Quotes of the Day
As his servants take their leave with a series of silent bows, it becomes apparent that King Gyanendra spends much of his time in the company of ghosts. Outside his window in Kathmandu's cavernous royal palace, a pale sun is setting over the Himalayas, the day staff is leaving in a hushed file through the western gate and a flock of hundreds of ravens is settling noisily into the firs. As night falls, the birds in the royal gardens cease their cawing and a gloomy silence descends upon the dimly lit palace. "It is lonely," says Gyanendra, drawing deeply on a cigarette and flicking ash absently onto a tiger-skin rug. "I miss my brothers and sisters. I am a human being after all."
It has been two-and-a-half years since Gyanendra's 29-year-old nephew, Crown Prince Dipendra, cut his deadly path through Narayanhity Royal Palace. Enraged by his mother's refusal to let him marry his girlfriend, numbed by whiskey and hashish and armed with an assault rifle, a submachine gun and a pistol, Dipendra strode wordlessly in full combat dress into his grandmother's wing of the palace and opened fire on his assembled family. By the time he turned the handgun on himself, Dipendra had shot and killed his parents Queen Aishwarya and King Birendra, his brother, a sister, an aunt, two uncles and two cousins. Gyanendra, Birendra's brother, was away in western Nepal. But his wife, Komal, who had taken their two children to spend the evening at the palace, was hit several times. She survived, losing six pints of blood and a lung; Gyanendra's son, now Crown Prince Paras, escaped with his sister after pleading for their lives with their cousin. "I left this palace 30 years ago when I got married," says Gyanendra in his measured English. "I never thought I would have to occupy it again. It is difficult, but we do the best we can. It's people that change a house into a home, and that's what we've been trying to do."
Since assuming the crown in June 2001, Gyanendra's isolation at the top of the world has only increased. Frustrated by ceaseless political infighting among Nepal's elected leaders, the King sacked the government of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba 16 months ago and appointed his own administration to hold all executive powers. Gyanendra, 56, says his intervention was necessary in order to deal with the country's greatest threat: a growing insurrection by Maoist rebels, 10,000 fighters whose ongoing civil war has claimed 7,500 lives in the past two years alone. Beset by enemies from within and without, with government control outside of the capital slipping away, Gyanendra alone rules a country that foreign diplomats and many Nepalese believe is verging on anarchy.
In terms of its daily body count, the Maoist uprising is currently the deadliest conflict in Asia. It is also the most brutal. While human-rights groups accuse the 15,000-strong Nepalese paramilitary police and 72,000-strong Royal Nepalese Army of executing hundreds of Maoists, the rebels themselves are even more savage. An October 2003 report by relief group Mercy Corps relates how crowds of Maoists would watch their leaders break every bone in a "class enemy's" body, then skin him and cut off his ears, lips, tongue and nose, before sawing the body in half or burning it. The study concluded that the "almost identical pattern" of such atrocities suggested this was "a policy coordinated at senior command levels."
It is not just the horror that has prompted international concern. Outside the capital, a dangerous anarchic vacuum is developing throughout the countryside, the majority of which is under the control of neither the Maoists nor the army. Nepal's civil structure is disintegrating in the face of conflict, weak central control and the absence of local elected leaders. Thomas Marks, author of Insurgency in Nepal, says that since 1996, Maoists have destroyed 1,321 village administration buildings and 440 post offices, while police have abandoned 895 stations and teachers have abandoned 700 schools. Little has been done to address the endemic poverty that fuels the conflict, with 42% of the population earning less than $1 a day. Adding to the sense of a nation in flames, past weeks have seen students demanding a republic by setting fires, torching effigies of the King and smashing car and shop windows in Kathmandu. The fear of deepening chaos is now on every observer's lips. "The smell of burning tires on the streets of the capital reeks of democracy in decay," writes Nepali Times commentator C.K. Lal. Says Kenichi Ohashi, the World Bank's country director for Nepal: "The student agitation could get out of hand. And outside the capital there is a risk of things slowly falling apart, a sense that the country is at risk of becoming a failed state. The next 12 months seem pretty critical—it's a race against time."
