NEPAL, April 27, 2002: The bodies of the Maoist rebels were still scattered across parched lentil fields almost a week after thousands of their comrades swarmed a police garrison here. “When one Maoist was killed, another came forward,” said Deepak Hamal, a young policeman who survived the battle in mid-April. “They were there to kill or to die.” In recent months the Maoist rebellion, led by two college-educated, upper caste brahmins, has spiraled in intensity. Last year the Maoists set up “people’s government’s” in 22 districts. When the Nepalese won their long struggle for democracy in 1990, the Maoists were in the mainstream, part of a communist alliance with a small number of parliamentary seats. But in 1994 the election commission barred the alliance from taking part, an act the courts later ruled illegal. Peace talks broke off several months ago, and the violence has reached an alarming rate. The US has offered military advice to the government, an action which is said to have alarmed China.
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