US Warns King After Nepal Clash

[theHandpuppet]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4135094.stm

US warns king after Nepal clash

The United States has warned Nepal's king to return the country to democracy or face a slide towards chaos. The comments came as the bodies of 40 soldiers killed in fighting with Maoist rebels in the remote western district of Kalikot were recovered.

The rebels said they lost 26 men in the attack on an army camp late on Sunday.

A BBC correspondent in Nepal says the fighting seems to be the bloodiest since King Gyanendra seized power more than six months ago.

MORE...

[pinniped]

1. Man, * must have a full-time "warning" committee because...

a new one directed at a person, government, or other entity comes out every damm day.

[bluestateguy]

2. Another foreign powder keg that is none of our business

Must we take sides in every international incident, every episode of ethnic conflict, every border dispute and every internal affair of every nation-state? Geez.

[unhappycamper]

3. They don't have oil, so there must be something else here.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/np.html

:tinfoilhat:-time. Look at the map - Nepal borders China. The freedom-loving peoples of bu$hCo might want to build some permanent military bases there......

[pinniped]

4. * might want one of his poo-flags on top of Mt. Everest.

.

[unhappycamper]

7. If you find a pile of * on top of Mt. Everest, it should be flagged. n/t

[demnan]

5. What does * want

another fucking war now?

[wli]

6. sounds like more military bases around China; there's no oil

[leesa]

8. Has Nepal ever been a democracy? Do these BushCo jokers even know

what a democracy is?

Nepal to BushCo: STFU

[sam sarrha]

9. Maoist rebels.. China is INVADING Nepal just like Tibet..another genocide?

[David__77]

10. NO. China opposes these Maoist freedom fighters.

China strongly opposes the Maoists of Nepal, and the Maoists of Nepal, while not anti-China, criticize China's leadership as phony communist. The Nepalese Maoists are fighting for a united front with the banned democratic political parties in order to abolish the absolute, feudal monarchy and create a democratic republic.

[sam sarrha]

11. Oh.. that is why they are slaughtering civilians.. children and women...

terrorizing everyone

[David__77]

12. That is untrue.

It is the "royal" army that is attacking the common people in the countryside. The revolution is liberating women from their traditional slavery, abolishing dowry and child marriage. It is such a shame that erstwhile "progressives" support theocracy and barbaric feudal slavery, promoting it as somehow "idyllic."

The people of Nepal are free to choose for themselves, however. And the US, India and China should stay out of it and not interfere by supporting either the revolution or counterrevolution.

[iverglas]

13. it's the strange dotty relation in the attic of DU ...

That old the enemy of my enemy is my friend thing, I suspect. And it's a sure trap for the unthinking.

Until very recently, women in Nepal were liable to life imprisonment for obtaining an abortion ... and some women in that situation received longer sentences than people who actually committed homicides.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2285373.stm

According to doctors, Nepal's abortion ban forced untold thousands of women to seek dangerous back-street abortions.

No accurate estimates exist of the number of women who died or were maimed after unsterile operations.

At one point, in the late 1990s, nearly 100 women were in jail in Nepal, accused of seeking or having illegal abortions.

Some were behind bars with their children; others, according to their lawyers, had merely had miscarriages but were accused of aborting their babies by relatives or neighbours.

What with legal abortion being the sign of a civilized society and all ...
http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/civilize.html
... (and the kind of corruption that makes individual's liberty subject to the whim of other individuals being a sure mark of an undemocratic society), one suspects that things were improving more generally in Nepal -- until the coup.

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2005/s1297728.htm

The World Today - Monday, 7 February , 2005 12:46:00

A week after the royal coup in Nepal, reports of torture, systematic arrests and targeting of human rights activists are beginning to emerge from the landlocked mountain kingdom.

Communications with the outside world remain cut off and soldiers continue to patrol the streets keeping a lid on any form of agitation.

But the Nepalese Bar Association says several instances of human rights abuse have been reported from across the country. And human rights groups in Nepal are now appealing to the international community to pressure the monarchy to reverse the emergency measures ... .

... <25 human rights groups> say the new Government headed by King Gyandendra is spreading terror, by systematic arrests and the use of the military to threaten the people. The human rights groups also ask the international community to use pressure to make the king lift censorship, restore communications and reintroduce democracy.

The Bush administration may have its own reasons for exerting pressure in that direction. That doesn't mean that it isn't a direction that pressure should be exerted in.