From rxpgnews.com
Terai unrest will hit Nepal polls: UN
By IANS,
Jan 26, 2007 - 7:04:10 PM
Kahmandu, Jan 26 - The UN Friday expressed serious concern at the spreading violence in Nepal's southern plains, where people of Indian origin live, saying it would hit the key elections scheduled to be held by June.
Ian Martin, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon's personal representative in Nepal, who is overseeing the world body's assistance in the ongoing peace process, said his team's efforts to support a free and fair constituent assembly election would be jeopardised if the violent situation in Nepal continued or escalated.
Expressing dismay at the deaths, injuries and destruction of property going on in several districts in the plains since last week, Martin said it was Nepal's national responsibility to address the issue and asked all the parties involved to avoid violence and promote tolerance.
Martin said he had conveyed the UN concern to the Nepal government, the Maoists and the ethnic parties his office was in contact with.
He also urged for the inclusion of marginalised groups in the peace process and election, reiterating the UN chief's contention that otherwise Nepal would lose a crucial opportunity to harness the strength and vision of its own people.
The UN concern came hours after Indian ambassador to Nepal Shiv Shankar Mukherjee expressed India's concern at the escalating violence and asked for the warring parties to begin talks immediately.
Though the first clashes, looting and arson began last Friday in Lahan town in Siraha district, following a transport shutdown called by an ethnic group, the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum, it has spread like wildfire, engulfing key towns in three other districts.
Besides Lahan, Birgunj, the hub of business activities, Janakpur, a famous pilgrim destination, and Biratnagar, the home of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala lie under daytime curfew.
Even as the government sought to maintain law and order in Birgunj, Janakpur and Biratnagar towns by clamping daytime curfew, fresh violence erupted in Rautahat district.
Led by a royalist minister who had been keeping a low profile after the fall of King Gyanendra's government, a royalist party vandalised the ancestral home of an influential political leader and attacked the statue of the prime minister's brother B.P. Koirala, one of Nepal's tallest pro-democracy leaders.
Badri Prasad Mandal, who split a party to support King Gyanendra and was named in a fertilser scam during the royal regime, came out of oblivion Friday to lead an attack on the home of Madhav Kumar Nepal, chief of the second largest party in the government.
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