KATHMANDU, AUG 11 -
The sale of Nepal Army’s antique weapons in 2000 appears intricately linked with the fortunes of not just the Army, but also the now-defunct Royal Palace and politicians of the day.
Nepal Army, the then Palace and the Girija Prasad Koirala government in 2000 had agreed to put US$ 5 million that was earned from the sale of 430 tonnes of military antiques towards purchasing new weapons to fight Maoist rebels, according to retired Gen. Pradip Pratap Bam Malla. However, not all of the money may have been accounted for.
“Some portion of the money from that sale was used in purchasing samples of Heckler & Koch G36 rifles, pistols and M-16s from the US,” the former general, who was Director of Military Operations in 2000, told the Post on Wednesday. The plan was to sell the .303 rifles of Nepal Army to Nepal Police, the SLRs to Armed Police Force and spend the earnings, including that received from the sale of outdated antiques to buy the German-made Heckler & Koch rifles.
In his memoir “Maile Dekheko Darbar”, Retired Gen Bibek Shah, who then headed the military secretariat at the Palace, is on record saying that King Birendra had a penchant for the German-made rifles.
King Birendra, according to the memoir, was preparing to take “a political step” to resolve the conflict and had planned to set up a factory to assemble Heckler & Koch rifles in Kathmandu and sell them in South Asian markets.
Shah’s memoir says India was not happy with the king’s plan to buy weapons from Germany and had been asking the Nepali government to buy Indian-made INSAS rifles instead.
Shah goes on to speculate that the arms issue could have been behind the royal massacre that wiped out almost the entire Royal family in 2001. Shah’s assertion created shock waves in the country after the release of his memoir last year.
Gen Shah has dismissed claims by former Crown Prince Paras Shah in 2009, in which Paras told a Singapore-based newspaper,The New Paper, that Prince Dipendra had liked the Heckler & Koch assault rifle but was frustrated when King Birendra didn’t agree to buying it. The deal, according to Paras, would have included the purchase of 50,000 new weapons at a cost of US$15 million.
The plan to purchase the German-made rifles was aborted following the Royal massacre in 2001, which saw 10 members of the Royal family killed. In 2003 and 2004, Nepal government purchased rifles from India and Belgium for the Army. “The sale of those old, rusted and damaged caches was a need of that time because everyone then was in favour of strengthening the Army,” said retired Maj Gen Malla.
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