Nepal's king offers to turn over power
By Somini Sengupta The New York Times
SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 2006
KATMANDU, Nepal:
Embattled King Gyanendra said Friday evening that he would turn over the reins of Nepal's government to a prime minister chosen by the country's principal political parties, but his gesture brought little relief to a nation on the verge of paralysis.
"Executive power of the kingdom of Nepal, which was in our safekeeping, shall, from this day, be returned to the people," the king said, in a long- awaited, surprisingly short address on state-owned television, on a day when more than 100,000 pro-democracy protesters flooded the capital's heavily fortified main road in defiance of a day- long shoot-on-sight curfew.
By late evening, there was no official reaction to the speech from the country's political leaders, who huddled in internal meetings Friday night. But the mood on the streets, swept by 16 straight days of often-violent confrontations between pro-democracy protesters and security forces, remained on edge. At least 11 people have been killed by the police and soldiers in the latest demonstrations, hundreds have been wounded and several thousand arrested.
"There's nothing for those who were killed in these protests," Raj Narayan Thakhur, 26, said of the king's speech, as bonfires burned on a street in the western suburb of Chabahil and protesters milled around in the dark.
"It doesn't work," said Bishwokiran Shakya, 46, with a brisk wave of his hand. "No good."
The king, who took over the government 14 months ago in what he called an effort to defeat a Maoist rebellion, agreed to return control of the state, but did not address the two principal demands of the politicians and their foot soldiers on the street: First, whether he would restore the elected Parliament, suspended in May, 2002, and second, whether he would agree to a referendum to review the Constitution and decide, ultimately, whether Nepal needs a king.
Calls for an end to monarchy, which is enshrined in the Nepali Constitution, have grown louder. The king's speech made it plain that he was in favor of maintaining Nepal's status quo: a multiparty democracy and a constitutional monarchy.
The king's speech came hours after Katmandu was engulfed in the largest protests to date. Several large neighborhood rallies converged despite prohibitions on the ring road that encircles the city center. They shouted gleefully for the king's head, burned effigies and, at one point, toppled a small tin-roofed police shack and set it alight, as the riot police, backed by soldiers, watched.
It remained unclear Friday evening whether the leaders of the seven-party alliance that has led the latest demonstrations, would accept the king's offer, and if it did, whether the alliance could sell it to either the Nepalese street or the Maoist rebels with whom it has linked arms in a joint bid to wrest power from the palace. In an accord signed last fall, the politicians agreed to the central Maoist demand for a referendum on the Constitution; the Maoists in exchange agreed, among other things, to play by the rules of parliamentary democracy.
Nepal's most vital ally, India, swiftly gave a nod to the king's offer, saying in a statement that it "should now pave the way for the restoration of political stability and economic recovery of the country."
The seven-party alliance was scheduled to render its verdict Saturday. But within hours of the king's speech, disaffection was voiced by party leaders who took pains to say they were expressing only personal opinions.
Krishna Prasad Sitauli, a spokesman for the country's largest party, Nepali Congress, said the king had offered nothing of what the parties have demanded. "The protests will intensify," he said.
K.P. Sharma Oli, a committee member of the Communist Party of Nepal United Marxist Leninist, the country's second largest faction, echoed the sentiment. "It's not enough," he said, adding that his party had yet to react officially.
"The royal address is a lie," protesters chanted late in the evening in the center of the capital, according to a man who had participated.
There is no question, however, that after two weeks of angry protest and a heavy-handed state crackdown, any political deal that maintains the monarchy has become a far harder sell to those clamoring for an end to Gyanendra's regime and the arrival of a democratic republic.
Apparently in anticipation of further discontent, the government extended the curfew until midnight Friday.
During the day, a sea of protesters punched through the city's curfew zone. They gathered at midmorning in the western Kalanki neighborhood, the site of one of the bloodiest clashes to date. It was there that the police
fired Thursday at a protester who was lobbing bricks from a second-floor roof, killing him instantly. Yam Bahadur Basnet, 22, who said he had been standing to the victim's left, said he had watched the police officer across the street aim his pistol and fire. In all, three people were killed in the Kalanki clash Thursday. Of the 66 wounded, one was a 10- year-old boy who had been shot.
On Friday morning, the streets of Kalanki were carpeted with bricks, stones and broken bottles. Protesters christened its main ring road intersection Democracy Crossroads and painted its new name on the road. The demonstrators in Kalanki were soon joined by a swell of protesters approaching from the north. A row of riot police officers melted away as the crowd, numbering in the many thousands, approached.
The rally leaders took pains to restrain aggressive members of the crowd, yanking them away as they tried to charge at another row of the riot police, backed by soldiers. "Don't throw stones," one of the rally leaders shouted from a microphone.
A man was hoisted on the shoulders of his companions, blowing a conch shell as though it were a funeral. A giant straw man, symbolizing the king, was tossed to the ground, stomped with great merriment, and set on fire.
Tilak P. Pokharel contributed reporting for this article from Katmandu.