Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-05-18-Speech-4-138"
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"en.20060518.21.4-138"2
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".
Mr President, following weeks of massive demonstrations, with hundreds injured and even killed, King Gynanendra, at the beginning of May, at last caved in and surrendered the power of which he had taken possession in February 2005. His imposition of a state of emergency had been justified on the basis that the authorities had failed to defeat the Maoists in battle. What has been going on in Nepal over recent months has been quite unparalleled.
Having visited it over a dozen times, I know this state in the Himalayas very well. Its people had spent years enduring a terror regime with arbitrary arrests, and they vented their fury in active resistance, which will, in due course, make a return to democracy possible. A new multi-party coalition under a very experienced prime minister, Girija Prasad Koirala, commenced face-to-face negotiations with the rebels. It is planned that a constitutional assembly be summoned to decide what form the state should take in future, and the Maoists have declared themselves willing to accept its decision. I believe it to be particularly important that they should now also lay down their weapons and cease from standing in the way of the country’s democratic development.
I hope that the new coalition will be able to muster all its forces in order to maintain public safety on a lasting basis. Political detainees, human rights activists, students and journalists must be set at liberty. The tens of thousands who have been sent into exile must at last be allowed back into their homeland without needing to fear for their lives. I now expect the Tibetan refugee centre and the Dalai Lama’s office in Kathmandu to be reopened.
We Europeans should show our solidarity by sending a group of MEPs to Nepal as soon as possible. Let us encourage those who are involved in the re-establishment of democracy, both the non-governmental organisations and the ordinary public, who will need not only technical and financial help from outside – important though that is – but also stability and peace at home. Let us hope, too, that tourism – the main source of income for a country that is still a fascinating one – will flourish once more: Namaste!"@en1
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