New king faces long struggle to gain trust of Nepalese

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King Gyanendra, the new King of Nepal, yesterday clamped another long curfew ­ only seven hours after the previous one expired ­ on the Himalayan kingdom where last Friday nearly the entire royal family died in a hail of bullets.

From midday to midnight few people stirred outside their homes in Kathmandu, where on Monday two people died in riots that flared across the city. As the hour of curfew approached, residents and tourists scurried to finish their errands and get home.

At the edge of Thamel, the city-centre district full of bars, restaurants and cyber cafés, a group of Nepalese squatted on the pavement studying a photograph in a local newspaper of the chubby, stubbly face of King Dipendra lying on his funeral bier shortly before his cremation on Monday.

"Gyanendra is now king, but we don't like him," said a young man in the group. "He is like Hitler. His son killed King Birendra, his son, the new crown prince, Paras Shah. He is an underworld man."

"Everyone is talking about this," said a local journalist. "All over Nepal, no one is talking about anything else."

On Friday night, after the regular weekly royal dinner party, Crown Prince Dipendra allegedly raked his close relatives with submachine gun fire, following an argument about his choice of bride. He then turned the gun on himself and died on Monday morning after two days in a coma in hospital. In all 10 people died.

In this deeply traditional kingdom of 23 million people where the king is regarded as a god, the shock has been profound. And as the riots, which broke out immediately after Dipendra's death was announced on Monday, made clear, the new king faces a huge task in making himself acceptable to his people.

He set about the task in a workmanlike manner after his coronation, announcing an investigation into the circumstances of Friday's massacre by a well-respected, three-man team, required to report within three days.

But the initiative quickly became snarled in controversy when one of the three, an opposition Communist leader, Madhav Kumar Nepal, refused to take part because the King had failed to have the investigation cleared by the cabinet. The team has yet to start work.

In a proclamation on Monday night, the king sought to remove the fears of the people who call him Hitler. He said that the wishes of the late King Birendra in "guiding the Nepalese people towards a prosperous future through constitutional monarchy and multiparty democratic exercises will always remain a source of inspiration for all of us".

That is subtly different from saying that he agreed with his late brother's ideas, or that he would follow them; and it will take a lot more than an emollient proclamation to reassure Nepal. He is believed to have opposed King Birendra's decision in 1990 to accede to demands of protesters for a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy ­ not least because, while the king remained sacrosanct, he and other members of the family became fair game for public criticism.

Yesterday's abrupt imposition of a new curfew showed that the new king has no problem with baring his iron teeth. The only demonstration yesterday morning consisted of some two dozen shaven-headed men marching towards the palace carrying national flags demanding an explanation for the massacre.

They were all arrested. Otherwise there were no other incidents that might have prompted a second clampdown. But if the curfew is reimposed day after day, it is the surest way of choking the life out of any incipient rebellion.

One senior foreign diplomat said last night that it appeared the Army had taken a view that if a mob was to descend on the palace, it would have to fire on it. "They don't want to have to do that, hence the curfew... the efficiency and the logic has the ring of the army."

Confusion and misery regarding the bloody events of Friday continued to dominate the country. "Most Nepalese feel that if the royal family does not exist, Nepal does not exist," a prominent trade unionist said. "There are two views about the killings. One is that it was a way of wiping out the royal family, and in that way wiping out independent Nepal. Now only two members of the royal family remain alive. If they were to die the dynasty is finished.

"The other view is that the new king really wanted to be king..." These are the clouds of suspicion and mistrust that King Gyanendra will have to work hard to sweep away in the coming weeks and months. Aside from the conspiracy theories about the true author of Friday's tragedy, there are deep misgivings about the new king's commitment to democracy. With Nepal's fledgling democracy locked in bitter factional wrangles, and the Kathmandu Post yesterday calling for Prime Minister Girija Koirala to resign, the King will have his reserves of statesmanship sorely tested.

And first he has to make it to the end of the week. "He will have to work very hard to instill confidence in he people," said a former prime minister, Krishna Prasad Bhattarai.