Nepal’s Prime Minister and the Chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN-Maoist), Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda on Saturday left for the United States to attend the UN General Assembly in New York.
Prachanda, whom the US Administration previously labeled as a ‘terrorist’ leader, led a 10-year armed insurgency called “People’s War” in most of the rural Nepal. After the collapse of the monarchist monorule, he has been heading a coalition government of the country.
Before April 2006, the United States had been providing King and the parties serving him military and economic assistance against the insurgents. Other countries, including Nepal’s neighbor India, had also sided with the feudal monarchy.
When millions of people took out to the streets by defying King’s 19-day 22-hour curfews and pushed the monarchy to the brink, many pro-monarchy ruling parties had tried to restore monarchy but in vain.
After the election of the Constituent Assembly on April 10 when most of the Nepalis voted for the Maoist party, the Assembly abolished the 240-year old monarchy.
Immediately after having emerged as Nepal’s largest political party, the CPN-Maoist assured the world that it would not be against the universal principles of democracy and human rights and would continue its political exercises with its commitment to multiparty competition.
Prime Minister Prachanda’s participation in the UN General Assembly will, people believe, also help to ease the bilateral relations between Nepal and the United States.