Kathmandu, May 25 (IANS) On the very day that European Union envoys met Maoist chief Prachanda to express concern about the militant activities of a controversial youth wing of the once outlawed party, cadres of the same unit were reported as pelting a UN vehicle with stones in eastern Nepal, apparently because it was carrying the US ambassador, the guerrillas’ bete noire.
James Francis Moriarty and the vehicle belonging to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that he was travelling in came under a fusillade of stones Friday from the Young Communist League, currently the most talked about unit of the rebels, private television channel Kantipur reported.
The American ambassador was returning from a visit to a camp in Jhapa district in eastern Nepal, the residence of Bhutanese refugees.
He had gone there to give them details of the US resettlement offer as well as announce that the American Food for Peace (FFP) program run by USAID, Washington’s foreign aid wing, will provide an additional $2 million in food aid to the camps besides the US’s first donation of $1.8 million.
On Wednesday, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, had visited one of the camps in eastern Nepal without any untoward incident.
The American Embassy in Kathmandu confirmed the attack but said it did not know who the assailants were.
Earlier this month, rights body Human Rights Watch said the US resettlement offer has triggered rising tension in the camps with refugees favouring returning to Bhutan trying to intimidate the pro-resettlement group into rejecting the offer.
A new party - the Communist party of Bhutan-Marxist Leninist Maoist - is lobbying for pressuring the Bhutan government to take the refugees back. There have been reports in Nepal’s media that the Bhutanese Maoists favour staging an armed uprising, much as the Nepal Maoists did.
Alarmed by the reports, the UNHCR held consultations with Nepal’s home ministry, resulting in Nepal reinstating police pickets in all the camps.
Ratan Gazmere, a senior Bhutanese refugee leader, says much of the opposition to the resettlement offer is because it is perceived as coming from the US, that is the favourite whipping boy of most left parties.
However, other western countries like Canada have also made resettlement offers.
Guterres went to Bhutan Thursday to discuss repatriation with the Bhutan government. The envoy says the refugees should have as many options as possible.
The attack comes even as EU ambassadors to Nepal, headed by German ambassador Franz Ring, met Maoist supremo Prachanda Friday to express their concern.
Ring said the EU was concerned that free and fair elections would not be possible in view of the deteriorating internal political situation in Nepal. The bloc is also concerned about the growing militant activities of the YCL that has been attacking government offices and officials.
The mounting criticism of the cadres caused Prachanda this week to meet their leaders and advise them to use restraint.