Nepal’s king hit by fallout from royal coup

Nepal’s King Gyanendra is facing consequences he did not expect when he carried out a royal coup Feb. 1, putting Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and his Cabinet under house arrest and imprisoning hundreds of other political figures, imposing restrictions on the press, communications, telephones and the Internet, and sending the army and police into the streets.

Gyanendra had been flexing his muscles against the democratic parties since becoming the king in June 2001. He blamed the parties for instability in the country leading to the expansion of the nine-year-old Maoist insurgency that seeks to topple the 237-year-old monarchy.

Riding on the bandwagon of the Bush administration’s “war on terror,” the king thought he could force the political parties and his international benefactors — the United States, Britain, the European Community and India — to rally to his side in his own fight against Maoist “terrorists.”

The tide, however, turned against him. The international community, which had advised the king there was no military solution to Nepal’s insurgency and that he should make peace with the political parties to fight the Maoists, not only condemned the coup but also embargoed arms shipments to the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA).

Lacking support from the West and India for his Feb. 1 takeover, Gyanendra went on a political-diplomatic tour to Indonesia and China in April and to the Persian Gulf countries in June seeking legitimacy for his regime.

While China, Pakistan and other lesser players in Nepal have said developments in the kingdom are an internal matter for Nepal, support from major donors — Washington, London, Brussels and New Delhi — is still on hold. All say their support for Nepal depends on the king’s handing over power to the people’s representatives.

The political parties, dashing Gyanendra’s hopes they would rally behind him, are increasingly belligerent toward the royal regime. In May, the country’s seven parties — including the two largest centrist ones, the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Unified Marxist and Leninist (UML) — formed an alliance to fight the royal autocracy until a full-fledged democracy is established.

The road map issued by the seven-party alliance calls for the restoration of the parliament dissolved in October 2002, formation of a parliamentary committee to negotiate with the Maoists on the technicalities of a Constituent Assembly, and formation of an interim government including the Maoists to conduct elections for the Constituent Assembly. Support from the seven-party alliance for the Maoist agenda of a Constituent Assembly, however, is not unconditional: They want the rebels to lay down their arms and join the mainstream.

But observers say this idea is fanciful, indeed suicidal, not only for the rebels but for the leaders of the other parties, because the army and police would have suppressed pro-democracy demonstrations had there been no Maoist People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to defend the parties.

Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as “Prachanda,” described the alliance proposal as “double-edged and seeking credit without collateral.” But he also welcomed it as a “step forward,” and urged his cadres to support any struggles by the alliance against the monarchy.

These developments followed meetings in May and June between Nepali political leaders and the Indian government as well as opposition leaders in New Delhi. The Maoists, too, sent two senior leaders — Baburam Bhattarai and Krishna Bahadur Mahara — to New Delhi, where they reportedly assured Nepali parliamentary leaders that the Maoists are also committed to multiparty democracy.

The two Nepali Maoists were reported to have met Indian leaders secretly to tell them of their commitment to multiparty democracy and assure New Delhi that Maoists in Nepal mean no harm to India.

Analysts say the country has clearly tilted toward the idea of a Constituent Assembly as proposed by the Maoists, which had been unacceptable for the parliamentary parties before the Feb. 1 royal coup. Critics say the king himself pushed the parliamentary parties into the Maoist camp and that Gyanendra is digging his own grave.

The growing tilt of parliamentary parties toward the Maoist agenda of a republican Nepal via a Constituent Assembly shows the country is heading toward abolishing the monarchy. Instead of trying to win the parties back to its side, the royal regime threatens to label the party leaders “terrorists” if they ally themselves with the Maoists.

The developing alliance, though informal, has become a matter of concern for the United States and India, whose policies emphasize an alliance between the king and parties to defeat the Maoists.

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