As the battle over democracy rages in the South Asian kingdom of Nepal, members of the local Nepalese community are watching with anxiety as protesters ? some of them family members ? clash with police.
“People are dying all the time,” said Suman Puri,27, an immigrant from Nepal. “Every family has someone protesting.”
One of the roughly 5,000 Nepalese that he said live in the state, Puri said the poor kingdom that he left four years ago is caught between a despotic king who has disbanded parliament in January 2005 and a Maoist insurgency.
“The people are in the middle of battle over power,” Puri said. “The king wants power and insurgents want power, and our people suffer,” he said.
Puri, who works at an Exxon station in Northeast Baltimore along with his brother, Sahoj, said he calls his family every night, up from once a week. “The army is fighting against the people” he said. “People want to vote, they want a democracy, and the king will not allow it,” he said
Nepal, a monarchy of 28 million people sandwiched between China and India, has been rocked with protests since King Gyanedra Bir Bikram Shah disbanded parliament.
Nepal is one of the world?s poorest and least-developed countries. In 1990, it became a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary deomcracy. There are no direct elections.
On Monday, the king said he would recall parliament, but Suman Puri said he has heard that people are continuing to protest, though news reports say the protests are now subsiding.
“They don?t trust the king. They want full democracy,” he said.
Suman Puri said he has learned much about democracy living in the United States for four years, lessons that have changed his idea about how government should work in Nepal.
“Nobody closes schools here for political reasons, and you can speak freely. It?s very different from Nepal,” he said.
“There is so much opportunity here,” he said. “I just want the same thing for my people.”
