratic institutions, and advised him to seek a political solution with the participation of all political parties, including the Maoists.

Frustrated by the lack of support of political parties and foreign friends, and desperate to save his crown from the republican Maoists, the king decided to take power into his own hands against the advice of his international supporters.

International disagreement notwithstanding, the king seems convinced that a military victory against the Maoist rebels is possible.

He has clearly sent a message to foreign critics: “Whose side are you on — mine or the Maoists?”

Those who have watched the deteriorating political conditions in Nepal for several years are skeptical of the royal regime’s ability to bring the Maoist insurgency under control. The rebels have successfully projected themselves as “the only hope of the hopeless.”

On Feb. 5, to allay criticism from abroad and opposition inside the country, the royal regime began a three-pronged effort to save the monarchy.

First, the regime announced 21 populist measures to win public opinion for the king. Second, the king directed the RNA to intensify its offensives against Maoists, and third, he undertook a diplomatic campaign to convince the international community that he is not against multiparty rule.

The royal regime and its army are using “war-on-terror” rhetoric in an attempt to defuse international condemnation. Army spokesman Gen. Dipak Gurung told BBC Radio: “I am sure other countries will understand that we are fighting against terrorists.”

Ramesh Nath Pandey, newly appointed foreign minister in the royal Cabinet, tried to convince the foreign critics, saying: “The concern o f the international community is about the future of multiparty democracy in Nepal … the king’s commitment to multiparty democracy is total,” adding: “until the insurgency is stopped, multiparty democracy cannot come back on track.”

Analysts say Gyanendra’s promise of peace, stability and a return to multiparty democracy in three years is likely to carry little weight with either the Maoists or parliamentary democrats. They say that by sidelining the democratic parties from the political process, the king practically forced them into the republican camp led by the Maoists.

• Chitra Tiwari, formerly a lecturer of political science at Nepal’s Tribhuvan University, is a Washington-based analyst of South Asian affairs. He can be reached at cktiwari@verizon.net.