The Plough Vol 02 No 25

The Plough
Volume 2, Number 25
20 February 2005

E-Mail Newsletter of the Irish Republican Socialist Party

1) Editorial
2) Sectarian Murders, Collusion and Sanctioned Assassinations
3) Maoists in Nepal
4) The Pentagon's 'NATO Option'
5) Black Ops by the Nepalese Army
6) What's On

*******

EDITORIAL

Money laundering, bank robbery, slashing throats and leaving dead
bodies in alleyways, covering up crime scenes, intimidating witnesses
and lying through their teeth!!! Ten years ago such crimes one would
automatically have been laid at the door of the loyalist
paramilitaries and their British paymasters. Sadly not today! These
crimes are being now laid at the door of people believed to be
associated with the Provisional Republican Movement. Whatever the
truth of the current bout of allegations - and we are not naïve -
there is no doubt that the broad republican tradition has since the
beginning of the so-called peace process lost the high moral ground
that had been obtained by virtue of being genuine anti-imperialist
fighters. People began to believe their own propoganda, describing the
peace process as a victory when it was in effect a recognition that
the armed struggle had run into the ground. Doing deals with the Free
State establishment and entering alliances with the ruling classes of
Britain and the USA while prattling on about mandates simply were
devices to blind the ordinary working class people to the growing
stench of corruption. There has been a steady rise in intimidation by
so-called republicans in many areas both inside and outside Belfast.
Free speech is a luxury many working class people in nationalist areas
cannot afford.

When one sees finance companies associated with people associated with
the Provisional Republican Movement charging exorbitant interest
charges for mortages, then one has to question what is going on.

Republican socialists cannot afford the luxury of smugness nor take
delight in the current difficulties of the Provisionals. We know there
are many within that movement who abhor what has been going on. The
Republican Socialist Movement has not been immune itself from errors,
mistakes, and actions which sullied the name of republicans.

What is needed is not name-calling but a return to basics. All
republicans should henceforth put their trust not in leaders or army
councils but in the mass of the working people on the island of
Ireland. A return to the democratic principles inherent in
republicanism is a first step followed by the taking up of the class
issues that press down on the Irish working class. There is real truth
in the old slogan that you can not have a free Ireland without a free
working class. That's where the energies of real republicans should be
geared to.

*******

SECTARIAN MURDERS, COLLUSION AND SANCTIONED ASSASSINATIONS IN THE SIX
COUNTIES

SECTARIAN MURDERS

Sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland has always been the vilest of
the problems, which plague the society of the six counties. The
problem of sectarianism can be traced back many centuries. It is bad
enough people being murdered and attacked because of differences of
religion, without the involvement of the Police Service, Special
Branch, the U.D.R., British Military Intelligence and the British
Army, the very forces which were supposed to be the upholders of Law
and Order.

Many innocent people have lost their lives over the period of the last
35 years. This has caused further bigotry and created widened
divisions between the Catholic and Protestant communities, making it
almost impossible for a trusting relationship to develop.

There is no doubt that any loss of life is a tragedy, whether it is
Catholic or Protestant, Nationalist or Unionist. It is even more
terrible when the victim is a non-combatant. It is bad enough the
combatants being at war with one another, but when innocent people are
targeted and killed for no other reason other than being Catholic or
Protestant then surely this is as low as any conflict can go. Thus
enabling tit for tat attacks to be supported and justified by one side
or the other People being killed in shootings and bombings are tragic
and sad enough but in a war situation casualties are unfortunately
unavoidable, and regrettably people do die. It is the way that some
people have been killed, which makes the troubles here seem even more
horrendous. Romper rooms and gruesomely tortured victims have shown
the psychopathic depths which some will sink to in order to fulfil
their desire for blood. Bodies found mutilated, throats cut, heads
severed almost completely from their torsos, pieces of anatomy
missing, chunks of flesh ripped and torn from living people while they
were tied to chairs or hung from ceilings as they screamed in agony
through gagged mouths. They say alls fair in love and war, but surely
this is inhumane, barbaric and sadist and not soldierly at all!

