NEPAL: Water crisis intensifies

KATHMANDU, 31 May 2010 (IRIN) - Access to safe drinking water is deteriorating across parts of Nepal, activists say, despite the prevailing monsoon season from May until September.

According to the Federation of Drinking Water and Sanitation Users Nepal, a national network advocating water and sanitation rights, half the country now faces drinking water shortages.

Although a study has yet to be conducted on the current scenario, water experts claim more than 20 districts in both the hills and Terai areas of the country have been badly affected.

“This situation could affect a large number of families who have already been reeling under the immense water shortage situation over the last many years,” said Ajaya Dixit, director of the Nepal Water Conservation Foundation.

According to government statistics, more than 4.4 million people in the Himalayan nation do not have regular access to safe drinking water in rural and urban areas, be it via piped water, wells, rainwater or bottled water.

“With water sources drying up, erratic rainfall and poor management of water resources, the problems are worsening every year,” said Prakash Amatya from the NGO Forum for Urban Water and Sanitation.

Public health concerns are increasing as a result. Already, more than 10,500 children die before their fifth birthday from diarrhoea, mainly due to inadequate access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, according to WaterAid. More than 80 percent of diseases are the result of unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation, according to its 2009 report, End Water Poverty campaign journey in Nepal.

Worsening water crisis

Villagers in remote districts such as Dadeldhura, Doti, Surkhet and dozens of others in western Nepal, all more than 500km from the capital, are already suffering, social workers say.

“A lot of people are taking desperate measures by spending more than five hours every day to fetch water from far-off rivers,” said Anju Karki, a healthcare volunteer in Doti.

The government has more than 50,000 healthcare volunteers who work closely with the rural communities and are also a major source of information for NGOs, media and government where there is limited access.

Apa Sherpa, California teen break Everest records

Mountaineering legend Apa Sherpa made it to the top of the world highest peak, Mount Everest, Saturday morning for the 20th time, breaking his own previous record.

According to officials at Mountaineering Department, Apa conquered the world’s highest mountain at 8:34 am along with several other climbers. The expedition team reached atop the 8,848-meter tall peak by taking advantage of a break in the weather.

Apa and his fellow climbers of the Eco Everest Expedition had set out to the Mt. Everest in April with the aim of clearing 15,400 pounds garbage scattered in the Himalayan peak.

The 50-year old mountaineer guide also hoisted a Nepali flag imprinted with the slogan of Nepal Tourism Year 2011 on the top of the Mt. Everest in order to spread the message of tourism year. Nepal expects to attract over 1 million tourists in the tourism year.

Apa made the first successful ascent of Everest on May 10, 1990, and set foot atop the summit twice in 1992 and 1997. He has been climbing the highest peak regularly since 1990 except in 1996 and 2001.

Though Apa announced his retirement citing family reasons after completing his 12th summit in 2002, he could not resist his temptation to scale the coveted peak for long time and stepped again atop the Everest for the 13th time in 2003.

Meanwhile, a 13-year-old American became the youngest climber to ever summit Mount Everest on Saturday.

Jordan Romero's journey was tracked through GPS coordinates on his blog, logging his team's ascent up Everest, which is 29,028 feet (8,847 meters) above sea level.

"Their dreams have now come true," a statement on Jordan's blog said. "Everyone sounded unbelievably happy."

Before Saturday, the youngest climber to scale Everest was 16-year-old Temba Tsheri of Nepal.

"I know you would like to hear from the boy himself, but he is currently flat on his belly knocked out," a member of Jordan's climbing team said in a message posted Saturday on his blog. "The effort he put out this last more like 48 hours is -- you're not going to believe the story when you see it and read about it."

Romero left for the peak from the Chinese side of the mountain after Nepal denied him permission on age grounds, according to nepalnews.com.

Before starting out, Romero, of Big Bear, California, said he wanted to climb Everest to inspire more young people to get outdoors.

