0420AP-INT-NEPAL-WEB06 |
AP Correspondent Matthew
Rosenberg is in Nepal to cover protests against King Gyanendra, who has grown
increasingly unpopular since seizing power 14 months ago and is under intense
pressure to restore democracy.
AP Correspondent Matthew
Rosenberg is in Nepal to cover protests against King Gyanendra, who has grown
increasingly unpopular since seizing power 14 months ago and is under intense
pressure to restore democracy.
Thursday,
8:30 p.m. local
KATMANDU,
Nepal
Getting out
of Kalanki turned out to be easier than getting in. I linked up there with a few
photographers, and by the time we were ready to leave, it was after dark. The
curfew meant there were no taxis on the road. Besides, an opposition strike that
has been called along with the protests means that any taxis that make it past
an army or police checkpoint (an unlikely event) would probably be stoned by the
angry mobs that are now roaming the edge of the city.
We beg the
army and police for a ride back to our hotel. One army officer, a man who had
repeatedly told me to leave the protest, now says: "You came here on your own,
now you leave on your own.''
But we are in
luck - three of the photographers have motorcycles with them (how they got them
through the curfew earlier in the day, I do not know). Four of our group get on
two of the bikes and head for a nearby hotel where they are staying.
The remaining
three of us get on one bike for the long ride back to our hotel. The only way we
know to go is along the ring road, and as we set off, we can see burning tires
ahead of us, and the road barricaded with logs and rocks.
It's a scene
we encounter throughout our journey. Where there are no police, there are mobs
angry enough to attack anyone they think is violating the opposition strike
accompanying the protests.
As we
approach each barricade, young men come running at us. I shout from the back of
the bike "Press, Press!'' and suddenly violent faces break into broad smiles.
There are cheers and applause. Young men quickly clear a path for us through the
flaming piles of tires and sticks blocking the road.
Only once do
we get stones thrown at us, and thankfully they are off the mark. We can hear
them slamming into the pavement behind us as we speed away.
The army and
police checkpoints are less dramatic. Usually just a few police or soldiers
standing on the side of the road. They wave us down as we pass, ask where we are
going and then tell us to move on.
"It is very
dangerous out here tonight,'' warns an army officer, who identifies himself as
Mahindra.
Thursday,
6:30 p.m. local
KATMANDU,
Nepal
I've managed
to make my way through some muddy paths to get around the back of Katmandu's
most violent protests in the past two weeks. The road is littered with bricks,
stones, broken bottles. Hundreds of angry young man and three bonfires are
between me and the police.
It's wild
back here. There's screaming, shouting and chants calling for King Gyanendra's
head. "Burn the crown, burn the crown!'' chant a group of boys as they pile
tires and sticks onto a bonfire.
Here's what I
filed in our story out of Nepal today:
Witnesses
said the shooting in Kalanki began when a senior police officer drew his pistol
and shot a protester in the head, an act followed by gunfire from police and
soldiers.
The security
forces "aimed straight for the (protesters),'' said Ankul Shresthra, a
28-year-old throwing bottles at police in Kalanki. Numerous witnesses confirmed
his account, and protesters showed reporters fresh bullet casings.
Doctors at
Katmandu's Model hospital said three people were killed in Kalanki, and that
police took the bodies away. More than 40 people were in critical condition,
most with head injuries. Thursday's shootings brought the death toll to 13 since
the demonstrations began.
Hundreds more
were reportedly injured around the city, including 13 police officers whose
clearly exhausted colleagues were, by the end of the day, being forced against
demonstrators by senior officers swatting them with rattan poles.
Thursday 5:30
p.m. local
KATMANDU,
Nepal
After what
really was an incredibly tense two-hour hike, I've made it to Kalanki. The place
is wild. The road leading out of Katmandu - the center of the protest - is lined
with bonfires, around which young men hurl bricks, rocks and bottles at police,
who are firing tear gas and charging in with rattan poles, only to retreat back
up the road.
The wisps of
white tear gas vapor mingle with the black smoke of burning tires. It's a
striking sight.
Hours
earlier, police and soldiers used lived ammunition on this protest, killing
three people. I've walked miles to find out what happened.
But looking
at the protests from behind police lines - bricks, rocks and bottles being
showered upon us - I'm not even sure I can get over to the protesters side.
Thursday,
April 20 4 p.m. local
KATMANDU,
Nepal
We're walking
straight up the ring road that skirts Katmandu, navigating rows of burning
barricades and sporadic street battles between police and protesters.
Thankfully, the police seem to busy with the demonstrations to bother escorting
us back to our hotel, as they have with most of the other foreign journalists
that they have caught violating today's curfew.