It is known that the U.D.A., U.V.F. and their associated splinter
groups have said that all Catholics are targets and have called for
their demise through incineration and assassination. Many of their
politicians have made no secret of their hatred towards the Catholic,
Nationalist and Republican population. What about equality, civil and
human rights? Is a Catholic not entitled to the same quality of life
and freedom of choice as a Protestant person? Is being a Catholic a
crime? Murder gangs like the Shankill Butchers, the largest group of
mass murderers in British and maybe even European history who made no
secret of their sectarian hatred and their will to commit the most
heinous and gruesome of murders and attacks on civilian people,
killing Protestants (mistakenly) as well as Catholic due to the
geographic layout of the districts in Belfast.

COLLUSION

With the forces of law and order in the six counties being made up
from the Protestant community it is no wonder that persons found
themselves not only members of the U.D.A. but possibly also members of
the U.D.R. and the infamous R.U.C., but the organisation, which
undoubtedly linked them, is the Orange Order, a secret sectarian
organisation. Even if members of these groupings and organisations
didn't have dual membership, then it was probable that many had
friends or relatives which did, or that their friends or relatives
were members of the security forces. So leaked documents and
intelligence information was widespread. Collusion between Loyalist
paramilitaries was rife to say the least. In fact the Loyalists have
often boasted and gloated over this fact and have even produced files
and documents taken from the security forces.

These are not just allegations, they are proven facts.

Investigations carried out by outside police services from across the
water found their investigations being thwarted.

Not only have we had Collusion but also Shoot to Kill policies.

With files on Catholics leaked to the Loyalist Paramilitaries, and
targets suggested by the likes of British Intelligence and Special
Branch.

Was it any wonder that they were able to make successful get a ways
and to escape prosecution?

Many unarmed persons have been murdered in cold blood when they could
have been captured and arrested.

Even combatants who were trapped or surrounded were never given the
opportunity to surrender, instead they were mercilessly executed.

Files and documents relating to the many cases of the above went
missing or were destroyed intentionally and deliberately preventing
the Stalker enquiry team from carrying out their investigations
successfully.

Fires miraculously started under desks in locked offices upon which
files were stacked.

The telephone and fire alarm systems just conveniently stopped
working.

Deliberate and planned, the information collected was never going to
be allowed to be used in evidence against the forces of the Crown.

This corruption and unjustness didn’t just exist at street level
county Police; no it ran right to the top of the R.U.C. Special
branch, The British Army and Military intelligence.

The Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her Government were kept
informed and updated at every step of these operations and even
sanctioned many operations designed to destroy and assassinate members
of the Republican community.

Republicans and Nationalists have rights, as do their counter parts in
the Protestant community.

Society is made up from every one not just Protestant Loyalist
Supremacists!!

Collusion existed and still exists at very high levels between the
Loyalist Paramilitaries and the Security forces.

Britain is the greatest violator of human and civil rights and has
been before the Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg more times than
any other country, yet it still tries to portray itself as just.

Britain has sought and tried people as War Criminals, do they forget
the crimes they have committed and the terror they imposed against the
people of this country?

They have always talked about the Geneva Convention, though they
themselves obviously forget to adhere to it.

Blatant hypocrisy if ever there was!!

SANCTIONED ASSASSINATIONS

It's no secret that the many groupings which make up the security
forces, struggled against each other in a bid to be the leading
department or agency in the province.

This rivalry led to intelligence and operations being kept from each
department creating a breakdown were one group supposedly didn’t
know
what the other was doing.

The R.U.C. had Special Branch, E4A and the Special Patrol Group.

The British Army had the S.A.S., the M.R.F., 14th Intelligence and the
F.R.U. also M.I.5 and M.I.6 and probably many more secret departments.

Each of these secret departments had their own informers and touts.

Many also ran agents which were paid and employed as if they were
regular Army or Police, some even had pension schemes and all were
promised large amounts of cash and new identities and new lives in
other countries.

