Pro-democracy protests hit Nepal Date: 14/04/06 By Gopal Sharma and Y P Rajesh
| Fresh pro-democracy protests have broken out in Nepal despite King Gyanendra's call for elections in the Himalayan kingdom, as activists said he offered nothing new or substantive. Groups of protesters took to the streets of Kathmandu hours after the king's midnight message, chanting "Gyanendra, thief, quit the country" and "Down with autocracy, end police repression". Riot police arrested about 20 demonstrators, but there was no violence. Political parties leading the movement against the king were quick to reject his offer for elections, saying the monarch's message would not defuse the fierce campaign in which four people have been killed and hundreds wounded in the past week alone. The message was broadcast at the stroke of midnight, at the start of the Nepali Hindu New Year. "If the king doesn't listen to the voice of the people, I can only say, 'God save the king'," Girija Prasad Koirala, president of Nepal's largest political party, told Reuters in an interview. Nepalis had hoped the king's traditional new year message would contain some new steps to ease tensions but it was largely a repeat of earlier promises to hold elections by April 2007. He sacked the government and assumed total power in February 2005. "It is our wish that in order to re-energise multi-party democracy there should not be any delay in reactivating all representative bodies through elections," the king said. "May the efforts at ensuring sustainable peace and meaningful democracy in the interests of the nation and the people bear fruit during the new year." Although an alliance of Nepal's seven main political parties has yet to formally react to the king's overtures, senior leaders said his offer had come too late. "He did not address the problem of the nation, he should have done that," said Koirala, 84, a four-time prime minister. "There is no change (in his stance), all he has changed are only his words. We will start our agitation as usual and it will go on till the sovereignty of the people is not returned." Copyright © 2006 REUTERS