Nepal’s king offers talks, thousands march in rally

By Gopal Sharma

KATHMANDU (Reuters) – Nepal’s King Gyanendra made his first
formal approach to the country’s estranged political parties on
Sunday, urging them to join talks and try to put democracy back
on track.

Piling pressure on the unpopular monarch who seized power
last year, more than 3,000 people marched in the capital on
Sunday demanding a return to democracy.

Carrying red hammer-and-sickle banners, protesters squatted
on a major thoroughfare in the temple-studded capital, shouting
slogans against the king.

“We don’t want absolute monarchy … We want democracy,”
they chanted at the rally, organised by Nepal’s seven
mainstream political parties, which say they have been
sidelined by the king.

Sunday’s protests came hours after the monarch made his
formal approach to the political parties.

“We, therefore, call on all willing political parties to
come forth to fully activate, at the earliest, the stalled
democratic process in the greater interest of the nation,” the
king said in a national democracy day statement.

The king, who is camping in the resort town of Pokhara in
west Nepal, also urged anti-monarchy Maoist rebels to shun
violence and rejoin the mainstream.

“Let us listen to others, put across our views, do away
with discord and enhance mutual understanding; let us
consolidate peace and democracy,” he said.

Gyanendra plunged the Himalayan kingdom into turmoil in
February 2005 when he seized absolute power, firing the
government, jailing politicians and suspending civil liberties
including media freedom.

He said the move was necessary to quell the 10-year-old
Maoist insurgency in which more than 13,000 people have died.

But he has faced near daily protests in recent weeks over
the failure to restore democracy and treatment of political
leaders.

“We can’t hold talks in a vacuum,” Sushil Koirala, a senior
leader of the Nepali Congress party, the biggest group in the
seven-party alliance protesting against the king, said in a
brief comment. He did not elaborate.

There was no immediate response from the rebels to the
king’s appeal. The Maoists called on Saturday for an indefinite
nationwide strike against the king from April 3.

In the capital, dozens of riot police in blue camouflage
ringed the protest area but did not intervene.

“I have come here to get democracy back from the king’s
palace,” said 60-year-old farmer Lakshmi Bhakta Basnet, holding
a big red banner pinned to a bamboo stick at the rally.

This is the first time that the king has formally raised
the possibility of talks with political parties, but analysts
said he was still not serious and an early meeting with the
parties was unlikely.

“This is only a half-hearted appeal,” said Rajendra Dahal,
editor of the Himal magazine.