A Nepali pro-democracy demonstrator leads the crowd in shouting anti-monarch slogans at Chabahil in Kathmandu yesterday. India stepped up pressure on Nepal's King Gyanendra yesterday to restore democracy, sending a special envoy and its top diplomat to hold talks with the monarch to try to defuse a fortnight of crippling protests. -REUTERS
KATMANDU, Nepal (AP):
SECURITY FORCES fatally shot at least four protesters as thousands marched in southeastern Nepal yesterday, and the government re-imposed a curfew in Katmandu ahead of a massive rally planned for the capital.
Two weeks of often-bloody opposition protests and a general strike against the rule of King Gyanendra have paralysed Nepal, leaving the country as volatile as it's been since the monarch seized power 14 months ago.
HURLING BRICKS AND DEBRIS
Officials claimed security forces only opened fire after being shot at by protesters who were also hurling bricks and debris in the town of Chandragadi, about 500 kilometres (310 miles) southeast of Katmandu. The government has made such claims in the past two weeks, although no shootings by protesters have been independently verified.
The region's chief administrator, Bhola Siwakoti, also said the protesters had defied a ban on protests in the town and were sacking government and private property.
The were conflicting reports of how many were killed the Defence Ministry said two people were dead. But another Nepali official placed the death toll at four, and a U.N. official said five had been killed. Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the sensitivity of the situation.
The latest deaths bring to 10 the number of people killed by security forces in the two weeks of protests.
Since the opposition campaign began April 6, ordinary Nepalis have joined the rallies alongside the usual cast of students and political activists.
The royal government has responded harshly, claiming that the Nepal's communist insurgents _ who are allied with the political opposition _ had violently infiltrated the rallies. Police have beaten, tear gassed and arrested thousands of protesters.
The king dismissed an interim government and seized power in February 2005 _ a move he said was needed to restore order and crush a communist insurgency that has killed nearly 13,000 people over the past decade.
While many of Nepal's 27 million people at first welcomed the king's power grab _ fed up with the corrupt and squabbling political elite _ the worsening communist insurgency and a faltering economy have fuelled discontent.
Hours before Wednesday's shootings, the royal government freed two top opposition leaders _ Madhav Kumar Nepal of the Communist Party of Nepal and Ram Chandra Poudel of the Nepali Congress _ who had been jailed for three months.
No reasons were given for their release, and both pledged to join the protests.
"We will launch the protest (against king) in an effective way until full sovereignty is returned to the people," Kumar Nepal told reporters.
Many here saw the release as an attempt by Gyanendra to show flexibility on the day an Indian special envoy arrived to press the king to compromise with the opposition.
"I am always optimistic," said envoy Karan Singh, who began talks with the opposition Wednesday and was to meet Gyanendra on Thursday.
Despite it's apparently conciliatory move, the government later Wednesday imposed an 18-hour curfew in Katmandu and surrounding areas _ a clear attempt to scuttle opposition plans to bring 100,000 people Thursday onto the ring road that skirts the capital. Such a rally would dwarf all earlier ones.
The government notice broadcast over state radio said the curfew would run from 2 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday in Katmandu, the suburb of Lalitpur and in areas 200 meters (650 feet) beyond both _ a footprint that would encompass the ring road.
The government Wednesday morning imposed a day-long curfew in the resort town of Pokhara, the scene of daily protests in the past two weeks. There was no word on whether the curfew would be extended to Thursday.
Despite the curfew, some 250 professors took the streets of Pokhara and were promptly arrested.
There were also protests of a few thousand people each in Katmandu, although many of the city's 1.5 million people appeared to be resting for Thursday's massive demonstration.
The United States, meanwhile, again urged Gyanendra to restore democracy with White House press secretary Scott McClellan saying in Washington that the unrest in the country "will only worsen."
"Arrests and violence accompanying the pro-democracy demonstrations only add to the insecurity and compound the serious problem facing Nepal," he told reporters.
Nepal's royal government on Tuesday summoned U.S. Ambassador James Moriarty to protest the envoy's remarks that if the Himalayan nation's king did not compromise with his opponents he could end up fleeing the country.
Aside from the protests, the strike has closed shops and forced vehicles off the streets and highways for 14 straight days, causing shortages of food and other necessities in Katmandu.
