AFP. 20 January 2002. Four die in Nepal despite Powell visit.
KATHMANDU -- Three members of Nepal's ruling party were killed by Maoists and one rebel died in weekend fighting, reports said Sunday, just as US Secretary of State Colin Powell was visiting the insurgency-rocked kingdom. A former school teacher who was an activist for the Nepali Congress, Kedar Nath Ghimire, was kidnapped from his house Saturday morning in Lamjung district and killed about 100 metres (yards) from his house, the Nepali-language evening newspaper Mahanagar said. Ruling party supporters were also killed in the western districts of Kanchanpur and Myagdi, local press reports said. A Maoist was also killed Saturday in a clash that erupted when rebels attacked a security patrol, the defence ministry said in a statement. The incidents came as Powell held talks in Nepal on Friday before leaving Saturday, in the highest-raking US visit to the impoverished kingdom since vice-president Spiro Agnew visited, in 1971. In a separate incident Sunday, four soldiers and several rebels were injured by a Maoist-planted boobytrap, state radio said. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews
