Nepal's King checkmate

The boston GLOBE EDITORIAL

April 22, 2006

THE ANNOUNCEMENT yesterday that Nepal's King Gyanendra will yield his monopoly on power -- as demanded by swelling throngs of protesters this month -- may signify a victory for people power in that Himalayan nation. It may also be a sign that the political tide in Asia is flowing in a democratic direction.

Gyanendra seized total power and declared a state of emergency in February 2005, justifying his dismissal of the serving prime minister and government as necessary to combat a violent Maoist rebellion. If the king's Friday declaration that executive power ''shall from this day forward be returned to the people" is to have real meaning, he will need to release his iron grip not only on the government but also on the press and other outlets for free speech.

The king's security forces arrested, attacked, or threatened more than 400 journalists last year.

According to the media-monitoring organization Reporters Without Borders, Nepal accounted for fully half of the world's censorship cases in 2005.

There will be a triumph for the 150,000 protesters who braved beatings and shootings this month in Katmandu only if the king's pledge to yield power leads to a genuine democratic transformation. The seven political parties that had formed an alliance to lead the recent demonstrations against Gyanendra's harsh rule must truly be allowed to govern. Political prisoners, who have too often been subjected to torture, will have to be released.

The king will have to keep what he described Friday as his ''unflinching commitment to constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy." This means he will have to refrain from intervening intermittently in Nepal's political life as he has done in the past, when declaring a state of emergency, dismissing governments, and postponing elections on the grounds of royal caprice.

The chances of confining the king permanently to a mostly symbolic role in Nepal's traditional monarchy will depend on the ability of the seven-party alliance to at least neutralize the Maoist rebels, who now field 10,000 to 15,000 fighters and control large areas in the countryside. They represent a vestigial spasm of the brand of revolutionary communism that produced Peru's Shining Path movement and Pol Pot's murderous Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Human Rights groups report that Nepal's Maoists mirror the king's security forces in committing extra-judicial assassinations and torturing political enemies.

It will not be easy for the democracy movement in Nepal to steer between the shoals of absolutist royal repression and Maoist rebellion. But if Asia's democratic tide can reach Nepal, the time may not be far off when the despotic regimes in Burma and North Korea may also be swept away by people power.