On one street
corner, 22-year-old G.R. Sharma, tells me he's not afraid of the police. "They
are nothing. They are thugs for King Gyanendra,'' he says, smiling broadly.
Within
seconds, a police van comes screaming down the road, and Shresthra takes off
running into a side street.
Thursday,
April 20, 3:30 p.m. local
KATMANDU,
Nepal
Hearing that
police and soldiers have fatally shot protesters in another part of the city, me
and my two colleagues set off again on the back roads for a two-hour hike. We're
headed for Kalanki, the center of the violence. We're going to try and make our
way on back roads to avoid the police, but suspect we'll have to do the last
half of the hike on the ring road - a route thick with police and army.
Thursday,
April 20, 2:30 p.m. local
KATMANDU,
Nepal
Sure enough,
the protests has now degenerated into young men hurling bricks at police, who
are responding with tear gas and baton charges. Each time the police fire off a
cylinder of tear gas, a protester picks it back up and throws it at them. On the
rooftops, thousands of supporters cheer and pour down buckets of water so the
young men can wash the noxious vapor from their eyes.
Thursday,
April 20 12:30 p.m. local
KATMANDU,
Nepal
Myself and
two colleagues have been walking up the ring road that skirts Katmandu - a route
clearly inside the curfew zone - and we have not been even been threatened with
being shot. So clearly, the shoot-on-sight curfew does not apply to foreign
journalists. Or Russian Buddhists. Or Dutch trekkers.
But we were
hassled by the police, who tried to take us back to our hotel, which is looking
increasingly like it's going to be far from the action. Luck and a bit of
craftiness instead got them to drop us much closer to where we think the action
will be, and after an hour of hiking through muddy back roads and dodging a few
police who wanted to haul us away, we've ended up on the roof of a building with
a clear view of the main street in Gangabu, a Katmandu neighborhood that has
repeatedly been the flash point of violence since the demonstrations against
King Gyanendra started more than two weeks ago.
Most of the
other foreign journalists caught out on the roads were sent back to the Hyatt.
In fact, we were forced to push our way past some police as colleagues of ours
were down the road being shoved into their cars and ordered away from the scene
by officers.
Thousands of
protesters are already gathering on the street below us, blocked by a line of
riot police from making it onto the ring road that skirts Katmandu.
Why a
rooftop? Because it affords a clear view of the action for reporters, who,
frankly, don't need to risk their lives by standing in the middle of a violent
protest.
Thursday,
April 20, 9 a.m. local
KATMANDU,
Nepal
Another
foreigner, this one a barrel-chested Dutch man. We spotted him walking up the
ring road - deserted apart from three journalists and police and soldiers. With
him, he had four porters carrying backpacks, bags and even a pot. He, however,
wasn't carrying a thing. Traveling in true old-world style, heading out for the
mountains.
"I am getting
away from the city,'' he told us before marching off, his porters in tow.
Thursday,
April 20 8 a.m. local
KATMANDU,
Nepal
Woke up
early, grabbed a quick breakfast, and then headed out with a few colleagues -
safety in numbers - to check out the scene on the edge of the curfew zone.
We did, and
among the first people we encountered were two Russians headed to a Buddhist
monastery near our hotel. They'd been dropped off in front of the Hyatt by a
special tour bus that was being allowed to make a loop of the hotels and
airport.
Wednesday,
April 19, 11 p.m. local
KATMANDU,
Nepal
We're into
the 15th day of protests and a general strike against the rule of King Gyanendra
- the latest in a line of Hindu monarchs once regarded as god-kings in Nepal.
But those
days appear to be fading fast. Two weeks of protests have echoed with chants of
"Hang the King!'' and Thursday's demonstration is supposed to be the big one -
the day of reckoning when the opposition brings 100,000 people into the streets
of Katmandu to show, once and for all, that king no longer has any popular
support.
Of course,
the government is trying to head off the protest. Tonight, it announced there
will be a curfew from 2 a.m. until 8 p.m. Thursday.
Journalists
here frantically tried to get curfew passes, which were readily available in the
past. But this time - nada. Not even diplomats, like the U.S. Ambassador got
one.
Obviously, we
need to get out and report regardless of the curfew. So, much of the press corps
has decamped to a Hyatt hotel on the edge of Katmandu. It's just outside the
curfew zone, and we're hoping it'll provide a good base.
TUESDAY,
April 11, 4:15 p.m., local
KATMANDU,
Nepal
In Gangabu,
on the outskirts of Katmandu, police and soldiers have been facing off against
protesters for five days. Gunfire that we'd heard earlier in the neighborhood,
it turns out, started after protesters tried to set fire to a senior police
official's house. His security guards shot into the air to scare them off.