That's a race Nepal's fractious leadership may not be able to win. A standoff now exists between the palace and the country's gelded political parties. Noting that the nation has had 12 governments in as many years, Gyanendra says he will relinquish power and reinstate Parliament only if the parties unite to pull Nepal back from the abyss. The outraged parties accuse him of trying to return to the days when his family ran the country as feudal autocrats and living Hindu gods, before democracy's arrival in 1990.
Compelled by a sense that Nepal may no longer be able to save itself, the U.S., Britain and India have begun re-equipping and training the Nepalese army, despite its brutality. U.S. embassy sources say Washington is supplying Nepal with 20,000 M-16s, as well as night-vision and communication equipment and special-forces counterinsurgency training. Michael E. Malinowski, American ambassador to Nepal, explains, "We have a foreign policy that people who use terrorism should not succeed. But we also have concerns about the failed-state idea and the danger that all kinds of bad guys could use Nepal as a base, like in Afghanistan." Indeed, in April 2003 the Maoists released a manifesto expressly welcoming "citizens of any foreign nation who were compelled to leave [their home countries] due to their involvement in revolutionary activities." Likewise, New Delhi's concerns about Nepal have intensified since it emerged that the Maoists were trying to coordinate with India's own left-wing guerrillas, intent on creating a "revolutionary zone" combining Nepal, eastern India and parts of Bangladesh.
A senior Nepalese officer says India is supplying 52,000 assault rifles to Nepal's army to help it restore order.
Emboldened by its new equipment and international support, the Nepalese army claims to be winning the fight. Since the Maoists called off a seven-month cease-fire on Aug. 27, the military says 1,400 rebels have been killed while only 288 soldiers and policemen have lost their lives. U.S. observers say these numbers might be overstated. As for Gyanendra, he knows that the Maoist threat must also be countered through government solidarity. Ultimately, this will require him to reach out to the country's parties, despite their opposition to him. "The future of Nepal, yes, lies in constitutional monarchy and multiparty democracy," he says. But he refuses to leave governance solely to them. "The days of royalty being seen and not heard are over," he says. "And the monarchy is not going to allow anyone to usurp the fundamental rights of the people. All I'm saying is stop saying 'me.' Say 'us.' Stop saying 'party.' Say 'people.'"
A Western diplomat says he believes Gyanendra is sincere and that he shares the King's despair at the way the parties fight among themselves while the country implodes. However, the King's political opponents question his true motives. "He's an ambitious man," says sacked Prime Minister Deuba. "He just wants power."
Sitting by an ornate marble fireplace in his palace, Gyanendra lights another cigarette and acknowledges that his ascent to the throne because of the palace massacre was bound to spark questions among conspiracy theorists. The Maoists have even suggested that he engineered the bloodshed himself. Such claims "are nonsense, a wild-goose chase. And the people putting them out there are being cruel," says Gyanendra. "If some people do not understand me, if there is mistrust and a crisis of confidence, let's do something about it." His decision to grant an interview to TIME, his first ever with the foreign media, is part of his attempt to foster understanding, palace officials say, though Gyanendra admits that he has reservations about the need to be known and demystified. "There is a human face to every King," he says, "but that does not mean he has to flaunt it." Asked about his sense of isolation, he grows defensive. "What makes you think I don't have friends?" he asks. But one such friend, Prabhakar Shunshere Rana, says that, for a King, relatives are the only true confidants. "You can have friends, advisers, all the experts you want," says Rana. "But without family, without brothers and sisters, monarchy is a very lonely place. The late King used to consult with Gyanendra all the time. If you look at Gyanendra now, he's really on his own."
Gyanendra says he still dreams of a time when "all of Nepal should have the opportunity to progress irrespective of color, caste and creed." He adds, "If the people are happy, the King is happy." It is a noble sentiment. But as Gyanendra has discovered, there are limits to the power, even of a living god.
- Alex Perry | Kathmandu
- As Nepal slips toward anarchy, its embattled King speaks to TIME about his efforts to restore order