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Nepal's royals slain at palace
Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times, In a wholesale killing of royalty not seen since the deaths of the last czar of Russia and his family in 1918, the king of Nepal and at least a dozen relatives were reported shot to death Friday night at their palace. Reports from the Himalayan nation, which has a parliamentary government under which the royals play a largely ceremonial role, were sketchy and contradictory. The Associated Press said Crown Prince Dipendra, a 30-year-old graduate of Eton College in England, opened fire, killing his parents, King Birendra, 55, and Queen Aiswarya, 51, and other royal family members before shooting himself. Early today, the English-language Nepali Times reported that the crown prince was still alive. Later, the paper's Web site reported that he had died in surgery. The BBC correspondent for South Asia reported from Katmandu that the crown prince had quarreled with his mother over his choice of a bride. Queen Aiswarya had long been associated in the minds of Nepali democrats with a rigid, outdated penchant for absolute monarchy and social conservatism. Their son had made efforts to appear more open to the Nepali people. A helicopter was sent to Chitwan, 75 miles southwest of Katmandu, to pick up Prince Gyanendra, the king's younger brother, the AP reported. Prince Gyanendra, who is next in line to the throne, was expected to succeed King Birendra. The AP, quoting a senior military official, said the prince also killed his younger brother, Prince Nirajan, 23, and his sister, Princess Shruti, 25. Among the survivors, reports from Katmandu said, was another royal prince, Dhirendra, who was critically injured. In Washington, the State Department said: "It is not clear who was responsible at this point. Both the State Department here and the embassy in Nepal will be monitoring the situation closely." Nepal, the world's only Hindu kingdom, experienced a huge political upheaval in 1990 when a democracy movement threatened the future of the monarchy, but stopped short of forcing the abdication of the king, who was widely accepted by Nepalis to be a reincarnation of the god Vishnu. Nepal accepted King Birendra as a constitutional monarch. However, there was always far less sympathy for the queen, and King Birendra withdrew significantly from public life after that. More recently, as democratically elected governments of left and right run by a few upper-caste families with little grass-roots contact have stumbled, a powerful radical leftist movement, usually described as Maoist, has been on the march in the Nepali countryside, gradually encircling Katmandu and severely damaging its economically important tourist industry. Regions as far away as the approach to Mount Everest have begun to be affected by the rebellion. The army of Nepal, home to the much-feared Gurkha warriors, has been increasingly critical of the political leadership, saying it was not acting decisively enough to put down the insurrection. Opposition parties have also been demanding Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala's resignation for the government's alleged role in a bribery scandal and for not quelling the insurgency. At the same time, international human rights groups were criticizing the government for being too tough. Underlying all the other tensions, Nepalis continue to nurse a long-held fear that neighboring India may be behind the nation's political problems. Leaders of the Nepali Congress Party, which was once a banned organization but returned to political leadership a decade ago at the vanguard of the democracy movement, have acknowledged that they had considerable Indian support. India, which blockaded landlocked Nepal a decade ago to punish it for buying weapons from the Chinese, has lately accused Nepal of growing too close to China and also of allowing Pakistani agents to operate from its territory. King Birendra, educated at Harvard, was heir to a royal family that had ruled Nepal, a country of 25-million, off and on since the 1770s. Never colonized, Nepal was the eastern focal point of the "great game" played between Britain and Russia for dominance, or at least influence, across the Himalayas. In the mid 19th century, the royal family was overshadowed by a hereditary ruling clan, the Ranas. The power of the monarchy was not restored for 100 years, and then with the backing of India. In New York, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan's office issued a statement saying Annan was "profoundly shocked" by the killings. Annan "extends his heartfelt condolences to the people of Nepal and calls for calm and stability in this difficult period," the statement said. NepalLOCATION: Along the Himalayan mountains in south Asia. POPULATION: 25-million. SIZE: Slightly larger than Arkansas. CHIEF RELIGIONS: Hindu (90 percent), Buddhist (5 percent), Muslim (3 percent). GOVERNMENT: Constitutional monarchy. HEAD OF STATE: King Birendra, 55, was crowned in 1972 and was the latest ruler of the Shah dynasty, which has held the throne since the mid 1700s. He held nearly absolute power until 1990 when a parliamentary government was established. HEAD OF GOVERNMENT: Prime Minister Girija Koirala, 78, is embroiled in corruption charges. Parliament has been essentially shut down for three months by an opposition boycott. Maoist insurgents control five of Nepal's 75 districts.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