In the two
hours since, the police have opened up with rubber bullets, allowing them to
push the protesters back and move into the side streets, now littered with
shards of glass and broken bricks.
Police are
still battling holdouts holed up between the tightly packed three-and four-story
buildings.
Walking down
an alley, three injured civilians are rushed passed us, carried by medics and
volunteers to ambulances on the main road. The lingering tear gas sting our
eyes.
We see six
police officers on a roof beating someone who's down and not getting up. They're
kicking and whacking the victim with bamboo polls.
Further into
the neighborhood, there's a rundown community clinic. Up the dark staircase, we
find two rooms full of injured. One man, 21-year-old Avil Moktan, is lying on a
gurney while doctors and medics pull a rubber bullet from his back and suture
the baton gashes on his head.
All around us
are angry people. They're promising more protests until King Gyanendra restores
democracy.
TUESDAY,
April 11, 2:30 p.m. local
KATMANDU,
Nepal
Hundreds of
police and soldiers are positioned on a main road in Katmandu's Gangabu
neighborhood, facing off on the city outskirts against protesters hurling bricks
from side streets. Burning tires, tear gas, occasional charges by riot police
with shields and batons. Tense, to be sure, but manageable as long as you stay
out of the range of the bricks.
A burst of
gunfire sends hundreds of police and soldiers scurrying for cover. No one knows
where the fire is coming from or what's being fired. Rubber bullets? Live
ammunition? Not even the security forces know.
TUESDAY,
April 11, 1 p.m. local
KATMANDU,
Nepal
Tourists are
biking around downtown Katmandu, the streets completely empty apart from
well-armed police and soldiers enforcing a daytime curfew. As we drive past the
seven of men and woman - all Westerners, all pedaling away - one of the guys
grins broadly at me and waves.
TUESDAY,
April 11, 11:55 a.m. local
KATMANDU,
Nepal
The curfew in
Katmandu was lifted for a few hours this morning, and throughout the city people
poured out of their homes to stock up on supplies. Even amid the anger over the
curfew, people seemed to want to soak in the freedom and try to enjoy themselves
for a little while.
It's amazing
how quickly the mood changes. The curfew's kicking back in at 12 p.m. - five
minutes from now - and as we cruise down streets now largely deserted of people
or traffic, we see police brandishing batons at stragglers who have not yet made
it inside.
A middle-aged
woman who stopped to pick up some dropped groceries is pushed along by an
officer. A young man hanging out in an open doorway gets whacked by a cop's
bamboo poll.
A soldier on
patrol sees us and marches over, demanding to see our curfew pass, which allows
us to move around the city freely. Unimpressed, he orders us to move on, waving
the barrel of his assault rifle at us and then down the road.
MONDAY, April
10, 2 p.m. local
KATMANDU,
Nepal
A group of
Australian school girls are collecting their bags at Katmandu airport just as
I'm arriving to cover the country's surprisingly quick descent into a full-blown
crisis. And I thought the gaggle of Canadian retirees coming through immigration
looked a bit out of place.
It's Monday
afternoon, and protests against the royal dictatorship of King Gyanendra are
into their fifth day. It doesn't seem like a good time for a two-week trekking
tour of Nepal, where a decade-long communist insurgency has left nearly 13,000
people dead.
In recent
days, three people have been shot dead by security forces who opened fire with
live ammunition at stone-throwing protesters over the weekend. The dead include
a bystander.
Three cities,
including Katmandu, are under curfew.
And angry
young men across the country are burning tires and hurling stones and broken
bricks at police, who are firing tear gas and rubber bullets and charging in to
beat them with batons.
On Saturday,
some 25,000 protesters took over the southern town of Bharatnagar. They burned
government buildings and started calling the place "the kingdom's first
republic'' before security forces regained control.
Dr. Vijay
Sharma, a senior surgeon in Katmandu, told AP just hours before I arrived Monday
that "unless the situation improves immediately, there are chances of civil
war.''
-Matthew
Rosenberg (PROFILE (COUNTRY:Australia; ISOCOUNTRY3:AUS; UNTOP:009; UN2ND:053;
APGROUP:Oceania;) (COUNTRY:Canada; ISOCOUNTRY3:CAN; UNTOP:021;
APGROUP:NorthAmerica;) (COUNTRY:Nepal; ISOCOUNTRY3:NPL; UNTOP:142; UN2ND:062;
APGROUP:Asia;) (COUNTRY:Netherlands; ISOCOUNTRY3:NLD; UNTOP:150; UN2ND:155;
APGROUP:Europe;) (COUNTRY:Russia; ISOCOUNTRY3:RUS; UNTOP:150; UN2ND:151;
APGROUP:Europe;) (COUNTRY:United States; ISOCOUNTRY3:USA; UNTOP:021;
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