These agents were ran with guaranteed immunity, they were ordered to
infiltrate and carry out the will of their handlers.

In other words they were allowed more or less to target and
assassinate anyone they liked and plan operations, which would be
satisfying to consecutive British Governments.

The following questions must then need to be answered.

How could the forces, which were supposedly law bidding run criminal
gangs and be allowed to encourage sectarian conflict and murders?

How could they also provide information, intelligence reports, and
guns for Loyalist paramilitary operations?

Why were they allowed to clear districts of regular Police and Army
patrols whilst a U.V.F. or U.D.A. operation was going down?

Why if the security forces were in possession of accurate intelligence
and evidence did they not act accordingly and justly?

How were operations allowed to be run between Loyalist Paramilitary
gunmen and British Intelligence, whose very aim was to encourage and
assist in sectarian executions and murders?

(F.O.P.)

*******

MAOISTS IN NEPAL

The Maoist insurgency in Nepal is only 10 years old but has today
spread all over the country with most rural areas under its control.
"The Maoists contested the first elections held in 1991 and won nine
of the 205 seats," said Pradeep Nepal, standing committee member,
Communist Party of Nepal UML [a social democratic party that has
worked with the monarchy in Parliament] in an interview in January in
Kathmandu. The Jan Morcha, the party of the Maoists at that time,
also won some local authorities.

"But the Nepali Congress government and the State authorities did not
cooperate with them and blocked all development funds for their
constituencies - no schools, no roads, no water works," Nepal said.
Many of the Jan Morcha MPs were from linguistic and ethnic minorities,
with their own culture, which is distinct from the Newar- dominated
Nepali culture and language. "When their MPs wore their own ethnic
dresses they were even stopped from entering Parliament by the police
guard posted outside," Nepal said. The Jan Morcha boycotted the next
elections and by 1995, the "people's war" had been declared by the
Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), or CPN (M).

There has always been a faction among the Maoists who wanted to
continue the armed struggle, and the first recorded attack on a police
station was as far back as 1986. Since the revival of the armed
struggle in 1995, the Maoist army has grown by leaps and bounds and
today it consists of three divisions, nine brigades with 29
battalions. At full strength this sho uld comprise 29,000 soldiers.
Government sources in Nepal claim that this army consists of only
8,000 soldiers and a 20,000-strong militia.

Whatever the terms used, a visit to Nepal outside of Kathmandu
confirms that it is Maoist arms that hold sway in much of the
country.

Nepalgunj is 4 km from the Indian border. It is the main market town
and administrative headquarters of the mid-western region of Nepal as
well as the headquarters of Banke district. It has a large garrison of
the Royal Nepal Army (RNA), the Armed Police and the regular police.
Every street corner and road junction has a permanent armed barricade,
and heavily armed patrols on foot are a constant reminder of the
military presence.

On December 26 last year, the CPN(M) issued a proclamation asking all
employees of the Royal Nepal government to stop working and told the
people to "boycott" the "old regime". Since then not one government
office has been functional. When this correspondent visited the town
in the third week of January, the Appellate Court was absolutely
deserted at noon. The judges were all there, but not a single
petitioner was present.

Similarly, at the Land Revenue office nearby all the employees were
sitting outside and there was not a single member of the public
present. The head clerk, visibly scared by the arrival of an unknown
person (this correspondent), refused to talk. Another employee said:
"We were scared of the Maoists and stopped coming to office as people
also were not coming anymore. But Army men came to our homes and
threatened us and our families that we would be arrested as Maoists if
we did not report for work."

Thus, government employees are walking a tightrope. They come and sign
in at their offices, but immediately go out of the building and sit in
the lawns or on the roadside, only to scurry inside when the Army
patrol comes for inspection.

It is a difficult tightrope indeed. The government employees are in a
tight spot - government employees are regularly arrested or detained
without any legal cover by the Army on charges of being Maoists.
Despite an armed police post merely 100 metres away, Maoists blasted a
room at the land revenue office on January 15 at 1 p.m. as a warning
to government employees to follow their diktat.

