In June 2001, during what appeared to be a drunken or drug-induced shooting spree, the Crown Prince Dipendra massacred 10 Royal Family members, including his own father, King Birendra, then shot himself in the head. King Birendra’s brother, Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, succeeded the throne, but the royal massacre/suicide remains a controversial subject. Dipendra was right handed, yet his final bullet’s point of entry was on his left temple. This and other shady issues have led some to conclude that Gyanendra — not Dipendra — killed the Royal Family.
In October 2002, Gyanendra seized control of the parliament, dismissing his cabinet for “incompetence,” citing their failure to disband the Maoists. This ballooned into a dysfunctional and hostile triangle between the Maoists, Nepal’s seven key political parties, and the Royal Monarch. A year later, the King declared Nepal to be in a “state of emergency.”
On September 14, 2004, four days after two bombs exploded outside the American Center compound in Kathmandu (the building sustained significant damage, but no one was killed), the U.S. State Department issued an official warning to all American tourists visiting Nepal that “the random, indiscriminate, and unpredictable nature of these attacks creates the risk of U.S. citizens in Nepal being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) had been continually reporting widespread harassment and extortion by the Maoists (an October 21, 2003, statement released by the Maoists threatened violence against NGOs funded by “American imperialism”), and, after the State Department warning, the Peace Corps suspended its operations in the country. Of Nepal’s 75 districts all but one had suffered violence related to the Maoists. News circulated on the Internet of armed rebel attacks, vehicle burnings, landmine explosions, and of Maoist roadblocks that had, at times, completely sealed off the Kathmandu Valley. Even with all these warnings and potential hazards, visiting Nepal — a country comprised mainly of peaceful Hindus and Buddhists — still seemed a reasonable risk to most climbers and expeditions.
Matters escalated in February 2005, when King Gyanendra declared “absolute” power over his people, the parliament, the military, and the press in an attempt to usurp the Maoists. This single event ushered in a deeper wave of civil unrest, inciting violent protests in Kathmandu, which in turn led to more curfews and the RNA’s street-side presence. As well, two and-three day “lock-downs” throughout the Kathmandu Valley provided RNA officials with the opportunity to arrest dissenting political party members, suspected Maoists, and journalists directly from their homes. In the months leading up to my first arrival in Nepal, in April 2005, the lock-downs, curfews, press censorship — even cell-phone controls — ignited far greater fear than loyalty among Nepal’s citizens, who saw Gyanendra as increasingly corrupt and democracy as a failed experiment.