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Intelligence agencies and senior Bush administration officials say their investigations do not indicate any conspiracy in the massacre of the royal family in Nepal.
All indications are, say intelligence sources, that it was one man -- Crown Prince Dipendra -- who gunned down his family before shooting himself.
The officials, however, acknowledge that the tragedy could have a negative fallout, in that it could embolden the Maoists and encourage them to exploit it to end Nepal's fledgling democracy.
"What happened on June 1 is no longer an issue," a senior US official told this correspondent. He said that judging by public statements, eyewitness accounts and reports from American investigative agencies, Washington was convinced that "it was a case of one man gone horribly wrong".
This official, and others, asserted that Washington did not see any political motivation to the massacre. "We are very anxious to see the investigating commission's report," the official said. "We know that the people of Nepal want to see all the facts to come out, although even when it does, it will be difficult for everyone to accept what the report says."
The official reiterated that when Washington indicated that it was satisfied there was no conspiracy behind the killings, it was not trying to pre-empt the commission.
Senior officials said the US is as deeply concerned as the Nepalese government about the Maoists, who have already tried to exploit the situation.
Elaborating, one official pointed to the op-ed article in Kantipur, a Nepali-language newspaper, and The Kathmandu Post, an English-language daily, titled 'New Massacre Should Not Be Endorsed', by Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai. The article charged that the palace massacre was a conspiracy orchestrated by the US Central Intelligence Agency and India's Research and Analysis Wing. The article also called on Nepalese citizens to reject newly crowned King Gyanendra as a "puppet of Indian expansionist forces".
"He is the chief theoretician of the Maoists," one official pointed out, but was circumspect when asked if the newspapers allowed themselves to be used by carrying Bhattarai's article.
"We believe that the Nepalese need to work this problem and we believe that the grievances that the Maoist insurgency is based on needs to be resolved through a peaceful democratic political process," the official said, adding that any such process "includes freedom of speech".
During her confirmation hearings on May 19 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Christina Rocca had warned that the Maoist insurgency in Nepal was growing, and that it was a matter of grave concern to the US.
Rocca was responding to questions by Senator Paul Wellstone (Minnesota, Democrat), who will head the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on South Asia.
Asked what the US could do to help resolve the problem, Rocca said, "The US role in helping can be on a number of planes. The issue really is how to deal with the roots of this problem, what is making this insurgency so popular. And these are grinding poverty, ignorance and corruption of law enforcement, and low literacy levels."
The US, meanwhile, continued to call for the immediate release of the journalists arrested by the Nepalese government on charges of treason.
State department spokesman Richard Boucher, who confirmed that the US had sent a representative to attend the arraignment of these journalists, said, "We are following the case closely and have urged the Government of Nepal to free the journalists. We consider free press to be an essential element of a healthy democracy."
Boucher noted that in recent years the Nepalese press had become much more independent, and "we have seen that independence as a good sign for Nepal's future".
The Committee to Protect Journalists also continued its demand that the journalists be freed, and fired off another letter to Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala expressing concern over their continued detention. "We call for their immediate and unconditional release," the CPJ said.
The three incarcerated journalists are Yubaraj Ghimire, editor of Kantipur, Kailash Shirohiya, managing director of Kantipur and The Kathmandu Post, and Binod Raj Gyawali, director of both publications.
The CPJ said that as a "non-partisan organization of journalists dedicated to the defence of our colleagues around the world", it was "deeply disturbed that the Nepalese government has deprived three journalists of their liberty for publishing politically controversial views".
It reminded Koirala that "democracies depend on the free exchange of information and ideas. It is therefore incomprehensible to us that the peaceful expression of an opinion could ever be classified as a crime, much less treason."
Death of a Monarch: The Complete Coverage
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