A photograph of King Gyanendra lands in a ditch with other items tossed there by anti-monarchy demonstrators in Kathmandu.

KATHMANDU, NEPAL – My first experience with King Gyanendra Shah was in February 2004. He was scheduled for an official visit to the city in Nepalgunj, which is quite possibly the least charming place on earth. Nepal is a stunningly beautiful country — green hills terraced with rice patties, and a backdrop of the jagged Himalayas. But Nepalgunj is the exception. The main roads are lined with open sewers that simmer in the choking heat. Statues of previous Shah dynasty kings mark the intersections. Each one is guarded by soldiers and ringed with sand bag and razor wire fortifications. Donkey carts and rickshaws pull passengers to the nearby Indian border. No tourists visit the place. Foreigners I met were there working for NGOs trying to stem the flow of young Nepalese girls to brothels in India.

In preparation for the royal visit, three-hundred bamboo arches were constructed. Spanning the roads at intervals of every 100 feet, the two-story arches were covered in bright cloth and painted with the slogan “Long Live Their Majesties the King and Queen.”

There was a darker side of the preparations for a royal visit. Just before midnight, Royal Nepal Army soldiers pounded on the door and demanded to search my hotel room. I had to stand off to side in my underwear while two guys with M-16s poked through my belongings.

Gyanendra arrived two hours late by helicopter the next morning. A Jaguar limousine shipped from the capital in a sealed truck was there to shuttle him a hundred yards from the chopper to the stadium entrance. Inside, about 20,000 people had been herded into rodeo-style pens. There was only one chair, the throne, and everyone else sat in the dirt.

Despite the heavy symbolism suggesting this king was above all others, the constitution of Nepal drafted in 1990 had relegated the monarchy outside politics with only limited ceremonial powers. Gyanendra himself was crowned in 2001, after his elder brother King Birendra was gunned down by his own son inside the palace along with nine other members of the royal family. Once king, Gyanendra began steadily dismantling the constitutional restrictions placed on his power. When he rose to speak at the stadium in Nepalgunj, he hinted at bolder moves ahead:

“The days of Monarchy being seen but not heard, watching the people’s difficulties but not addressing them and being a silent spectator to their tear-stained faces are over.”

One year later, in February 2005, the King made good on his promise. He declared a state of emergency, arrested the Prime Minister, sent soldiers into newsrooms, and cut telephone service across the country. Working in Nepal as a journalist, suddenly got much more difficult.

I spent the first weeks after his seizure of power trekking through the mountains with Maoist insurgents. The rebels had been trying to topple the monarchy for ten years and form a communist republic. Though they made progress spreading their ideology and control through rural areas, the heavily fortified cities remained beyond their grasp.

Inside Kathmandu, pro-democracy activists also attempted resistance against palace rule, but for months the protests didn’t gain any traction. Countless times, I watched as small demonstrations were quickly broken up by baton-wielding riot police and the protesters were dragged off by officers. High level political leaders were placed in prison or under house arrest.

Fast forward to this Spring, and simmering popular outrage finally boiled over against the palace. The Maoists negotiated an alliance with the mainstream political parties, offering to jointly pressure the King. Student groups, lawyers and other civil society members chimed in their dissent. When the opposition planned anti-monarchy rallies that looked like they would be a success, the government responded by imposing daytime curfews. Armored vehicles were deployed around the palace and soldiers with machine guns lined the major avenues.

On April 20th, a “shoot-on-sight” curfew was imposed from 2:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. with no exceptions. On previous occasions, police had issued selective passes to ambulances, journalists and diplomats. There were two other photographers staying at my hotel in Kathmandu, and we brainstormed together to figure out a way to get onto the streets. Some other foreign correspondents had decided to move to the Hyatt hotel, on the outskirts of the city, outside the curfew area. We decided that it was located too far away from the likely protest flash-points on our side of the city. Despite the conflict, Nepal has a steady stream of the backpacker tourists passing through, and there are usually a few wandering around obliviously on curfew days. We decided to shed the majority of our camera gear, put on touristy cloths and try to play dumb if we ran into soldiers. Early in the morning, pretending we were just following the Lonely Planet guide’s suggestions to visit a temple, we were able to map out a section of back streets unguarded by security forces. Later in the morning, when rumors started pouring in of police clashing with protesters, we donned our flak jackets and cameras, hopped on motorbikes and were able to sneak through the back alleys without getting caught.

When we arrived in the neighborhood of Kalanki, a full street battle was taking place. A riot policeman initially screamed threats at me to stop taking pictures, but soon they were too overwhelmed by rock throwing protesters to worry about us. The air stung with with tear gas as I followed charging police toward the crowd. One of the officers was firing an assault rifle just over the heads of demonstrators. My main challenge was trying to get between the the two sides to take photos while finding enough cover to keep clear from the volleys of rocks and bullets. I raced into a field with retreating protesters and one pulled me into a room where injured people were splayed across the floor. When I headed back out, I could hear a pistol firing. A man who was standing on a rooftop throwing rocks was shot in the head by an officer. Screaming protesters with their hands covered in his blood carried his body to microbus and the police momentarily opened their line to let it through.

In an instant, the mood totally changed. The protesters stopped throwing stones and hung far back from the police line. Slowly two or three demonstrators moved closer crying and pleading with the police.

One opened his shirt and offered his chest to the police as a target. “You shot my friend, now shoot me… we are doing this for you too. Democracy is for everyone, not just the King.”

A look of shame crept over the faces of the police as more protesters moved forward and peacefully pleaded with them. They began to sit on the ground at the feet of the police. The message was clear: You know you were wrong, we don’t need to fight you to prove it.

For several minutes the curiously calm mood prevailed, and then a cluster of enraged protesters started pelting the gathering with rocks from rooftops above. Tear gas was fired, tires set on fire, and the street battle raged on well into the evening with renewed frenzy. By the end of the day two more protesters were dead.

The following day, the government imposed another curfew, but this time people defied the orders in the hundreds of thousands. The biggest march seen in more than a decade gathered along the Ring Road that circles the municipality of Kathmandu. Most of the crowd was peaceful, but late in the afternoon protesters started tearing down a police post near the site of the previous day’s shooting.

In the following days, several neighborhoods along the Ring Road were taken over by protesters. Dozens of trees were felled across the road, and burning road blocks were set up to stop security forces. Police managed to beat back crowds heading toward the palace and the city center, but along the city’s periphery crowds formed in defiance of the continued curfew orders, setting fire to effigies, and stringing up dead rats marked “Gyanendra” while chanting “burn the crown.”

More chillingly, a trend started where protesters would turn on one individual in the crowd. It was sufficient for one person to yell “spy” or “thief” and a mob would form and try to beat the person to death with their bare hands before asking any questions. On several occasions, myself and other photographers stepped in to hold back the attackers before the individual could be killed. In general, Nepalis are unusually tolerant people, but the mood was turning increasing nasty, and it was clear that if the King clung to power much longer major bloodshed would ensue.

The opposition parties called for a major protest on April 25th. By bringing people in from the countryside, they claimed they could form a crowd of two million and march on the palace. At 11:30 p.m. on the 24th, the King came on television and tersely issued a short proclamation. He released his grip on executive power and reinstated the parliament. Gyanendra’s direct rule of Nepal was finished.

[reportage of the anti-monarchy revolt]

[excerpts of this blog on PDNonline]

[Copyright Tomas van Houtryve. Do not copy, archive or re-post without written permission. All rights reserved.]