While the gun, whether of the Maoists or of the RNA, seems to rule the
lives of people, it would be incorrect to think that the Maoists'
success is solely because to the gun.

"In Nepalgunj town we have two powers - the Royal government and the
Maoists. In the rural areas there is only one government - the
Maoists," says a journalist in Nepalgunj. Most political observers
agree that in at least 45 of Nepal's 75 districts the Maoists hold
complete sway. Even in other districts they control the villages with
the district town under the control of the Royal government. In a
recent newspaper report, the RNA admitted that even in Kathmandu there
were about 300 armed Maoists present, though they had only a limited
hold on the capital.

In the rural areas of Banke district and neighbouring Bardiya
district, the Maoists have taken control of thousands of acres of
agricultural land and given it to the landless, says one human rights
activist working as a conflict field monitor in Nepalgunj.

The journalist explains this process: "The Maoists have made it clear
that whatever land a person owns, has to be cultivated by that
person's family. No hiring of labour will be allowed." He says that
those who had hundreds of bighas of land have now left the villages
for the relative safety of towns such as Nepalgunj and Kathmandu,
leaving the Maoists in possession of their land. "The Maoists have
become the biggest landlord in Nepal today," he says. Previously,
much of the land was under the traditional 50:50 sharecropping, with
lower-caste communities like Tharus and Kamaiyas actually
cultivating the land. "The Maoists with their slogan jiski jot, uski
pot (harvest belongs to the actual cultivator) have practically
abolished this system," said the journalist.

The Maoists seem to have built up an entire alternative structure of
governance in Nepal. They have their own justice system and have
reportedly "arrested" and punished close to 1,000 landlords,
government employees, traders and contractors for violating their
edicts. Their favourite form of punishment, human rights activists
say, is to sentence their prisoners to labour. As they term them shram
kaidis (labour prisoners).

The Maoists also collect taxes that range from 5 per cent for the
common people to 40 per cent for forest contractors and big
businessmen. They have a radio station of their own - the Jana
Ganatantrik FM Radio - whose components are carried in baskets and set
up on hilltops for transmission.

The Maoists have now started 'development works'. In Rolpa district of
mid-western Nepal, they are building a 92-km-long mountain highway,
with 10,000 people working on it every day, including the shram
kaidis. Already, 30-odd-km of this road is ready for use after just
three months of work. They have also started a cooperative bank, a
medical college and other works. In Rukum district the Maoists have
constructed a mini-hydel power station on Sisne lake to supply
electricity to a neighbouring village with a few thousand people.

Moreover, the Maoists have proved to be master strategists by building
a social base for themselves in the rural areas.

About 25 per cent of the rural population suffers from social
discriminations of various forms. While some of them are termed
"untouchable", others face varying degrees of discrimination and
social exclusion. The Maoists have banned all these and there have
been reports that those found continuing with practices of
untouchability and caste exclusion have been punished severely or even
killed. This reportedly has created much goodwill for them among the
lower-caste populations of the rural areas, especially since the
democratic political parties had not addressed the problems of social
oppression in the villages after they formed the government in 1991.

In a masterstroke of political savvy, the Maoists have also started
giving land to the families of Royal Nepal Army soldiers and police
personnel who were killed in combat with them. Their argument is that
they were 'poor peasants' who had joined the Royal forces not for
ideological reasons but to survive. Therefore, they argue that it is
their duty to provide for their families, as they do for the families
of their own cadre who were killed in combat.

In a context where most families of soldiers who are killed in combat
with the Maoists are yet to receive even one rupee of the compensation
announced by the Royal Nepal government, this is a strategy that not
only reinforces the moral hold of the Maoists in rural areas but also
provides them with a steady stream of recruits.

"Every dead RNA soldier's family is a potential source of Maoist
recruits," says the journalist.

