Nepal grinds to a halt as Maoist blockade bites

Village boys walk on the highway at the Nagdhunga check post about 15 kilometres west of Kathmandu yesterday. Maoist rebels trying to overthrow the Nepalese monarchy have launched a week-long blockade of Kathmandu and other cities leaving roads deserted and businesses closed. PHOTO: AFP

Piling pressure on King Gyanendra, who seized power last year, the rebels are attempting to cut hill-ringed Kathmandu off from the rest of the country, a move criticised by political parties who have said it will only hurt ordinary Nepalis.

"We patrol the roads and escort the trickle of vehicles that are running," said a soldier in battle dress in the roadside village of Khatri Pouwa 30 km west of Kathmandu.

"There would be a stream of vehicles on other days," he said. "As you can see the road is almost empty now."

As he spoke three girls played on the highway that snakes through rolling hills towards Kathmandu.

The Maoists, fighting to overthrow the Hindu monarchy and set up a single party communist republic, have ordered the closure of all roads to the capital, disrupting the movement of people and goods to the city of more than 1.5 million.

In the past, rebels have largely relied on fear and intimidation to enforce their blockades but have also set up roadblocks and attacked vehicles.

"I have to go to Narayanghat but don't know whether I will get any bus at all," said 55-year-old Sesh Nath Bhattarai sitting desolately next to a backpack at an empty roadside bus stop. Narayanghat is a town in the southern plains.

In Nagdhunga, a key entry point to the capital, traffic was almost non-existant with just a handful of motorcycles heading for Kathmandu by late afternoon.

"On a normal day about 1,700 vehicles enter Kathmandu," police officer Krishna Prasad Luintel said.

Residents in Nepalgunj and the tourist town of Pokhara in west Nepal, and the key business towns of Butwal and Birgunj in the southern plains, said trucks and buses had been locked up in garages and roads were empty of vehicles.

"It is quiet but peaceful," journalist Bikram Niraula, said from the commercial centre of Biratnagar, 550 km east of Kathmandu.

Police said there were no reports of violence.

Analysts said the blockade was part of a Maoist strategy to take their fight to the country's cities, which the rebels had vowed after ending a unilateral truce in January. The conflict has, so far, raged mostly in the countryside.

Meanwhile, leaders of Nepal's Maoist rebels and the opposition alliance were meeting in the Indian capital on Tuesday to work out a programme to end King Gyanendra's seizure of power, a report said.

The talks came as the rebels launched a week-long blockade of the kingdom's cities, leaving roads deserted nationwide and businesses closed in the capital.

The Maoists' second-in command Baburam Bhattarai was holding talks with heads of the seven-party political alliance on how to restore democracy, the Press Trust of India (PTI) said.