"Obese children are the future of America, the way things are going," he said on April 9 in Kathmandu. "I am hoping to change that by doing what I do: climbing and motivational speaking."

With a smile, he added: "I am doing this a little for myself, too, to do something big."

Jordan now has climbed six of the seven highest peaks on seven continents, known as the Seven Summits.

"This is not an isolated vacation," said Paul Romero, Jordan's father, before the two embarked up Everest in Nepal. "This is a lifestyle."

Romero's family started tackling the Seven Summits in summer 2005. He was just 9 when they climbed 19,341 feet (5,895 meters) to the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

There is a debate about whether the tallest mountain in Oceania is Kosciuszko in mainland Australia or Carstensz Pyramid in Indonesia, so Romero and his family climbed both.

The only peak left for him to climb after Everest is the Vinson Massif in Antarctica, which is 16,067 feet (4,897 meters). A trip there is planned for December.

Nepal: Dissonant Integration

By Anshuman Behera

On May 10, 2010, Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal's political advisor Raghuji Panta made it clear for the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M) leadership and for all other who have been demanding for the resignation of the Prime Minister (PM), that no such outcome was possible until there was a clear agreement on the integration of Maoist combatants with the Nepalese Army (NA). Panta added, further, "There should be an agreement on the number of Maoist combatants before the Prime Minister could mull his resignation... The Prime Minister has no compulsion to resign just because the UCPN-M stopped its protests."

The statement came just as the Maoists called off their "indefinite" general strike which lasted six days (May 2-May 7). The end of the strike was followed by a statement by the Chairman, UCPN-M, Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda, in an interaction with intellectuals and civil society representatives on May 12, where he emphasised that the integration of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was possible within four months. He added, further, "We will dismantle the barracks of the Young Communist League (YCL, the militant youth wing of the (UCPN-M) within four-five days. We are ready to break the relation of the Party with the cantonments (where PLA cadres are located)". These commitments have evoked some hope and a great deal of scepticism at the political classes in Kathmandu.

The integration of the PLA with the Nepalese Army (NA) has evidently become the principal factor of contestation between UCPN-M and other political formations in Nepal, particularly the principal parties, the Communist Party of Nepal- Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) and the Nepali Congress (NC). After the fall of the Monarchy, the laying down of arms by the Maoists, and the agreement for the establishment of a democratic setup and a republic between the Seven Party Alliance (SPA) and the Maoists, the PLA issue has remained the core of contention in evolving any national consensus.

The understanding between the SPA and the Maoists on the modalities and regulation of PLA combatants, and their verification, has passed through three different agreements: the Agreement on Monitoring of the Management of Arms and Armies of November 28, 2006; the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of November 21, 2006; and the SPA-Maoist Agreement of November 7, 2006. The role of the United Nations in regulating the Army and PLA combatants has been emphasised in these, and both the SPA and the Maoists have agreed on this through the joint letter to the United Nations (UN) of August 9, 2006. According to this last document, PLA combatants would remain in the designated camps and the UN would verify and monitor them. The temporary camps, as agreed to by both parties were established at Kailali, Surkhet, Rolpa, Nawalparasi, Chitwan, Sindhuli and Ilam.

Once the agreement on the PLA had been hammered out, the Maoist combatants were located in the cantonments, and the Government, along with the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) took charge of the camps. On February 25, 2007, the Government agreed to provide Nepali Rupees (NR) 50 million for the management of the Maoist cantonments, along with a daily allowance of NR 60 to each PLA combatant. Within the duration of a little over one year, on July 18, 2008, the ‘Division Commander’, Tej Bahadur Oli, of Dasharathpur in Surkhet cantonment, charged the Government with not releasing funds for the combatants for more than 11 months. "As the Government has not released funds," he declared, "we are managing our livelihood by taking loans." It is significant that, between August 18, 2008, and May 4, 2009, a Government headed by Prime Minister Dahal aka Prachanda, the Maoist supremo, was in power. Even over this period, there was insufficient release of funds, perhaps demonstrating the indifference of political elites across party lines towards the conditions of the rank and file fighters of the PLA. There are suspicions, moreover, that the Maoists may have sought to create a situation that forced the early integration of the PLA combatants into the NA.