Strategies such as these have made the Maoists the predominant power
in the rural areas of Nepal and given their relatively small army a
much larger punch. The reach and ability of the Maoist army was on
display twice when it blockaded Kathmandu and there was not much that
the RNA, despite its superior arms and manpower, could do to remove
it.

Most Nepali observers, both sympathetic to the Maoists and their
critics, agree that despite their spectacular successes of the past
few years, the Maoists are not in a position to capture state power in
Kathmandu merely with the gun. "The geopolitical situation is such
that a simple capture of power is impossible," says Govinda Sharma
Bandi, an advocate in the Supreme Court of Nepal.

Not only are India, the United States, the United Kingdom and China
firmly against the Maoists, they have not managed to break completely
the hold on the people of the democratic parties such as the UML and
the Nepali Congress.

It appears that the Maoists also understand their limitations. In a
recent statement released to the press after the takeover of executive
powers by King Gyanendra, Prachanda called on the "parliamentary
parties" to form a united front with the Maoists against this
"fratricidal, artificial king" and promised to make the "necessary
sacrifice and flexibility" for this. The Maoists have said that a
united front with democratic parties against the monarchy and the RNA
is "a historical necessity". Simultaneously, they announced an
indefinite countrywide blockade and traffic strike from February 13,
the 10th anniversary of their armed struggle.

Today, with the King seeming to return to the autocratic monarchy of
the pre-1990 era, it seems that the Maoist demand for a republican
government is gaining ground.

(ANIKET ALAM recently in Kathmandu}

*******

THE PENTAGON'S 'NATO OPTION'
by Lila Rajiva

Published on Thursday, February 10, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0210-22.htm

Washington is shocked by Seymour Hersh's scoop about the Pentagon's
"Salvador Option," an ambitious plan to deploy secret special forces
in friendly and unfriendly countries to spy, target terrorists and
their sympathizers, and conduct "hits," all without Congressional
oversight. Its model is the American counter-insurgency program in
Salvador in the 1980s which funded nationalist death squads to hunt
down insurgents. What's new today is that the program would be run by
the Pentagon, not the CIA, and it would be much broader in scope.

According to Hersh, the Pentagon's gremlins are already at work in
Iran prepping targets for possible US or Israeli strikes against
Iranian nuclear facilities.

But Washington's shock is misplaced. There's nothing new about the
"Salvador Option." At the end of last month, Frank Cass in London
released a new book by Dr. Daniele Ganser of the Center for Security
Studies at the Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich called, "NATO's
Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe,"
which offers plenty of evidence that there was also a "Salvador
Option" in post-war Europe. It turns out that during the Cold War,

European governments and secret services conspired with a NATO-backed
operation to engineer attacks in their own countries in order to
manipulate the population to reject socialism and communism.

It was called "the strategy of tension" and it was carried out by
members of secret stay-behind armies organized by NATO and funded by
the CIA in Italy, Portugal, Germany, Spain, and other European
countries. The strategy apparently involved supplying right-wing
terrorists with explosives to carry out terrorist acts which were then
blamed on left-wing groups to keep them out of power.

Only three countries, Italy, Belgium, and Switzerland, have had a
parliamentary investigation into NATO's role and a public report. The
US and UK, the two nations most centrally involved, are refusing to
disclose details, so crucial pieces of the story are missing. Still,
Ganser's book offers some disturbing insights into a hidden aspect of
the Cold War.

It all began during WWII when British Prime Minister, Winston
Churchill, ordered a secret army to be created to fight communism.
Allen Dulles, the first chief of the CIA, worked out the original
plan, and British MI6 and special forces teamed up with the CIA to
train "stay-behind armies" in Western Europe to counter a possible
Soviet invasion. It was all very James Bond - only grim - with forged
passports, dead letter boxes, and parachute jumps over the channel,
according to some of the trainees.

It turns out that what Washington meant by counter-terrorism, might
often have been, well, terrorism.

