| How long the Puppets in Kathmandu Will survive with foreign support. Pumpkins dont walk if you provide it legs!!
Sultan
------UK to train Nepal's anti-rebel forces
Funds, helicopters and bomb disposal gear promised
Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor
Thursday June 20, 2002
The Guardian
Britain is to shore up the Nepalese forces fighting a Maoist insurgency with military aid, including helicopters. The aid programme will be announced in the next few days.
The situation in Nepal has deteriorated sharply in the past six months, during which 2,800 people have been killed, prompting the fear in the west that the Katmandu government could fall.
Katmandu made a direct appeal to Britain for help last month .
The US, whose Congress is discussing a £13.5m military package, wants Britain to lead what the Foreign Office minister Mike O'Brien called "part of the overall battle against terrorism".
"The Maoists must be made to realise that this is a war they cannot win and that the only way forward is through peaceful negotiation," Mr O'Brien said yesterday.
The British announcement, which is still being worked on, will contain proposals for both military and economic development aid.
The decision to step up the engagement in Nepal extends the long list of countries where Britain has become involved since Labour came to power in 1997.
Mr O'Brien told a Foreign Office press conference yesterday: "A substantial amount of the funds have been allocated for training and equipment support for the Royal Nepalese Army, with whom we have traditional links."
He said money was being provided for training "to help the police re-engage in rural communities and win back some of the trust lost during the conflict as a result of human rights abuses", and Britain planned further help in intelligence, military equipment and training.
The Maoists, who model themselves on Peru's Shining Path, are thought to have 5,000 core members, to control a handful of Nepal's 75 districts, and to have a presence throughout the mountainous country.
Officials stressed there were no plans to put British forces on the ground, and that the help to Nepalese soldiers and policemen would primarily involve training and financial and logistical support.
Vehicles, radios and bomb disposal equipment are to be sent, along with two helicopters, which are vital in shifting troops to flashpoints because of the mountainous terrain.
Officials declined to specify how many British servicemen were in Nepal or would be going there, saying it was difficult to put a figure on it because they were going in and out on short attachments.
Britain hopes that a conference in London today, attended by the US, India, China and Russia among others, will lead to more promises of international support for Nepal.
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