Nepal opposition ends protests as Maoists reject king's speech

Nepal’s opposition alliance called off weeks of devastating pro-democracy protests today after King Gyanendra gave in to a demand to reinstate Parliament, but Maoist insurgents quickly rejected the royal announcement.

King Gyanendra’s overnight speech, welcomed by the opposition and many thousands of Nepalese who had been calling for him to relinquish power, was “a conspiracy to protect the regime”, said a statement signed by rebel leader Prachanda and his deputy Baburam Bhattarai.

They warned that the opposition alliance had betrayed the Maoists by welcoming the announcement, vowing to press ahead with blockades that have sealed off major roads for weeks, and led to serious shortages of food and fuel in the capital Kathmandu.

Alliance officials had said earlier that the king’s speech had been welcomed by the Maoists, whose 10-year campaign to create a communist state has left more than 13,000 people dead and given them control over much of the countryside.

The opposition leaders, meanwhile, also said they wanted former Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, the head of the country’s largest party, the Nepali Congress, to head a new government, party officials said.

The king’s announcement, which came near midnight yesterday, was a pivotal concession after weeks of mass protests that had threatened to force him from power. The protests sparked clashes with security forces that left 14 demonstrators dead and the country dangerously volatile.

“People Power Wins” the Kathmandu Post, an English-language newspaper, blared in enormous letters at the top of its Tuesday edition.

The seven-party alliance, which will take the lead when Parliament is reconvened in the coming days, had said it wanted to pull the Maoists into the political mainstream, and planned to declare a cease-fire with them once a new government was formed.

“We will work together with the Maoists,” Krishna Sitaula, a top Nepali Congress official and alliance spokesman, said after emerging from closed-door discussions among party leaders.

There was no immediate response from the alliance about the Maoist announcement.

The leaders also formally called off the protests and general strike that had nearly paralysed life in Nepal for weeks, but said a planned demonstration today would go ahead as a “victory rally”. He urged demonstrators to remain peaceful.

King Gyanendra, under immense pressure from protesters and foreign governments, ordered the Parliament to be reinstated on Friday.

Its main agenda will be to hold an election for a special assembly to rewrite the country’s constitution, Sitaula said, a move that would almost certainly reduce the power of the king, or even eliminate the monarchy.

“We have forced the king to his knees,” said Rajan Sreshta, an opposition activist waiting outside the scene of today’s meeting. “It shows the people are the actual power.”

Seeing he had few choices left and hoping to avoid an even bloodier showdown, Gyanendra’s announcement cleared the way for the creation of a new constitution that could leave him largely powerless, or even eliminate the monarchy.

Gyanendra also expressed his sympathies for the 14 demonstrators killed by his security forces.

“We extend our heartfelt condolences for all those who have lost their lives in the people’s movement,” Gyanendra said in the address, broadcast on state television and radio.

By early morning, life was almost normal in Kathmandu, where the crisis had alternately filled streets with protesters or emptied them because of curfews: mobile phones, switched off by the government in an attempt to disrupt protest organisers, were back on; stores reopened; volunteers passed stones hand-to-hand, clearing the roads of blockades.

The king’s address effectively handed power back to elected politicians hours before the largest planned protest yet, with hundreds of thousands of people expected to attend.

The opposition alliance would now “bear the responsibility of taking the nation on the path of national unity and prosperity,” Gyanendra told Nepal.

“We are confident the nation will forge ahead toward sustainable peace, progress, full-fledged democracy and national unity,” said the king, sitting rigidly in front of a blue backdrop decorated with royal emblems.

For much of the crisis, Gyanendra had remained silent behind the walls of his heavily guarded palace in central Kathmandu, kept in power because of the loyalty of his army and police.

Gyanendra dismissed an interim government 14 months ago and seized direct control over the government, saying he needed to bring order to the country’s chaotic politics and to crush the Maoists.

Reinstating Parliament’s lower house was a key alliance demand.