Nepal Video Report

A wave of democratic change is sweeping Nepal. But will new political alliances mark an end to the bloody Maoist insurgency?

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TRANSCRIPT

Kevin Sites (on camera):
Nepal, this tiny mountainous nation — because of the determination of its citizens and their courageous Peoples' Movement — has gone from the rule of an autocratic king to the threshold of democracy. But there are still many challenges left to overcome.

Kevin Sites (voice-over):
Though they paid for it with the lives of 21 people and hundreds injured, Nepal's pro-democracy street demonstrations helped to unravel their king and begin the nation's transformation to a multi-party democracy.

Meena Koirala was one of those protesters, and has taken to the streets again, but this time to celebrate the democratic reforms.

Kevin Sites (off camera):
How sure are you this won't be reversed, that the king won't fight back?

Meena Koirala, student activist (on camera):
I'm pretty sure that won't happen because the people have come to the streets, and there is no one above them.

Kevin Sites (voice-over):
Shankar Pandey had been a member of parliament before the king dissolved it. He protested Nepal's autocracy by going barefoot for years. He says he'll put his sandals back on, once a new constitution is ratified.

A seven-party alliance, including the formerly-outlawed Maoist party, is now working toward that goal.

And there are clear signs that, at least for now, the Maoists have been accepted back into the fold — like the fact that Maoist political prisoners from all around the country are being released from jail.

A day in the life of Katmandu» View

Once these activists were let go in western Nepal, they marched down the main street in support of their party.

Twenty-year-old Laxmi Rawal was held for ten months. She says she joined the Maoists when Nepalese Army soldiers pointed guns at her and threatened to kill her as she walked home from school one day.

But the Maoists also have a military wing — an estimated 20,000 rebel troops that have waged a bloody insurgency against the government since 1996. The Maoists say women make up to 40 percent of their fighting force.

Sixteen-year-old Janaki Buddha is part of the rebels' 7th division in western Nepal.

Kevin Sites (through translator):
Is she afraid sometimes?

Janaki Buddha (through translator):
No, I'm not afraid.

Kevin Sites (voice-over):
But while some of their fighters may be soft spoken in front of the cameras, they have not been in the field.

The war has taken the lives of 13,000 people, and international monitors say both the rebels and the Nepalese security forces fighting them have committed numerous atrocities against the civilian population.

While conceding there have been human rights abuses on both sides, Maoist political leaders, like western region secretary Sharad Singh-Bhandari, say the Maoists are committed to multi-party democracy, and no one but the Royalists need fear them.

Kevin Sites (through translator):
You're saying that the middle class here and the educated don't have that kind of violence to fear as they did during the time of Stalin, and Mao, and the

Sharad Singh-Bhandari, Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (through translator):
No one should fear — not even the middle class, even the higher class people don't need to fear — except the feudals (royalists).

Kevin Sites (voice-over):
But some, like these victims of past Maoist violence, disagree with that assessment. But while they were hurt by the rebels, they say the former government also ignored their pleas for help.

This day, they've organized their own march to demand government support — a lesson in democratic action they learned from the Nepalese Peoples' Movement in April.

Kevin Sites (on camera):
With or without democracy, Nepal is still one of the poorest nations in the world. And many here believe, for real change to take root, that problem needs to be addressed first. Reporting from the Hot Zone, I'm Kevin Sites in Katmandu, Nepal.

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