King plans

Kathmandu, April 21: Nepal’s royal family today denied reports saying that King Gyanendra was planning to leave the country in the next few weeks.

In a statement issued through the Narayanhitti Palace secretariat, the royal family said reports in the national and international media about Gyanendra seeking asylum in India are totally fabricated. “The recent reports in the national and international media against the royal palace are malicious, totally fabricated and unfounded,” the statement said.

The palace denial comes after Indian foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee rejected reports that Gyanendra had formally sought asylum in India. Media reports claimed that Gyanendra was planning to shift base to the Rajasthani town of Sikar which is the hometown of his daughter-in-law, Himani.

The US ambassador to Nepal, Nancy J. Powell, today hinted that the Bush administration was in the process of reviewing its Nepal policy after the Maoist victory in the Constituent Assembly elections.

Powell told parliament Speaker Subhash Chandra Nembang today that the US government would continue moral and financial support to the Nepal government which will be headed by the Maoists. The Bush administration still regards the Maoists as a terrorist organisation.

Army legacy

Nepal’s conservative army must shed its royalist legacy and prepare to absorb Maoist fighters, a top Maoist leader said today, a move crucial to cementing a peace deal that ended a bloody civil war.

The Maoists have locked away their weapons under the peace deal, placed their fighters in UN-monitored camps and fought an election. They are now set to become the country’s single largest party and leaders of a coalition government. High on their list of challenges is the integration of their idle fighters into the regular army.

It is a highly sensitive issue. Nepal’s army has resisted the idea of integrating its former foes up till now, saying it did not want “politically indoctrinated” people in its ranks. “We have already decided that the two armies will be integrated and a new security force will be created,” Baburam Bhattarai, seen as a potential Prime Minister, told Reuters in an interview in his Kathmandu office, under a collage of portraits of Stalin, Lenin, Mao Zedong, Marx and Engels. “This is the essence of the whole (peace) agreement so far.”

He warned the army not to question the elected political leadership and prepare to absorb Maoist fighters. “The whole thing will be restructured,” he said. “The whole state system within the army will be restructured.”