Nepal: Truce or Consequences?

Nepal Maoists to observe one-month ceasefire: statement

KATHMANDU - Nepal's Maoist rebels will observe a one-month ceasefire with the government starting next Wednesday, according to a statement faxed to Kathmandu media.
However, the statement sent under the insignia of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist did not have the usual signature of rebel supremo Pushpa Kamal Dahal, alias Prachand. - AFP

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Maoist rebels declare ceasefire in Nepal
(Filed: 09/05/2002)


MAOIST rebels in Nepal declared a one-month ceasefire today after a week in which hundreds of guerrillas, police and soldiers have been killed.

The rebels said the ceasefire was being made before the state of emergency, imposed by the government after the guerrillas broke a previous truce last November, expires on May 25.

The declaration, faxed to news agencies, was not signed by the rebel leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal, popularly known as Prachand.

The truce comes a day after 140 police and soldiers were killed in a rebel attack on a security post. The killings were a major setback for government forces after they had killed an estimated 550 guerrillas during a sustained attack on rebel positions over the past week.

The attack came only hours after the Nepalese prime minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba, met President George W Bush in Washington to ask for help in fighting the Maoist rebellion.

The White House has already asked Congress for nearly £14 million in military aid for Nepal, and at least a dozen US military experts have toured the country's far west in recent weeks on an assessment mission.

Today's statement from the Maoist rebels accused Mr Deuba of being Mr Bush's "adopted son" and claimed Washington "wants to turn Nepal into another Vietnam".

The rebels, who want to abolish Nepal's constitutional monarchy and establish a people's republic in the Himalayan kingdom, have made two previous ceasefires during the "people's war" which they launched in February 1996.

More than 4,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which has affected nearly all Nepal's 75 districts and wrecked the economy. Half of the deaths have come in the past seven months since the collapse of the previous ceasefire.

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