US embassy cable - 02KATHMANDU2228

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KATHMANDU 002228 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SA/INS 
STATE ALSO PLEASE PASS USAID/DCHA/OFDA 
MANILA FOR USAID/DCHA/OFDA 
LONDON FOR POL/REIDEL 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O 12958: N/A 
TAGS: NP, PGOV, PTER, PHUM, CASC, IN, Maoist Insurgency 
SUBJECT: NEPAL: UPDATE ON MAOIST ACTIVITIES, NOV 15-21 
 
REF: Kathmandu 2151 
 
1. (U) Summary:  Nepal's Maoist insurgents continued their 
violence this week, killing at least fourteen civilians in 
brutal attacks around the country.  Two children, aged 
fourteen and nine, were among the victims.  In Kathmandu 
Valley, the rebels assassinated a police officer, burned a 
Village Development Committee office building, attacked an 
electricity sub-station, and set off an explosion in a 
businessman's home.  Maoists continued to terrorize the 
roads, barricading the country's major east-west highway 
and killing civilians--including an Indian businessman-- 
with landmines.  Thirty-five more Village Development 
Committee offices were destroyed in new attacks.  A London- 
based NGO is calling for UN condemnation of Maoist use of 
child soldiers. Tiger Mountain travel agency related 
further details about the bombing incident at their 
Kathmandu office.  End summary. 
 
MAOISTS MURDER THIRD-GRADE STUDENT; 
BOMB KILLS NINE-YEAR-OLD BOY 
2. (U) In two separate incidents early this week, Maoist 
insurgents brutally murdered a third-grade student, and 
killed a nine-year-old boy with explosives intended for his 
school. A few days after abducting 14-year-old Raju Tharu 
on charges of 'spying,' Maoists marched him to a bridge 
near his village, where they blindfolded him, slit his 
throat and hacked him to death in public, according to 
witnesses in Bhimapur Village Development Committee (VDC), 
in southern Bardiya district.  In western Dang district, 
nine-year old Anil Kumar Choudhary was killed by a Maoist 
bomb planted near his school.  He was playing with the 
plastic packet of explosives when it exploded in his hands. 
 
ATTACKS ON CIVILIANS CONTINUE 
------------------------------ 
 
3. (U) Ongoing attacks against civilians this week claimed 
the lives of three Communist Party (CPN-UML) workers, as 
well as two teachers, a shopkeeper, a laborer and a member 
of the Nepali Congress party.  Chakra Pasad Choudary, a 
former CPN-UML parliamentarian, was shot to death by a 
group of four Maoists as he returned home from a party 
meeting in southwestern Kailali district.  Choudhary had 
been threatened by the Maoists in September, and had 
refused to pay their demand of 30,000 rupees (380 USD). The 
body of party activist Kumari Deb Das was found in Nuwakot, 
north of Kathmandu, several days after his abduction by 
Maoists. In eastern Panchthar district, Maoists slashed 30- 
year-old CPN-UML worker Hari Kambang's spine with a khukuri 
and then shot him in the head as he was walking home from a 
nearby village. 
 
4. (U) Also in Panchthar, Maoists killed Chandra Kharel, 
the headmaster of a local primary school. His sister 
Sarita, abducted with him from their home on November 12, 
is still missing.   Another teacher, Keshar Bahadur Thapa, 
was beheaded on the same day in eastern Ilam district. 
 
5. (U) In other incidents, three Maoists killed Netra 
Bahadur Timilshina, a 42-year-old laborer, in a temple near 
his home in central Makwanpur district. Ten armed Maoists 
stormed into the home of Ramesh Thapa, in Mahendranagar, 
western Kanchapur district, took him several kilometers 
from his house and shot him on the highway. A group of 
insurgents beat to death Baburam Poudel, a shopkeeper, 
according to newspaper reports. 
 
KATHMANDU VALLEY: POLICE CONSTABLE SHOT DEAD, 
VDC OFFICE 
 TORCHED, NEA ATTACKED, PRIVATE HOUSE BOMBED 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
6. (U) Raja Ram Malla, a 28-year-old plain-clothes police 
constable posted to a police office in south Kathmandu, was 
shot by Maoist insurgents four times in the back and 
abdomen as he watched television in a shop near his home on 
November 19.  He died after being taken to a nearby 
hospital. (Note: Malla worked in the area around Rabi 
Bhawan, the location of USAID and US-affiliated Lincoln 
School, where Embassy guard Ramesh Manadhar was killed in 
December 2001.  Post and police have no evidence that the 
shooting was related to Manadhar's death or the USG. End 
note.) 
 
