Patrick Leahy: “It may seem strange that on a day when the Congress is debating the budget resolution, I would be asking the Senate to…”

“It may seem strange that on a day when the Congress is debating the budget resolution, I would be asking the Senate to turn its attention for a moment to the remote and tiny nation of Nepal. I do so because for the past several years, a ruthless Maoist insurgency and a corrupt, repressive monarchy have brought that impoverished but breathtakingly beautiful country to the brink of disaster. It is important for the Nepalese people to know that while they may live half a world away, the difficulties they are facing have not gone unnoticed by the U.S. Congress. It has been almost 9 months since Nepal's King Gyanendra dismissed the multiparty government, suspended civil liberties, and arrested the prime minister along with other opposition political leaders, human rights defenders, prodemocracy student activists, and journalists. The king's explanation was that democracy had failed to solve the Maoist problem. He said that he would take care of it himself and then restore democracy after 3 years. It is true that Nepal's nascent democracy had not solved the Maoist problem. Neither had the king. In the 4\1/2\ years since King Gyanendra assumed the throne and became commander in chief of the Nepalese army, the Maoists have grown from a minor irritant to a national menace. While the Maoists use threats and violence to extort money and property and they abduct children from poor Nepalese villagers, the army often brutalizes those same people for suspicion of supporting the Maoists.…”