Actually, I consider this to be a good sign...
Angry villagers lynched seven Maoist rebels in rural Nepal after the guerrillas kidnapped and released some 1,500 people in an abduction campaign that has sparked international concern, officials said on Thursday. The violence came as shops were closed and traffic off the streets across the Himalayan kingdom on the last day of a three-day Maoist strike. Most of 1,500 youths snatched Tuesday were freed after the Maoists, who want to set up a communist state, made them attend an indoctrination session, said Bhanu Dev Badu, chief administrator of the southwestern Kanchanpur district. "The villagers were taken to a place 35 kilometres away and most were released after a Maoist-affiliated peasant organisation held a meeting with them," Badu told AFP.
| Held a "Come to Mao" meeting, little red book in one hand and AK-47 in the other. |
Enraged by the abductions, villagers on Thursday caught eight rebels and beat seven of them to death, turning over the guerrilla leader to troops, said an army official, Colonel Ramsharan Karki. "The villagers also seized a semi-automatic machine gun and a few locally made guns and bombs," Karki said.
| Well, so much for winning those hearts and minds. |
| Maybe they should work on that lecture's content a little... |
| In contrast, the content of the villagers' lecture seemed perfectly clear. |
In a southeastern district, Ilam, a large band of Maoists attacked a police post where 65 police were stationed, killing a police inspector and a junior officer, a police spokesman said. He said the bodies of two Maoists had been recovered but more could have been carried away by the rebels when they fled. Eighteen policemen who were in the post at the time of the attack had contacted authorities but "45 other policemen are feared to have been abducted by the rebels and a search is on to find them," the spokesman said. A wave of abductions by the rebels has prompted criticism at home and abroad amid reports that villagers in southern Nepal were fleeing for safety across the Indian border.
| Arm the villagers, they seem to be doing better than the cops. |
Rajendra Singh Rawal, the Kanchanpur district secretary for the opposition Nepal Communist Party-United Marxist and Leninist, which opposes the Maoists, said at least 3,000 villagers left their homes for India or neighbouring districts after Tuesday’s abductions. "The government has completely failed to protect villagers, who got kidnapped in broad daylight," Rawal said.
| "We Marxist Leninist Communists should be in charge, we have nothing in common with those Maoists! Really! Why are you rolling your eyes like that?" |
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