Unrest threatens to derail Nepali peace

Unrest threatens to derail Nepali peace

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Nepalese driver steers an agricultural vehicle being used as a
makeshift form of public transport along a street in Kathmandu
yesterday on the second day of a transportation strike. PHOTO: AFP

PM holds emergency meet as protester dies in police firing

Reuters, Afp, Kathmandu

Nepal's prime minister convened an emergency meeting of the ruling alliance and former Maoist rebels yesterday as violent unrest threatened to derail a fast-moving peace process aimed at ending a decade-old civil war.

Dozens of government offices and buses were torched over the weekend by ethnic Madhesi peoples of the southern plains after a Maoist activist shot dead a 16-year-old boy during a Madhesi demonstration against a recently passed interim constitution.

The violence in the southeastern town of Lahan sparked a transport strike that paralysed much of the Himalayan kingdom on Monday as Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala met with leading politicians.

The strike was called by transport companies to protest against the attacks on their vehicles.

The Madhesi People's Rights Forum, which organised the demonstration, opposes the new constitution, which incorporates Maoists into the political mainstream after an insurgency against the monarchy in which over 13,000 people were killed.

They say it offers little for people living in the southern plains, which is impoverished Nepal's breadbasket. They want more jobs and funds from the central government.

"The concerns of the people living in the Terai should be adequately addressed in the interim constitution," defence analyst Bishnu Raj Upreti said.

"Otherwise there is a risk of a serious conflict between the people from the hills and the plains," he said.

"This could develop as a separatist movement if not properly addressed in time," Upreti added.

The government says forces opposed to the peace deal were conspiring to create the unrest.

The Madhesh region, also known as Terai, is a narrow, fertile strip of southern Nepal. It holds about half the country's population and many people have closer cultural links to nearby India than Nepal's highlands.

Meanwhile, one protester was killed by police in southeastern Nepal Monday as violence in the impoverished southeast of the Himalayan nation went into its third day, official media said.

In the capital Kathmandu, the government and former Maoist insurgents met to discuss the violence sparked by last week's shooting of 16-year-old boy during a scuffle between Maoists and activists opposed to their entering the political mainstream.