Despite the apparent deadlock over the issue, there have been a number of initiatives to speed up the integration process, so that the peace process can be pushed to its logical end. On October 27, 2008, the Government formed a five-member special committee to oversee Army integration, under the leadership of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs Bamdev Gautam. The other members of the Committee included Defense Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa, Madheshi Janadhikar Forum (MJF) leader Mohammad Habibullah, and Minister for Peace Janardan Sharma. On October 28, 2008, Gautam stated that ‘homework’ for the integration of the Maoist combatants had already begun. He asserted that the Special Committee would complete Army integration "right on time". The Special Committee for Supervision, Integration and Rehabilitation of Maoist Combatants, on September 1, 2009, had decided to complete the process of integration and rehabilitation of Maoist combatants within six months. "We have decided to extend the tenure of the technical committee under the special committee for the next three months effective from today [September 1]," NC leader Ram Sharan Mahat told reporters in Singhadurbar after the meeting, adding, "Beginning Monday [September 7, 2009], the Committee will complete its work within six months." Subsequently, Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal on January 5, 2010, presented a 112-day Action Plan, proposing April 30, 2010, as the deadline for the completion of integration and rehabilitation of UCPN-M combatants. The Deputy Prime Minister expressed confidence that the Nepali Congress, which had refused to join the Special Committee, would rethink its decision.

On March 16, 2009, the Army Integration Special Committee (AISC) decided to constitute a Technical Committee for the Integration and Rehabilitation of the PLA combatants with the Nepal Army. The AISC meeting held at the Prime Minister's Office at Singhadurbar (Parliament) decided to create the Technical Committee, since crucial tasks relating to the integration could not be carried because the AISC was a political, and not technical, committee.

Again, on January 6, 2010, the AISC started deliberations on proposals tabled by Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, with the objective of finishing all works related to the Maoist combatants, including their integration, by April 30, 2010.

The integration process has, however, failed to reach any logical conclusion, with every initiative stalled by the lack of consensus among the political parties and their growing mutual distrust.

Indeed, on July 18, 2008, Peace and Reconstruction Minister Ram Chandra Poudel declared that the PLA could be integrated into any national security organs. Poudel insisted that integration of PLA combatants with security agencies would ‘complicate’ the overall security situation. Joining the chorus, on September 3, 2008, Nepali Congress leader, Ram Sharan Mahat, declared that the PLA should not be integrated into the national army ‘at any cost’. He threatened to take ‘strong action’ if PLA combatants were integrated into the national Army.

On September 25, 2008, Arjun Narsingh Khatri Chhetri, spokesperson of the NC, warned that the country would face a new round of conflict if the Government attempted to integrate the PLA with the NA in ‘violation’ of peace pacts and earlier agreements.

More recently, on January 19, 2010, Defense Minister Bidhya Devi Bhandari stated that all the decisions the Prime Minister had made could not be implemented, and that her Ministry was not obliged to integrate Maoist combatants with the NA. Expressing her dissatisfaction over the failure to include the Defense Ministry and NA representatives in the AISC, Bhandari argued that, since it was not mentioned in the Comprehensive Peace Accord, the integration of former Maoist fighters into the national Army was ‘not compulsory’, even if the AISC decided on the modalities of such integration.

The unwillingness of all political formations, except UCPN-M, to implement the proposals for PLA integration is rooted in the apprehensions that, if a substantial number of Maoist combatants were inducted into the NA, there was significant risk of political subversion of the Force in its entirety.

