Nepalese king declares state of emergency after 300 die

Nepal’s king today declared a state of emergency after weekend attacks by Maoist rebels left at least 300 dead.

King Gyanendra accepted a cabinet recommendation that will allow the government to use the army for the first time to hunt down the rebels who have been fighting to establish a socialist state since 1996.

The cabinet’s recommendation came in the wake of a devastating rebel attack last night that killed at least 34 soldiers, said police officers and government officials in a mountainous village.

The rebels also suffered heavy casualties in excess of 200 - in the attack in Solukhumbu, 125 miles northeast of the capital Katmandu, said Interior Security Minister Khum Bahadur Khadka.

The total number of security forces and government officials killed has climbed to at least 76 since Friday, when the rebels, fighting for a socialist republic in Nepal, broke a four month ceasefire and launched attacks across the Himalayan kingdom.

‘‘The Cabinet has taken a serious decision to seek a state of emergency,’’ Water Resources Minister Bijaya Gachchedar said after the Cabinet of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, met in an emergency session today.

In the attack Sunday night, the rebels killed five soldiers, 28 police officers and the chief district officer. Khadka said the guerrillas had bombed the district administration office, the dirt-strip airport and the local bank during the attack.

Airports and borders will remain open and government offices will function as normal under the state of emergency, he said, but security would be tightened across the nation.

The military and the armed police were being mobilise to comb rebel hide-outs, concentrated mostly in the remote hills of midwest Nepal. Public activities by Maoists and publications supporting them have been banned.

The rebel leader, known as Prachanda, called off peace talks with the government last week. He said attempts to find a peaceful settlement had failed after the government rejected his demand for a new constitution.

The government supports the constitutional monarchy with the king as the ceremonial head of the state. The present system was adopted in 1990, after a democratic movement toppled the absolute monarchy.

Thousands of guerrillas led by Prachanda, whose real name is Pushpa Kumar Dahal, have waged an insurgency in remote mountainous areas to end the monarchy and install a socialist republic in Nepal. The six-year campaign has claimed more than 1,800 lives.

The guerrillas fashion themselves after Peru’s Shining Path guerrillas. Maoist rebels draw their name from China’s revolutionary communist leader Mao Tse-tung, who once said that ‘‘political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.’’

King Gyanendra was crowned in June following the palace massacre in which his brother, the king, and nine other members of the royal family were shot dead by the crown prince, who then committed suicide.