NEPAL: Nepal's Maoist guerrillas shot dead a pedestrian and detonated a bomb in the capital, Kathmandu, yesterday, six days after they blockaded the city from the rest of the country to press for the release of government-held insurgents, writes Rahul Bedi in New Delhi
The Maoists, who control large portions of the Himalayan kingdom, have isolated Kathmandu's 1.5 million people as part of their eight-year armed campaign to topple Nepal's constitutional monarchy, replacing it with a republic.
The government, meanwhile, reiterated its offer to the rebels yesterday to join peace talks, but said it was not ready to release jailed guerrillas as the Maoists demanded.
"We need to start the talks without setting any preconditions," Deputy Prime Minister Bharat Mohan Adhikari said. "The government is ready to go to any lengths to resolve the crisis, but first let us start talking," he added.
The Maoists responded with the bombing, in which no one was injured, and the shooting dead of a businessman in Kathmandu, as part of their overall strategy to precipitate an "economic meltdown" in the already impoverished kingdom.
The explosion took place yesterday near a government building on the Arniko highway, popular with tourists because it's the only land route to neighbouring Tibet.
The Maoists have also announced a fresh blockade from Saturday, other than the existing one that is choking the "lifeline" from India to the south, to stop traffic entering from the Tibet border through which Nepal imports around $72 million of Chinese-made goods. "The Maoists' main objective is to create panic. The closure of the roads has not been fully successful so they are trying additional methods," political analyst Mr Prakash Joshi said.
Officials said scores of trucks travelling under armed escort trickled into the Kathmandu valley daily, where police and Royal Nepal Army soldiers frisked incoming passengers and checked the identity of all those leaving. "We provide protection, including helicopters flying overhead to give truckers a psychological feeling of protection," Royal Nepal Army spokesman Col Deepak Gurung said.
And though local markets remain well stocked with essentials including fresh vegetables and fruit, prices have shot up, leading to fears that a prolonged blockade could be damaging.
The government, meanwhile, agreed to another of the Maoists' demands at the weekend by agreeing to release within a month information on the unspecified number of leftist activists who have gone missing in a war that has claimed over 10,000 lives since 1996. But officials conceded that this concession was a case of too little, too late.
Nepal's Maoists model themselves on Peru's Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerillas, following its four-path strategy - agitation and propaganda; creating liberated zones; armed struggle in rural areas; followed by armed struggle in urban areas.