Maoists sow insurgency in rural Nepal

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MUSIKOT, Nepal -- In the mountains of Nepal, a full-blown Maoist uprising is gaining ground.

It may sound a bit anachronistic, especially in a region of Asia that has embraced market economics and linked up with the outside world to export everything from Indian computer software to Bangladeshi textiles and Sri Lanka-made designer clothes.

Yet the doctrines of Mao Tse-tung, the Chinese communist leader who believed in empowering the peasantry, have found new life in the countryside of this Himalayan kingdom.

The nation of 24 million seems to offer laboratory conditions for a revolution: widespread poverty, a remote, undemocratic government perceived as corrupt, a conflict-riven royal family, and a feudal system run by a few rich landlords.

Since going from absolute monarchy to democracy in 1990, Nepal has had 14 governments. In May, another prime minister resigned in the face of protest rallies in Katmandu, the capital, against King Gyanendra for dismissing an elected government in 2002. The resignation eased the crisis, but the Maoist insurgency remains the same and peace continues to be a distant dream.

In addition to the violence, Nepal experienced a shattering and still somewhat mysterious tragedy in 2001, when the king, queen and seven relatives were fatally shot by Crown Prince Dipendra, who then turned the gun on himself.

In the past two years U.S. annual aid has nearly doubled, to $40 million, much of it to arm and train the Royal Nepalese Army. But after eight years of fighting that has claimed nearly 10,000 lives, the rebels have a strong presence in a fourth of the Iowa-size country, including a big chunk of the midwestern mountains.

An AP reporter and photographer who trekked into the rebel heartland and spent a week in its villages and the besieged district capital heard voices both for and against the fighters who call themselves Maobadi, or Maoists.

Some deplored the guerrillas' intolerance of criticism and their attempts to impose communist ideology on the farmers. Teachers spoke of rebels entering their classrooms to lecture pupils. There were accounts of fighters dragging opponents from their homes and killing them.

"If there were free elections today and the Maoists came without their guns, they would lose by a big margin," said Harka Bahadur Chetri, 41, a teacher who was stabbed repeatedly in front of his family for criticizing the rebels.