Maoist faction threatens Nepal with indefinite strike

TENS of thousands of supporters of Nepal's Maoist former rebels protested yesterday, demanding the resumption of a power-sharing deal that ended the country's civil war.

Demonstrators, waving hammer and sickle flags and sporting red headbands, poured into Katmandu and were housed in hundreds of schools.

They gathered at a city-centre park, demanding that Maoist ministers be re-instated after they quit in a row with the president.

Nepal is perched between Asian giants China and India, with the two countries vying for influence over the Himalayan nation.

The former guerrillas headed a coalition government in 2008 after a surprise win in an election for a constituent assembly, a body tasked to prepare a new constitution, part of a peace deal to end a ten-year civil war and do away with the monarchy.

But they walked out after President Ram Baran Yadav refused to endorse their dismissal of Nepal's army chief.

Rally speakers demanded the Maoists be put at the head of a new cabinet and that the current government be dismissed on grounds that it had failed to draft the constitution. "If our demands are not met by the end of Saturday, then we'll launch an indefinite strike from Sunday," senior Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai said yesterday.

The ruling coalition, a loose alliance of 22 political parties, says it is ready to take the Maoists on board, but will not let the former guerrillas take responsibility for forming a new cabinet.