"Let the people decide"

PROVIDENCE - The root cause of Nepal's unrest, plain and simple, is the monarchy, human-rights activist Krishna Pahadi said last night.

"The king does not represent the people," said Pahadi, who spent 145 days in a Nepalese prison this year. "He is using the Maoist violence as an opportunity to grab power. He believes that if a referendum goes to the people, he will be deposed."

In a speech at Brown University and in an interview beforehand, Pahadi said his country's only hope for peace lies with democracy.

On Feb. 1, King Gyanendra dissolved the government and suspended civil liberties, including freedom of the press and freedoms of expression, assembly and association, saying his actions were needed to control a Communist rebel insurgency.

Pahadi, who helped to organize protests of the power seizure, was among an estimated 3,000 political prisoners who were detained in the following weeks. He was released July 4, after Amnesty International waged a letter-writing campaign on a global scale. Pahadi said the prison guards told him they were receiving between 60 and 70 letters a day on his behalf.

He said various authorities in Nepal received more than half a million letters, 37,000 of them from the United States, urging his release.

The south Asian nation has been in the grip of a Maoist rebel insurgency since 1996. An estimated 12,800 people have died on both sides.

Pahadi wouldn't have a problem with the Maoists assuming power if the people willed it, and if the Maoists guaranteed human rights and fundamental freedoms. But the insurgents "are not behaving like a political party," he said. "They are behaving like a new regime. It's a big problem."

Still, he doesn't believe the Communist Party has enough support to win power in a free election, and he also doesn't believe the people will support a constitutional monarchy.

He said people have lost faith in the monarchy because many believe Gyanendra was involved in some sort of conspiracy to assassinate the royal family. On June 1, 2001, King Birendra -- Gyanendra's brother -- died along with nine other members of the royal family. Birendra's son, crown prince Dipendra, is believed to have killed his family and then taken his own life, but the circumstances of the massacre were never fully resolved.

"If the people of Nepal accept the monarchy," Pahadi said, "that is OK, but let the people decide."

Pahadi dressed all in yellow -- shirt, sweater, jacket, pants and socks. The color connotes sacrifice and renouncing personal ambition, he said. He's worn nothing but yellow for more than a decade. "I have no ambition besides the establishment of democracy and human rights in Nepal," he said.

Pahadi once studied science, and finished a bachelor's degree. Thoughts of becoming a doctor ended when he joined a banned political party to fight for democracy. He went on to head Amnesty International in Nepal, and to found Nepal's Human Rights and Peace Society.

Pahadi, 42 and single with no children, lives with relatives in Kathmandu.

He arrived in Providence yesterday evening, and is off to Boston this morning. "I have no particular interest in sightseeing," he said.

After stops in several other U.S. cities, he'll return to Nepal Nov. 24 to launch a "huge" speaking campaign for the Citizens' Movement for Democracy and Peace.

Many people know Nepal as the home of 8 of the world's 10 tallest mountains, including Mount Everest, and as the birthplace of Buddha. Pahadi doesn't mind that it's also earning a reputation as a place where human rights abuses occur.

With more attention to the situation in Nepal, he says, more world leaders will visit, and the international community will be more likely to suspend assistance, prosecute those responsible for atrocities, and ultimately exert the pressure necessary to bring about peace.

"A fight is going on between the palace and the people," he said. "The time has come to support the people, and not the palace."