The Maoists, nevertheless, are no less responsible for the delay, and have created a great deal of ambiguity around their plans for integration, even as their political postures and statements have fanned fears. On their own statements, it is clear that, once the PLA has been inducted into the national Army, their plans for the seizure of power would be easier than they ever have been. On May 3, 2009, Prachanda, addressing PLA combatants in a meeting at Shaktikhor Cantonment in Chitwan, declared that the Party had deceived all into believing that the number of PLA was 35,000, when it was never actually more than 8,000. Thus, the PLA had grown as a result of the peace process, rather than been reduced as had been widely assumed. He added, further, that apart from the the PLA, which had already become a "regular army", the Party had also formed the YCL, comprising thousands of youth, "who now add to our strength". The Maoist Chairman also revealed that a significant share of the money intended for "our martyrs" in villages throughout the country and for the PLA in cantonments, would be used by the Party to prepare for a final revolt to "capture the state": "You all know that if we have enough money in our hands we can prepare a good battle plan. So, the Party needs a good amount of money for the revolt." He stated, further, that though the Party may appear to have again reached a compromise (with the state and other political parties), "if you look deeply then you will know how seriously the Party is preparing for the ultimate revolt". Claiming that PLA combatants were "politically aware", he said, even the entry of a small number into the Nepalese Army was enough to establish a complete Maoist control over the Army.

Such declarations can only have hardened the resistance to integration among other political formation. There were, moreover, numerous instances of the involvement of PLA cadres in breaches of the various agreements intended to govern their conduct. Some of these included:

December 20, 2006: Over two dozen people – including Policemen and civilians – sustained injuries after some 300 PLA combatants from a satellite camp attacked an all-party meeting at Katari Bazar in Udaypur District.

September 14, 2007: PLA cadres came out of their cantonments in Arunkhola of Nawalparasi and demonstrated for an hour, demanding the implementation of the 22-points raised by the Maoists.

October 3, 2007: PLA cadres from the ‘Third Division’ at Shaktikhor in Chitwan District staged a blockade of the East-West Mahendra Highway when the Police prevented them from carting timber into their camp at Shaktikhor.

March 13, 2009: PLA cadres from Jit Smriti Brigade indiscriminately attacked a rally organised by locals of the Kalyan VDC-3 in the Surkhet District protesting the ongoing PLA raids in the village. Following an attack on a Maoist combatant by some locals over a dispute during Holi (the festival of colours) on March 11, PLA cadres from Jit Smriti Brigade repeatedly raided houses under the Kalyan Village Development Committee (VDC), assaulting villagers in acts of reprisal.

August 4, 2009: Organising a Press conference at Damak, the Kochila State Committee of the Matrika Yadav-led CPN-Maoist said that PLA fighters of the First Division Cantonment had abducted two of its District leaders, Santa Rai and Sharan Rai, from Damak in Jhapa District on August 3. Santa was the Chairman of the Jhapa Committee whereas Sharan was the assistant coordinator of the Party's ‘security branch’. Both were former PLA combatants who defected to the Yadav-led CPN-Maoist.

August 14, 2009: Some 200 PLA combatants came out of their cantonment and assaulted locals in the Kailali District. The assailants, belonging to the Bahubiryodha Brigade in Sahajpur, attacked 36 locals at Shantipur in the Nigali Village Development Committee-1 area. The victims alleged that they could not complain immediately after the incident since the PLA personnel had threatened them with ‘dire consequences’ if they informed the Police and media. Trouble reportedly broke out when locals questioned four PLA combatants who were consuming alcohol at a shop in Shantipur.

November 23, 2009: Police arrested Narendra Tamrakar, PLA ‘commander’ of Masuriya-based cantonment, on the charge of abducting a girl, Kalawati Tamrakar (18), in Dadeldhura District. Narendra was caught from Ajayameru VDC-7 on the same day. According to eyewitness accounts, seven men, including Narendra, had grabbed Kalawati and took her away in broad daylight. Deputy Superintendent of Police Chakra Bahadur Singh said that the other six men involved in the abduction were on the run and a Police team has been mobilized to search and arrest them. Kalawati was handed over to her family.