Here's the money part from one of the field manuals (FM 30-31B):

"...when the revolutionaries temporarily renounce the use of force US
army intelligence must have the means of launching special operations
which will convince Host Country Governments and public opinion of the
reality of the insurgent danger…"

That's to say, if there wasn't any terrorism to speak of, the secret
armies were prepared to get some going.

According to Ganser, the secret army was behind waves of attacks in
Italy in the 1970s. In Spain, it worked with Franco and may have
supported over a 1000 attacks. In Germany, it had standing plans to
murder leaders of the Social Democrat party in case of a Soviet
invasion. It carried out terrorist actions against President de Gaulle
and the Algerian peace plan in France. It seems to have been involved
in the assassination of Amilcar Cabral and Eduardo Mondlane, prominent
leaders in African liberation in the Portugese colonies. It was
involved in the coup against Greek Prime Minister Papandreou and
fomented terrorism against the Kurds in Turkey. In the Netherlands,
Luxemborg, Denmark, and Norway, however, the secret networks don't
seem to have been linked with terror.

The secret armies were first outed in August 1990 when then Italian
Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti confirmed the existence of Gladio,
Latin for sword, a super secret group squirreled away in the military
secret service, that had been manipulating the public with terrorist
acts that it blamed on the Italian left.

NATO's reaction to Andreotti's revelation was first denial, then
stone-walling, and finally a closed-doors admission to the ambassadors
of the European countries. Since then, although a former CIA director
William Colby has confirmed the creation of the stay-behind command
centers and networks, NATO itself has withheld details. Asked about
Gladio in Italy in 1990, former CIA director Stanford Turner angrily
ripped off his microphone and shouted: "I said, no questions about
Gladio!"

Today, with the Pentagon's "Salvador Option" on the table, it's time
to revisit this hidden history of European counter-terrorism. While
the Washington press corps seems convinced that the main problem with
the "Salvador Option" is that the Pentagon is taking over what's
always been the CIA's turf, the story of NATO's stay-behind armies
suggests that whether the CIA or Pentagon runs it, the new program
will be a very ugly business.

As one of Gladio's operatives said, "You had to attack civilians, the
people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed
from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were
supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the
state to ask for greater security."

Despite repeated requests from researchers, the CIA, like MI6,
refuses to release its files on the subject. Before the government
begins the new "Salvador Option," though, isn't it time for the world
to learn about the very first one?

[Lila Rajiva (lrajiva@hotmail.com) is a free-lance analyst and writer.
She is the author of "The Language of Empire: Abu Ghraib and the
American Media" (Monthly Review Press, 2005)]

*******

BLACK OPS BY THE NEPALESE ARMY

[An interesting report on the situation in Kathmandu under the "state
of emergency" and black ops by the Nepalese Army.]

http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=27423

NEW DELHI, Feb 13 (IPS) - Sujata Koirala's decision to escape from the
Himalayan nation of Nepal was made after soldiers began to harass her
when her 81-year-old father, Girija Prasad Koirala, was put under
house arrest following King Gyanendra's seizure of power on Feb. 1.

The daughter of the prominent former Nepal prime minister and several
politicians from her father's party then made a six-day trek overland
- walking and at times riding pillion on motorcycles - to neighbouring
India.

On her way down south, Koirala saw pitched battles between the Maoist
rebels and the Royal Nepal Army (RNA) in remote areas near Chitwan
district, near the Nepal-India border.

But she said the Maoists appeared to be having the upper hand. "It was
scary because I could have been killed by either the rebels or the
army." Koirala said it was only a matter of time before the Maoists,
who are believed to number more than 300,000, got the better of the
RNA that was only about 78,000 strong.

"How long can they (RNA soldiers) fight when they have been busy
selling arms to the Maoists and making a business out of the civil
war," she told a gathering organised by the Delhi- based Jawaharlal
Nehru University Students Union.

On Feb. 1 Nepal's King Gyanendra went on state-run television and said
democracy in his country was in peril and the "Nepali people's right
to live peacefully" was being threatened by a long-running Maoist
insurgency since 1996 that has seen over 10,500 people killed.

