LONDON (AlertNet) - Ten years of fighting between Nepal’s Maoist rebels and government forces have claimed more than 13,000 lives and forced thousands more to flee their homes.

The Maoists, who want to abolish the monarchy, hold large swathes of the Himalayan kingdom – one of the world’s poorest countries.

The conflict escalated last year when King Gyanendra sacked the government and seized absolute power after accusing politicians of ruining the country.

He promised to restore democracy by 2008, and has organised municipal elections as a first step. But the main political parties have boycotted the Feb. 8 polls, dismissing them as an attempt by the king to legitimise his rule and sideline democratic groups.

Hundreds of other candidates have withdrawn from the elections following rebel threats to disrupt them.

The conflict has badly hurt tourism, an important source of income for the country where 42 percent of the population live below the national poverty line.

Uprooted by war

No precise figures exist for the number of people uprooted by the war. The United Nations puts the number of displaced people at between 100,000 and 200,000. Many live in urban slums, in need of food aid, healthcare and education services.

As many as 2 million people have crossed the border to India in recent years.

Internally displaced people (IDPs) include former land owners, political party members and families forced to leave their villages in search of work after their livelihoods were destroyed by the war.

According to the United Nations, some highland villages have lost up to 80 percent of their population with only vulnerable groups, such as the elderly, left behind.

The U.N. refugee body, UNHCR, says about 105,000 Bhutanese refugees live in camps in Nepal, having been stripped of their nationality and expelled from Bhutan in the early 1990s. There are also about 20,000 Tibetan refugees.

A bloody toll

Violence increased after the royal coup in February 2005. The army said 2,000 people were killed last year compared to an average of 1,200 in previous years.

Villagers often find themselves caught in the middle of the conflict. Maoists threaten to punish them if they refuse shelter. But if they do provide Maoists with shelter, they are open to attacks by state security forces.

Analysts say Maoists are imposing an increasingly authoritarian regime on many parts of rural Nepal. They regularly abduct civilians, and in many areas they force at least one person from each family to join them. Some villagers have been made to move to towns and cities after their livelihoods were destroyed by the Maoists.

Estimates of how much of rural Nepal is under Maoist control vary from nearly half (UNICEF) to 80 percent (Refugees International). The government still controls all district headquarters and urban areas.

Vigilante groups have been formed to protect villagers from the Maoists. Many of these groups are supported directly or indirectly by security forces, according to the United Nations. The local press has reported incidents of mobs killing and terrorising people suspected of being Maoist supporters.

The conflict and children

More than 8,000 children have lost one or both parents since the start of the Maoist rebellion, rights groups say. At least 375 children have been killed by both government forces and Maoists.

According to the U.N. children’s fund UNICEF, children under 16 in rebel-controlled areas are being trained in guerrilla warfare. UNICEF has also received reports of Maoists using children as cooks and porters near the frontline.

On a trip to the Maoist heartland last year, a Reuters team saw children scarcely more than 10 years old lugging rifles, members of a Maoist militia. Locals said children as young as 14 or 15 were recruited into the frontline fighting force, the “People’s liberation Army”.

The conflict has severely disrupted the education system, UNICEF says. Maoists have killed and threatened teachers, and kidnapped thousands of school-children.

The fighting has also hampered the government’s ability to deliver even basic healthcare. Half of all children under the age of five are underweight, according to the U.N. Development Programme.

Human rights abuses

Nepal has the largest number of disappearances in the world, according to Human Rights Watch – most of them carried out by national security forces.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), which closely monitors disappearances, documented 662 cases between November 2000 and November 2003.

International Crisis Group says state forces also torture prisoners and carry out extra-judicial executions and illegal detentions.

On the other side, Maoists regularly execute and torture civilians, according to Human Rights Watch. The victims are usually suspected government informants, local political activists, local government officials and individuals who refuse extortion demands from the Maoists.

The Maoists have also executed off-duty army and police officers, often capturing them when they return to their home villages.

Typically, the rebels inform the family of the killing and threaten them with similar treatment if they disobey Maoist demands.

In May 2005 the United Nations set up a human rights office in Nepal to monitor and investigate human rights violations. It is the second largest OHCHR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) in the world.