PLA cadres are also reported to routinely leave their respective cantonments, carrying arms and destructive weapons.

The activities of the YCL have given grounds for more urgent fears, since widespread intimidation and extortion across the country – and including capital, Kathmandu – has been reported.

Given the fractious relations between political formations in Nepal, the tardy process of Constitution drafting, and widespread brinkmanship, expectations of any early integration of the PLA with the NA may well be belied, even as any permanent resolution to the crisis in Nepal remains elusive. While the other political formations remain largely obstructive and directionless, the Maoists continue to push the envelope through tactics such as the disruptive strikes of May 2010, expanding and consolidating their cadres, and positioning themselves for an eventual takeover.

The only tentative prospect that this outcome may be averted arises from the possibility that this process will take a great deal of time, and that, in the intervening years the Maoist leadership will be ‘co-opted’ by the corruption of Nepal’s parliamentary democracy, even as the rank and file of the Party lose their taste for combat.

There is no cost to wishful thinking, but the price eventually to be paid is often prohibitive.

Anshuman Behera is a Research Assistant for the Institute for Conflict Management. This article first appeared at the South Asia Terrorist Portal - SATP - (http://www.satp.org) - produced by the Institute of Conflict Management.

Everest climbers to get free Nepal visas

KATHMANDU (Reuters Life!) - Foreign mountaineers who have climbed Mount Everest and another peak will get free Nepali visas for two years, part of a scheme to boost tourism in the Himalayan nation, a senior government official said.

More than 4,000 climbers have scaled the 8,850 metre (29,035 feet) Everest summit since it was first climbed by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa in 1953. Some 700 of these foreigners are said to be still alive.

"We will waive the visa fees for them to visit Nepal in 2010 and 2011 part of the Nepal Tourism Year plan," Ranjan Aryal, the most senior bureaucrat in the tourism ministry told Reuters this week.

Himalayan Nepal, home to eight of the world's 14 highest mountains, including Mount Everest, has designated 2011 as the year to boost tourism. It plans to receive one million visitors next year, up from nearly half a million now.

Tourism accounts for 4 percent of the gross domestic product but travel officials say political unrest, frequent general strikes and shutdowns of transportation and roads had hit the industry.

Officials said nearly 200 foreigners who have climbed Mount Dhaulagiri, the world's seventh highest at 8,167 metres (26,794 feet), would also get free visa this year and in 2011 as Nepal marks the 50th anniversary this week of the first ascent of Dhaulagiri by a Swiss-Austrian expedition.

Climbers will also get a 50 percent discount in climbing fees for Dhaulagiri for the rest of 2010 and all of next year as part of the celebrations, another official said.

Each foreign climber has to pay $5,000 to the government as royalty for climbing Dhaulagiri.

After Maoist Protests, Nepal Faces a Murky Future

Not long ago, unprecedented change seemed to be sweeping the mountainous nation of Nepal. Following the end of a violent civil war in 2006 and a historic election in 2008, the Himalayan kingdom, ruled for decades by the almost divine right of its monarchs, became a secular republic. Maoist rebels, who once preached armed struggle and proletarian revolution, donned suits and went about promoting capitalist industry. But since then, Nepal's fortunes have hardly improved. Indeed, for many Nepalis, the country's dream of transformation has turned into an interminable nightmare.

Last week, traffic in Kathmandu was bullied off the streets as tens of thousands of Maoist protesters hoping to topple the current government barricaded stretches of the capital's main road on May 4. Countless businesses were forced to shutter, costing Nepal's meager economy an estimated $300 million over the six days of the demonstrations. The strike was only lifted on the night of May 7 after widespread anger and counter-protests — as well as reports of dysentery and diarrhea among tired Maoist activists — apparently convinced the Maoist leadership to back down.

