World

Nepal's royal flag removed

by Rachel Nixon | May 29, 2008 at 08:58 am | 464 views | 9 comments | 9 recommendations

Nepal's royal flag has been removed from the palace of deposed King Gyanendra.

On Thursday anti-monarchists were celebrating on the streets after an assembly vote to make the country a republic, abolishing the monarchy.

The king and his family have been given 15 days to leave the residence.

The abolition of the monarchy was a key demand of the former Maoist rebels who emerged from April's elections to the assembly as the biggest party.

The former king has yet to make any comment on Wednesday's vote.

One prominent newspaper has reported that that Gyanendra is packing his belongings and planning to leave his palace in Kathmandu on Friday.

'Gone for good'

The BBC's Charles Haviland in Kathmandu says that that people in Nepal woke up on Thursday to find that their kingdom has become a republic after 240 years of rule by the Shah dynasty.

Television stations have reported that the royal standard has been replaced by the Nepalese national flag.

In the main English-language papers on Thursday, there is no lamenting the fall of the Shah dynasty.

In the words of one paper, it has been "confined to history" and "gone for good".

Another accuses the family, whose rule encompassed 11 kings, of looting Nepal of its resources, making it one of the world's poorest countries.

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Swapnil Acharya

at 09:11 on May 29th, 2008

Well, I really don't know what I should be saying. I'm here, sipping coffee watching TV, surfing the news websites and though I feel this is definitely a great start to the Nepalese, I still think thrashing an entire institution due to the mistakes, misdeeds and vested interests of one individual king isn't quite properly justified.

René

at 09:22 on May 29th, 2008

former Maoist rebels?

Are they funded by the Chinese?

Swapnil Acharya

at 09:34 on May 29th, 2008

No. The Maoists in Nepal have absolutely nothing to do with the Chinese Mao. In fact, their ideology has so much deviated from the actual Mao theory that now they like to call themselves "Democratic Communists."

Dear, dear, where on earth did they even get that term -- Democratic Communists. But one thing I can assure u Rene and the rest of the world is that thankfully, these aren't those vicious blood sucking communists of older times. times have changed and they've modernised and reformed -- at least that's one reason why people agreed to have them as leaders of the new federal democratic republic!!!

AlvarezGalloso

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 08:18 on May 30th, 2008

Rachel Nixon,

I like this story. It's good stuff.

It's interesting but I have yet to see if the Democratic Communists have democratic credentials. Prachanda and the Maoists have killed innocent people in their war and they received inspiration from the Sendero Luminoso Movement of Peru [who have committed atrocities in their "armed struggle"].

While I am not a monarchist, I think maybe Gynanendra and his son Paras could have saved the monarchy by abdicating in favour of Para's 5 year old son. [I think that is his age]. Again this is a personal reflection.

I would also like to comment that while Nepal converts into a Republic, we have Royal Republics in Cuba [Fidel Castro to Raul Castro], USA [Bush, Clinton, and Kennedys have been called America's Royal Family and there are politicians who behave worse than the monarchs], North Korea [Kim Il Sung to Kim Jong Il], Azerbaijian [Aliyev and his son], and the Democratic Republic of Congo [Laurent Kabila and his son].

I wish Nepal the best of luck in its new direction and hope that they did not make a mistake.