BBC News: Nepal rebels admit leaders rift (May 2005) Nepali Times: Trekking in the time of terrorism (Apr 2005) Time Asia: Gunning for Nepal (April 2005) Telegraph: Mystery of the missing Baburam Bhattarai (April 2005) Nepali Times: Travelling across Terathum (April 2005) Nepali Times: Trekking through Nepal ( (April 2005)

May 2005

Maoist rebels in Nepal, who have been fighting for a communist republic for the past 10 years, have admitted to a rift in their ranks.

Rebel leader Prachanda has said that he had serious differences with Baburam Bhattarai, the second most powerful person in the rebel movement.

Nepal's state-owned media had reported recently that Mr Bhattarai and his wife, Hisila Yami, had been expelled. The rebels have denied the reports, and ruled out a split in the party. But in an e-mail statement, Prachanda has listed a number of serious differences with Mr Bhattarai. He also appeared to confirm that Mr Bhattarai had been stripped of key positions he held in the party.

April 2005

Until two years ago, the trail from Terathum to Milke Danda and Jaljale Himal in the rhododendron season would be one long line of trekkers and porters.

This year, the mountains are ablaze again with Nepal's national flower. The trees are sagging a bit under the weight of late spring snow here in eastern Nepal and it's not just red, there are blossoms of every shade from pure white to deep red. But there are few trekkers here to enjoy the sight.

This is also the route to Kangchenjunga Base Camp via Taplejung and where rafters used to come to raft down the Tamur and Arun. But this spring there has been only a sprinkling of mountaineers headed up the mountains. April 2005

A distant clattering bounces off the snowy hills as 20 Maoist guerrillas approach a mountain pass deep in Nepal's rebel territory. The sound is too faint to fix as gunfire, so the guerrillas press on up the goat track. Then come the explosions.

The rebels halt and, panting in the thin air, squint up at the forest ridge that now marks the edge of the newest battlefield in their war. "Mortars," says a Maoist political officer. "Eighty-one millimeters," replies a teenage girl who has led the four-hour ascent from the valley floor. "And a chopper." Minutes later, a helicopter marked with the scarlet emblem of the Royal Nepalese Army (R.N.A.) skims the trees above the Maoists. They scatter, crouching as it flies off without spotting them. For now, the danger has passed, but the rebels later claim that the helicopter was on its way back from the village of Kharikot where it had killed scores of unarmed people as they celebrated the ninth anniversary of the Maoist rebellion. The R.N.A. insists the strike was legitimate, boasting that it surprised a group of 800 armed fighters, of whom 25 were killed.

April 2005

"Dr Baburam Bhattarai cleared the design of this building,"the taxi driver pointed to the showpiece Birendra International Conference Centre. Not true - it was designed and gifted by China.

"Dr Baburam Bhattarai designed the Rashtriya Banijya Bank, opposite Singha Durbar, in such a way that every room gets natural sunlight,"he went on. True, some say. Bhattarai did study architecture at Chandigarh and Delhi.

"He was such a good architect that the Americans offered him 1 lakh dollars to work for them but he refused,"the taxi driver went on. Can't be verified.

So what does Baburam Bhattarai do these days? "Woh Maobadi ka raja hai (he is the king of the Maoists),"he explained.

However, there are strong rumours in Kathmandu that the raja of Maobadi may have been placed under arrest by his own comrade and leader Prachanda, also known as Pushpakamal Dahal.

The first indication of trouble in the Maoist leadership came in March when the Royal Nepal Army claimed that Bhattarai and his wife Hisila Yami had been thrown out of the party.

However, through a public statement the Maoists clarified that both were still in the party.

April 2005

Across the green hills of eastern Nepal, with its scented forests and grand vistas, travelers are lulled into dreaming that peace has returned to this land. But the numerous checkpoints along the way, the charred hulks of burnt vans and tree trunks by the side of the road prove that even here the conflict is never very far away.

For the first six years of the conflict, eastern Nepal was largely unaffected. But the violence creeped in stealthily like a dangerous unseen epidemic. By 2003, the hinterlands of Khotang, Terathum, Sankhuwa Sabha, Bhojpur, Taplejung and Panchthar were reeling under Maoist tactics of murders, bombings and blockades. The chief architect of the Maoist expansion in the Arun Valley has been Basu Sakya, whose intention was to make Sankhuwa Sabha 'the Rolpa of the east'.

April 2005

The first time I visited Nepal in 1999, the people were shrugging the Maoists off as a flash in the pan. A year later they were seen as a nuisance. By 2002, villagers had fear written on their faces and in 2004, it had changed to a heavy feeling of despair, resignation and fading hope. They were fed up with extortion, the fall in trekking tourism caused by the insurgency and felt let down by successive governments in Kathmandu incapable of resolving the crisis.