But the way forward is as uncertain as ever. After waging a decade-long war against the royalist state that saw the deaths of over 13,000 people, the Maoists became the driving force of a peace process meant to usher in a new democratic era for Nepal. In a landmark April 2008 election, they won the majority of seats and formed the government that would, in theory, draft a new constitution and steer Nepal away from the great inequities of its monarchical past. Yet little was achieved in a country riven by political factions and feudal enmities; last May, the Maoists backed away from power when their firing of the country's army chief, a longtime foe, was blocked by other parties in government.

Opponents have questioned the Maoists' ability to truly renounce their militant past — a fear made all the more real by recent fiery proclamations of Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the Maoist leader better known by his nom de guerre, Prachanda, meaning the "fierce one." On Saturday, the day after lifting the general strike, he thundered to a mass rally in Kathmandu that the strike that had crippled the nation for a week "was only a dress rehearsal... We will put on the real show in the days to come." Since the strike has been called off, there have been reports of fresh protests and disturbances.

The Maoists have refused recent overtures to sit down to talks with the government, an ungainly coalition of 22 parties patched together to replace the Maoist-dominated administration. Critics, the Maoists chief among them, say the present regime is weak, corrupt and lacks a popular mandate. Dinanath Sharma, a Maoist spokesman, calls it "unnaturally formed. It's undemocratic and against the spirit of the peace process." Many Maoist supporters who flocked to the capital to participate in last week's lockdown have no intention of disbanding. "I will stay in Kathmandu as long as the movement continues," says Ashok Shrestha, a Maoist party worker from the west of the country, now camped out with colleagues in the corridors of a shopping complex in the capital.

Key to the conflict has been the fate of thousands of Maoist soldiers still housed in U.N.-monitored cantonments across the country — according to various agreements, they are expected to integrate with the same Nepali Army they once bitterly opposed. The deadline for the process has passed and it has yet to happen. Both sides accuse the other of having their own agendas for delaying this vital step toward political unity: the Maoists see themselves arrayed against an old guard eager to return to the royalist era; opponents think the Maoists ultimately do not want to shed their fatigues for civilian life and democratic politics. Pradeep Gyawali, a prominent politician within the government, speaks darkly of the Maoists' intentions. "This strike was a trial run for an urban uprising," Gyawali says, adding that Prachanda's cadres received inspiration from the success of the recent mass agitations in Thailand and Kyrgyzstan that convulsed the politics of both countries.

Meanwhile, the country teeters toward a precipice. Nepal's elected assembly was supposed to have ratified a new constitution by May 28. But the parties, including the Maoists, are nowhere close to an agreement by that date, after which the interim charter that in essence underpins the whole state of affairs in the fragile nation will expire. It's a surreal and unsettling prospect for most Nepalis, who had high hopes for the much-vaunted peace process. "The political parties are steeped in petty interest," says Lokraj Baral, a leading Kathmandu-based commentator. "They have all forgotten the crucial task of drafting a constitution. They lack commitment to the larger interest of the country."

Nepal is in desperate need of broad-mindedness. Sandwiched between rising economic giants in India and China, the country is one of the poorest and worst performing in the world, with chronic food and power shortages and a steady drip of its 28 million population departing for menial jobs in the Gulf countries and Southeast Asia. It's not surprising that, with such entrenched poverty and political dysfunction, the grandstanding Maoists have attracted so vociferous a following. "None of the political parties looked after us, but the Maoists seemed honest," says Tilak Sirali, a 42-year-old laborer who left behind six children in his destitute village in the east to join the strikers in Kathmandu. "I came here with the hope that poor people like me will not have to suffer anymore."

But the Maoists' actions have only deepened the sense of crisis gripping Nepal. Krishna Sitaula, a party elder of the centrist Nepali Congress, hopes that last ditch talks in the coming weeks "can bring back the country from the brink." Foreign governments, a host of international organizations and NGOs as well as Kathmandu's civil society are all applying pressure on the various parties. If this fails, darker days loom. Says Sitaula: "A full-fledged confrontation is very likely."

