NGO Federation of Nepal rallies for peace  

Hundreds of thousands of people from all walks of life thronged in and around Ratna Park on Monday, December 27, 2004 in one of the largest demonstration ever in the capital, to pressurize the government and the Maoists to end violence and hold peace talks.  

This is the first time people took up to the streets to express unprecedented solidarity to put pressure to the warring sides for dialogue. Students, human rights activists, teachers, political leaders, professionals, artists, common people and representatives from 300 civic organizations poured in the street carrying banners and placards. “Lets give peace the priority”, “War doesn’t help, peace is mandatory”, “Give us pen instead of gun; give us ink instead of gunpowder” read some of the placards held by the participants during the rally. 

The NGO Federation of Nepal, one of the partner organizers expressed solidarity with people’s concern for peace and participated actively in the rally. The Federation distributed over 40,000 caps to the participants rallying for peace. 

The rally was organized on the call of Civic Solidarity for Peace, All Nepal National Free Students’ Union (ANNFSU), PABSON, etc. to pressurize the Maoists to give up ambition of controlling people with guns and to get the government to stop militarization on the pretext of containing the Maoists. “We want restoration of rule of law instead of extremism based on militarism,” said Bhikshu Ananda from Civic Solidarity for Peace (CSP) addressing the massive rally. Similarly Dr. Mathura Prasad Shrestha, Coordinator of CSP said the people were caught between guns on their either sides. The rally is an expression of solidarity of all the people for peace, he added. Singing songs for peace, two famous artistes, Madan Krishna Shrestha and Hari Bansha Acharya said the spontaneous turnout reflected people’s wish for peace.