Nepal Maoist chief won't 'renounce arms'
Wednesday, 4 June 2008
TOKYO, June 3 (AFP): Nepal's Maoist chief has ruled out renouncing armed struggle but said a return to violence was unlikely after the former rebels achieved their goal of ending the world's last Hindu monarchy.
The Maoists, who waged a decade-long insurgency that left more than 13,000 people dead, won a convincing election victory for a special assembly that last week voted to dethrone King Gyanendra.
In an interview published Tuesday, Prachanda, whose nom de guerre means "The Fierce One," said that the election showed that the Nepalese people wanted 'peace and change'.
"I don't think there will be any kind of necessity to use arms again," he told Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun.
But he refused to renounce the right of armed struggle by the Maoists, who have 31,000 fighters in UN-monitored camps across the land of Mount Everest.
The Maoists have called for their guerrillas to be brought into Nepal's army, formerly a bastion of royalist support.
The Maoists, who waged a decade-long insurgency that left more than 13,000 people dead, won a convincing election victory for a special assembly that last week voted to dethrone King Gyanendra.
In an interview published Tuesday, Prachanda, whose nom de guerre means "The Fierce One," said that the election showed that the Nepalese people wanted 'peace and change'.
"I don't think there will be any kind of necessity to use arms again," he told Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun.
But he refused to renounce the right of armed struggle by the Maoists, who have 31,000 fighters in UN-monitored camps across the land of Mount Everest.
The Maoists have called for their guerrillas to be brought into Nepal's army, formerly a bastion of royalist support.