Source: Time Magazine

Popular pressure spurs Nepal Maoists to end general strike

Nepal's Maoists ended a six-day general strike that had angered citizens and prompted 10,000 people to demonstrate in Kathmandu Friday. The move may signal their willingness to adopt a more conciliatory political stance.

Nepal's Maoists ended a six-day general strike Friday amid pressures to ensure that the increasingly unpopular strike did not further undermine their standing among the general population.

Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who goes by the name Prachanda, said in a press conference late Friday that Nepalese citizens should not be inconvenienced any further. He also said an end to the strike would deprive the government of opportunities to engineer clashes among Nepalese citizens.

“We have postponed the shutdown, but have not ended our other protests against this government,” he said.

But analysts said the Maoists' decision was forced by increasingly irate citizens. The strike disrupted food supplies and limited access to medical services. Clashes broke out in the capital with bused-in Maoist supporters. And Maoists came under fire for unleashing a conflict-era-style extortion campaign to feed the crowd, and commandeering private schools to shelter them.

By week's end, the upheaval appeared to have undermined any sympathy for the Maoists from the largely neutral citizens of Kathmandu, a group whose participation has been instrumental in all regime changes in Nepal’s history. Farmers and dairy owners were decrying the shutdown by throwing on the highways vegetable and milk that they could not take to the markets. On Friday, more than 10,000 people participated in a “peace gathering” in Kathmandu, and in Lalitpur district people overturned a truck carrying Maoist cadres and beat them up.

Ending the strike, some analysts say, may signal that Maoists are moving to adopt a more conciliatory approach that could change Nepal's troubled political landscape.

"The decision by the Maoists to ease the lives of ordinary citizens is a clear indication that they are feeling the heat," says columnist and lawyer Bhimarjun Acharya. “This is their response to the unpopularity of the shutdown and the consequent retaliation by locals against Maoist supporters."

“The Maoists made a mistake in trying to portray this shutdown as analogous to the nationwide protests in 2006,” Mr. Acharya adds, referring to the 19 days of nationwide protests in 2006 that forced King Gyanendra to relinquish executive authorities and kick-started the peace process. “Popular support comes from good agenda. This time the agenda is very personal."

Strike aimed to oust prime minister

The shutdown was meant to force Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal to step down and allow Maoist chairman Prachanda to lead a new government. “The second unspoken agenda of the shutdown was to shift the blame for the Constituent Assembly’s incompetence on ruling parties,” says Acharya. The assembly, elected in 2008 as part of the peace process, has until May 28 to draw a new constitution.

But a power struggle since May last year, when Prachanda’s coalition government collapsed over the sacking of an Army chief, has hindered the assembly’s work, making it impossible for the assembly to meet that deadline.

Yubaraj Ghimire, former editor of Kathmandu Post daily, says the strike cost the Maoists more than just popular support. It also cost them the recognition as a political force they enjoyed since 2006.

“More than anyone, the shutdown affected the farmers and daily wage earners who the Maoists claim to represent,” Mr. Ghimire says. “A half-hearted response will not help Maoists regain the respect they have lost from the grassroots."

Before Friday evening, the Maoists appeared intent on prolonging the strike, as calling it off without some face-saving result would demoralize their supporters who have spent days on the streets beaten down by the sun and pre-monsoon drizzle in Kathmandu. In the press conference Friday evening, Prachanda said he would hold a mass gathering in Kathmandu on Saturday to explain his decision.

Low-key government stand

The government took a low-key approach to handling the shutdown, directing security personnel not to use lethal force and to intervene only to control clashes. The strategy appeared to be to wait for the protesters and their leaders to tire out.

With more than simple majority support in the parliament, the prime minister is constitutionally entitled to continue to head the coalition government.

But a prolonged shutdown could have tested the prime minister’s competence, says Narayan Wagle, editor of Nagarik daily, as his government’s inability to ensure that Nepalese citizens enjoy their rights to live normal lives could have turned the tide against him.