Nepal Conference to Challenge Authoritarian Rule

In Nepal from 10-12 September, presence of top-level global trade union leaders made a march and working seminar entitled Wider National Workers’ Conference both peaceful and unprecedented for the Himalayan country. Some 1,800 workers and their representatives from Nepal’s three national union centers marched from Dilli Bazaar in Katmandu into a mass meeting at Padmakanya High School in Naya Baneshwore on 10 September denouncing the Nepalese monarchy’s autocratic rule and calling for an “absolute democracy” that ensures workers’ and human rights. The conference adopted a 15-point resolution and a declaration calling the weekend event a turning point for all Nepal’s workers to escape the killings, torture, suppression and harassment imposed on them by both the ruling monarchy and extremist political forces inside Nepal.