He then accused the government of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba of
failing to conduct parliamentary elections and being unable to restore
peace in the country.

Soon after the king's address, a state of emergency was declared and
Indian news agencies reported that all telephone lines and mobile
phone networks were shut down - effectively cutting the country off
from the rest of the world.

According to reports from the Nepali capital Kathmandu some 1,000
leaders and activists from political parties, student groups and trade
unions had been rounded up nationwide. Royal Nepal Army spokesman
Brigadier General Dipak Gurung said that a security committee under
the Home Ministry would determine how long activists remain locked up.
"They can be detained for three months," the general said.

Koirala said Nepali soldiers had posed as Maoist rebels after the king
took over and started to harass political leaders, including her
father.

"First, they came as Maoists and threatened him. The next day, the
same people came as army people, detained my father and asked him to
testify that I had links with Maoists," she said.

She said she feared for her father's safety.

"He might be subjected to mental torture and I fear that they would
apply slow poison to harm his life," she said.

"I also fear that he may be killed on some pretext - so many people
have disappeared in Nepal in the last few days and we hear of torture
and killings coming in from towns other than Kathmandu," Koirala added
alarmingly.

She described conditions in the Nepali capital, which she fled six
days ago as chaotic with soldiers going from house to house
terrorizing people and openly taking away valuables and vehicles and
then laying the blame on Maoists.

"With an information blackout, atrocities done by the RNA can easily
be attributed to the Maoists and anything can happen to ordinary
people with anyone daring to speak quickly silenced," she said.

Voicing serious concern over the ban on private radio channels in
Nepal following the royal takeover, the World Association of Community
Radio Broadcasters urged the new government to remove the ban on
community radios to broadcast news and current affairs programmes.

After King Gyanendra imposed a state of emergency and swore in a new
government, the army started to crackdown on private radio channels
and publications - including newspapers -- in the name of ensuring
security in the country. The FM stations were told to broadcast only
entertainment programmes.

Meanwhile on Saturday, the International Confederation of Free Trade
Unions (ICFTU) condemned the declaration of emergency in Nepal and
appealed to King Gyanendra to initiate meaningful dialogue with all
political parties in order to restore democracy.

The ICFTU also urged the United Nations and the International Labour
Organisation to send a fact-finding mission to look into cases of
violation of trade union rights and atrocities on workers.

The call for dialogue was also repeated by Indian Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh, during a visit to the southern Indian city of
Bangalore on Saturday.

Singh said India hoped the elected government and the royal family
could co-exist without friction in Nepal.

"Constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy are twin pillars
of Nepalese society. It is our hope that Nepal will move in that
direction," Singh told reporters.

But Koirala said the monarchy has lost the confidence of the people,
but was managing to survive with the help of the military.

"The 'twin pillars' of a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary
democracy has never really worked in the country," she said. "It's a
feudal and dictatorial regime in Nepal."

*******

WHAT'S ON

*

Monday, February 21st

"The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela: A Public Talk" by Jorge
Martin from the Hands Off Venezuela Campaign.

Plus a film, "Venezuela Bolivariana."

An Culturlann, Falls Road, Belfast, on Monday Night February 21st at
7.00pm. Admission free. All welcome!

*

Thursday, February 24th

Republicanism In Crisis - Is There An Anarchist Alternative?

SPEAKERS
James McBarron (ex-Sinn Fein Cork Activist)
Gregor Kerr (Workers Solidarity Movement)

(This) Thursday, February 24th @ 8 PM

Metropole Hotel (Gresham-Metropole)
MacCurtain Street
Cork

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Tuesday, 8 March

Rural Community Network are currently organising our second annual
event for International Women's Day for Tuesday, 8 March. This will
take place in Omagh (venue to be confirmed) and the theme is again
centred on diversity in rural areas. If you wish further info or
would like to participate please contact Marion Weir or Anna Clarke at
RCN.

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