Nepal palace massacre

[John Mage]

A Commission consisting of the Chief Justice and the Speaker of the
Parliament has now issued a report. It repeats the incredible story that
the crown prince (frustrated in his desire to marry the girl he loved),
while drunk and stoned massacred his entire immediate family. But the
report does not deal with how the crown prince himself was killed, an
omission that discredits the entire exercise, since it has been reported
that his wounds were either in his back or in his left temple (he was
right handed).

The right wing communists, the Communist Party of Nepal (United
Marxist-Leninist) - normally referred to as the UML or the "mailais" -
who form the official opposition in the parliament to the Nepali
Congressi government, announced yesterday that after a review of the
commission's work that they have "taken the report in a positive note."
But according to the quite reactionary South China Post, lots of Nepalis
are not going along with the official script.

john mage

	South China Morning Post  Saturday, June 16, 2001

              NEPAL

              Disbelief greets report on massacre of royal family 

              AGENCIES in Kathmandu

                

                Prominent Nepalis expressed doubt yesterday over the
conclusion of the official investigation into the royal massacre, which
branded Crown Prince Dipendra a murderer. 

                At every street corner in Kathmandu, the kingdom's
capital, people could be seen avidly reading newspaper accounts of the
report which called Dipendra a drug-taking murderer. 

                A two-member commission set up by King Gyanendra,
brother of the late King Birendra, to investigate the killings at the
royal palace made its report public late on Thursday. It set out in
detail how Dipendra, who had been drinking heavily and smoking hashish,
managed to change into army combat uniform before shooting nine members
of his family in a drunken spree on June 1. 

                Leader of the left-wing United People's Front, Lila Mani
Pokharel, said: "The royal commission's report is merely a statement
without any conclusion. How can an intoxicated and drunk person carry so
many arms by himself and hit his targets so accurately? The report is
contradictory and incomplete because it failed to say who killed
Dipendra." 

                An activist from the ruling Nepali Congress Party,
Mathbar Singh Basnet, agreed. "A drunk and intoxicated Dipendra could
not put on his commando dress all by himself so quickly and carry so
many weapons." 

                The chief editor of Kathmandu weekly newspaper Sanghu ,
Gopal Budhathoki, said he was puzzled that the report said there was a
bullet mark on Dipendra's left temple. "A right-handed person would not
commit suicide by shooting himself on the left side of the temple," he
said. 

                Meanwhile, a court freed on bail the editor and two
executives of the top-selling Kantipur daily charged with sedition over
an article by a Maoist leader alleging the massacre was a conspiracy and
calling on the army to revolt.