Aid suspension 'will fuel terrorism in Nepal'

Nepal’s finance minister has said the suspension of foreign aid will fuel terrorism in the insurgency-wracked nation.

Nepal relies heavily on foreign aid for development projects and for its nine-year fight against Maoist insurgents, who want to replace the monarchy with a communist state. The conflict has claimed more than 10,500 lives.

Nepal told donor nations at a meeting in Paris that suspending aid will help terrorists gain ground in the impoverished Himalayan country, said Finance Minister Madhukar Shamsher Rana.

“We told them if you arrest development in Nepal, you help terrorism that feeds on poverty,” Rana said upon returning from France. “They have to choose between supporting us and helping the terrorists.”

Switzerland, Denmark and Norway suspended contributions for development work after Nepal’s King Gyanendra grabbed power on February 1, suspending civil liberties. The king said the country's corrupt political parties and their successive governments had failed to end the Maoist rebellion.

Police have put leaders of the country’s top political parties under house arrest, and detained more than 400 political workers, rights activists and journalists.

The World Bank also suspended £36m (€52.3m) in aid after the royal takeover, and two key Nepal allies – India and Britain – have suspended military aid, which Nepal needs to battle the rebels. Over the weekend, Belgium revoked a license for a Belgian company to sell rifles to the Royal Nepalese army.

At last week’s Paris conference, donor countries set conditions for continuing aid, Rana said.

“Their main concern is that the state of emergency should be lifted early and democracy restored,” Rana said. But no country disputed Nepal’s “right to secure its own interests”, he said.

Some donors are concerned about freedom of expression in Nepal, where the new government has imposed censorship and punished journalists for criticising the monarchy. However, Rana said the king’s actions were aimed at benefiting Nepal’s poor.

“There are other types of freedom that concerns us: freedom from poverty, freedom from hunger,” he said.

“A fragile state is itself a threat to democracy,” Rana said, adding that conference participants acknowledged the Maoist threat to Nepal.

Meanwhile, security forces continued clamping down on anti-monarchy protesters. On Sunday, 10 students were arrested when they tried to demonstrate in the capital, Kathmandu, a Defence Ministry statement said.

Political protests have been banned since Gyanendra seized power.

Relatives of Girija Prasad Koirala, leader of the country’s largest political party, say they are concerned his health could deteriorate since he was put under house arrest last month.

The 79-year-old president of the Nepali Congress – who suffers from heart problems, hypertension and asthma – has been denied access to his family, his personal doctor and independent media, said his nephew, Shashank Koirala.

“We have not been allowed to meet him, but we hear he is doing OK so far,” Shashank said.