GOONDADOM: Nearly 2,000 subscriber copies of Himal Khabarpatrika's latest issue, featuring this expos? of the excesses by militant youth wings of various political parties, were destroyed when masked attackers set fire to them at a distribution point in Maitighar on Sunday night.

The crises are coming thick and fast for the Maoists in government. The peace process is stuck over modalities of army integration, internal ideological rifts have deadlocked its party conference and an alliance of other parties is on the attack over the YCL excesses.

The national conference of Maoist cadre to have been held on Thursday was postponed by a day because of a prolonged debate over whether the party should adopt a totalitarian 'people's republic' or a 'democratic republic'.

Party chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal's ability to compromise has been tested to the limits and he has proposed a middle path: a 'transitional republic'. Until press time on Thursday it looked like the 'people's republic' wallahs had the numbers. A vote by the cadre could still be over-ruled in the central committee, but it would put moral pressure on the moderates. During a consultation with Maoist provincial councils, 12 of the 13 councils are said to have supported the hardliners' vision for a 'people's republic'.

"Don't worry, the party is not about to split," said a visibly tired Minister of Peace and Reconstruction, Janardan Sharma, on Wednesday evening.

However, the Maoists have been put on the defensive because of the discovery this week of the bodies of two young men, believed to have been executed by the YCL in Dhading last month. The capital was brought to a standstill in protest on Thursday by an alliance of UML and NC calling itself the Citizens' Struggle Committee. However, the protesters also used threats to enforce their strike.

Dewan Rai