Five-day nationwide strike begins in Nepal
Businesses were shut and streets deserted throughout Nepal today as a five-day nationwide strike called by communist rebels got underway.
The government has warned that anyone trying to impose the strike will be shot and state-run newspaper carried photographs of 24 rebel leaders, urging citizens to inform the authorities if they were sighted.
The government also promised security to anybody defying the strike, but bus, truck, taxi and
rickshaw operators kept their vehicles off the streets anyway, while businesses remained closed in all the major cities.
The Maoist rebels, who have a considerable support base in the countryside, called the stoppage in an apparent effort to extend their influence to the capital, Kathmandu, and other cities in the Himalayan kingdom.
The rebels are fighting to abolish Nepal’s constitutional monarchy and replace it with a socialist state.