Aid workers struggle for access

Government officials and international aid workers find it hard to access areas that are controlled by the Maoists or caught up in the conflict. This makes it difficult for them to gather information, deliver aid and provide even basic health and education services.

The United Nations says there are many active local NGOs in Nepal, but they need stronger international support to deliver humanitarian aid.

The Asian Human Rights Commission has warned that a new code of conduct being discussed in Nepal will severely curb the freedom of NGOs by bringing them under closer government supervision, restricting the international aid they can receive and preventing their staff from joining political parties.

There are 46 international NGOs in Nepal. The government has restricted them to one international staff member each.

Political crisis

After taking power last year the king curbed civil liberties and imposed strict censorship rules on the media. Politicians have been jailed and protests curbed.

The main reasons the king gave for the coup was that the government had failed to tackle the Maoist rebellion or hold elections.

In November, seven leading political parties put aside their deep distrust of the Maoists to announce they had agreed to work together to end "the autocratic monarchy".

The Maoists also appeared to win political capital in September when they declared a unilateral ceasefire. They ended it this year after the government failed to follow suit.

Popular anger against the king has mounted with tens of thousands taking to the streets in protest. People are even talking openly about a republic – an idea once thought blasphemous in the world’s only Hindu monarchy where many see the king as a god.

Hundreds of activists have been detained ahead of planned demonstrations. In January the royalist government imposed a curfew and cut off phone lines to prevent a major rally.

The municipal elections are Nepal’s first polls for seven years. But the mainstream parties’ boycott and the Maoists’ threat to derail the elections are set to rob them of any credibility.

Who are the rebels and what do they want?

The rebels are made up of former members of the Communist Party of Nepal, founded in 1949. They are referred to as Maoists because they claim an ideological legacy from the Chinese Revolutionary leader Mao Zedong.

The Maoists had been involved in the establishment of Nepal’s first multiparty government in 1990 but dropped out in 1995 when their party splintered. A year later, under a new name, the Communist Party of Nepal – Maoist, the Maoists turned to violence and scare tactics to achieve their political aims.

The Maoists’ main demand is an end to the constitutional monarchy. They also want the expulsion of all Indian influence and an end to discrimination based on the Hindu caste system, ethnicity and gender.

Comments by a senior rebel leader during a recent interview with Nepal's Kantipur newspaper suggest the Maoists could be softening their opposition to the monarchy.

Associated Press quoted the leader as saying they would accept the monarchy provided the people were in favour of keeping it.

Ironically, many of the movement’s leaders come from the upper castes including the head of the movement, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, alias Prachanda, which means “the fierce one”, and his second-in-command and the group’s chief ideologue, Baburam Bhattarai.

The elite nature of the Maoists’ leadership has in fact been something of a liability. Though the Maoists play on ethnic and socioeconomic grievances, including land reform, and exploit popular dissent, they do not enjoy particular support from the lowest castes.

Who supports the rebellion?

Analysts say the Maoists are gaining momentum countrywide.

Nepal’s persistent underdevelopment has prompted support among the poor, who blame the government for failing to address the country’s gross inequalities. The districts in which the Maoists hold sway are among the most inaccessible and impoverished in Nepal.

But in general, a wide range of people who face bleak economic prospects, high unemployment rates and inadequate education and health care facilities have turned in hope to the Maoists’ cause.

Experts say the Maoists have recruited some 10,000-15,000 well-organised armed fighters. They tend to attack police stations and government officials, but have also targeted suspected police informants, landowners and other civilians.

They have set off bombs and wrought havoc by cutting telephone and electric lines and enforcing economic and transport blockades of hill-ringed Kathmandu.

Useful links:

Human Rights Watch Nepal page

International Crisis Group on Nepal

and International Crisis Group’s October 2005 report: Nepal's Maoists: Their Aims, Structure and Strategy

Nepal Government

U.N. Nepal Information Platform

Aid experts say why they picked Nepal's crisis for AlertNet's poll of the world’s 10 biggest "forgotten" emergencies in 2005, in which it came ninth: EXPERTS TALK: Crisis in Nepal