7. (U) On the night of November 18, Maoists severely 
damaged the VDC building in Dachi, a village in the 
Kathmandu Valley.  According to police reports, a small 
group of Maoists broke into the building overnight, threw 
the furniture into the street and set it ablaze, before 
setting fire to the building itself. 
 
8. (U) Police also reported a bomb explosion in the home of 
businessman Laba Shrestha in the northern suburb of 
Bansbari.  As in several prior attacks in the Kathmandu 
Valley, the bomb blast was detonated in a toilet.  No one 
was injured.  Police suspect that the house was targeted 
because of proximity to the home of a palace relative. 
 
9. (U) On the morning of November 17, Maoists attacked a 
Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) Sub-station in Min 
Bhawan, an eastern suburb of the capital.  According to 
eyewitnesses, a group of insurgents held the NEA security 
guard at gunpoint while they set fire to thirteen vehicles 
and blew up one of the station's seven transmitters. 
 
MAOISTS TERRORIZE HIGHWAYS 
--------------------------- 
 
10. (U) The rising toll of Maoist landmine victims assumed 
an international dimension on Wednesday, when Jayenta Shah, 
Indian sales manager of Eveready Battery Company, was 
killed as his jeep hit a mine on November 20.  The 
vehicle's three other passengers were injured in the 
incident, which took place near the Indian subsidiary's 
facility in southwestern Kailali district.  Police suspect 
that the mine was intended for security forces. 
 
11. (U) In southern Dang district, Maoists barricaded and 
mined the Mahendra Highway in broad daylight on November 
17, bringing traffic to a five-hour standstill. Nepal's 
major east-west highway, the road was blocked from 10:30 am 
to 3:30 pm, and was reopened only after police were able to 
remove the obstacles placed by the Maoists and defuse their 
MORE VDC OFFICES DESTROYED 
--------------------------- 
 
12. (U) Continuing the recent pattern of attacks on Village 
Development Committee (VDC) offices (reftel), Maoists 
torched three VDC buildings in southern Sarlahi District on 
Monday night. The attackers destroyed all of the furniture 
and documents at offices in Kisanpur, Bela and Maohanpur 
between 11pm and 2am.  Of the 99 VDCs in Sarlahi, 29 have 
been destroyed by the Maoists.  An additional 32 VDCs were 
destroyed in southern Arghankhanchi district from November 
13-15, doing damage valued at an estimated 10 million 
rupees (130,000 USD) in that district alone. 
 
COALITION CALLS ON UNITED NATIONS 
TO CONDEMN USE OF CHILD SOLDIERS IN NEPAL 
------------------------------------------ 
 
13. (U) Local press has reported that the Coalition to Stop 
the Use of Child Soldiers (CSUCS), a London-based coalition 
of human rights NGOs, is lobbying the United Nations to 
name the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in its response 
to Security Council Resolution 1379.  The resolution 
requested the Secretary-General to submit a list of state 
and non-state actors using child soldiers. 
 
14. (U) According to the 195-page, 25-country "1379 Report" 
released by CSUS earlier this month, as many as 30 percent 
of Nepal's Maoist fighters could be under 18 years of age. 
The coalition based its findings on news reports and 
documents compiled from NGOs, including Amnesty 
Internat 
ional and Human Rights Watch. 
 
FURTHER INFORMATION ON TIGER MOUNTAIN BOMB 
------------------------------------------- 
 
15. (SBU) A manager of Tiger Mountain travel agency has 
told DCM that the recent small bomb explosion in the agency 
office's toilet (reftel) was almost certainly retaliation 
against the Kathmandu office's resistance to Maoist 
extortion, and not a sign of any new threat against 
tourists.  According to the manager, Tiger Mountain's local 
office assisted Kathmandu police in setting up a successful 
sting operation to capture a Maoist who had been demanding 
money from the agency.  Tiger Mountain has been approaching 
other hotels and travel agencies in an attempt to persuade 
them to do the same, but has met with no cooperation. 
 
MALINOWSKI