NEPAL: Nepal's Prime Minister moves to curtail ethnic Madhesis protest.

After three weeks of Madhesi protests on the street for proportionate representation, Prime Minister addressed ethnic Madhesis' concerns. Police opened fire on protesters from ethnic Madhesi groups demanding autonomy in southeast Nepal on Wednesday, killing two people, officials and witnesses said. At least 21 people were wounded when thousands of protesters defied a curfew at Biratnagar, 200 km (125 miles) southeast of Kathmandu and tried to storm a jail, prompting police to open fire, town official Mod Raj Dotel said. In a move to defuse protests by ethnic Madhesis in which 21 people have died, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala vowed to increase electoral seats in the southern plains for this year's constituent assembly elections. He also pledged to provide for an equal number of seats for the region on the basis of proportional representation in the assembly that is meant to map out the country's political future, including that of the king. Koirala's announcement on state television came hours after police opened fire on the protesters. Local journalist Bikram Niraula said from Biratnagar, Koirala's home town, that there were bloodstains on the ground where the shooting took place. Adding that people are scared and the situation was tense. Officials say hundreds have been injured in clashes over the last month between protesters and police in the fertile southern plains or the Terai region, home to most Madhesis. The protests led by the Madhesi People's Rights Forum (MPRF) have cast a shadow over a peace deal last November between the government and Maoists which ended a decade-old conflict which has killed more than 13,000 people. The MPRF says ruling elites dominated by people from Nepal's mountains have denied them a fair share of jobs in the government, police and army, and representation in parliament. It is demanding an autonomous region in the southern plains within a federal state. Ethnic Madhesis who live in the Terai are culturally and linguistically closer to people living in the neighbouring Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh than to Nepalis living in the mountains. Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, called the flare-up "deeply disturbing" and said protesters and police must refrain from using excessive force. "Ending discrimination and ensuring appropriate representation of excluded groups at all levels of decision-making during this critical time will be essential to the success of Nepal's political transition," she said in a statement released in Geneva. The government says it is ready for talks but protest leaders insist Home Minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula, whom they accuse of using excessive force, must resign first. The trouble started in January in the southern town of Lahan, when a Maoist activist shot dead a Madhesi protester. The government and former Maoist rebels say royalists are behind the unrest.

ITN Source | February 5, 2007

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