WITNESS: From war to election - Nepal's exhilarating ride

Simon Denyer is India bureau chief for Reuters, with responsibility for Nepal and Bhutan. He has visited Nepal several times to cover what often seemed like intractable political and social problems, including a Maoist revolution, and most recently for April 10 parliamentary elections.

In the following story, he describes a vote many had never expected to happen and, when it did, few expected to go smoothly. The skeptics were in for a surprise.

By Simon Denyer

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - The elections have passed off peacefully, the U.N. spokesman in Nepal crowed: "bad news for foreign journalists". He could not have got it more wrong.

Covering Nepal's journey from hopeless civil war and royal dictatorship to democracy, peace and its first elections in nine years has been exhilarating.

I have reported from Africa and Afghanistan but few places inspired such pessimism as Nepal. Our weekly news planning calls had become an exercise in finding different ways to express that hopelessness.

A feudal royal family almost obliterated by a terrible massacre. Politicians who squabbled and stole, and let their country descend ever deeper into poverty. A ragtag Maoist army with an extremist ideology and a reputation for brutality.

Each side hated the other passionately, and seemed to care more about power than the people. It was hard to see a way out.

And yet, in April this year, Nepal suddenly found an answer in democracy and an historic election process.

As I traveled round polling stations on election day, the mood of hope was overwhelming.

In one village, I met women who had walked three hours each way in their best sarees to cast their ballots, shaded from the scorching sun under black umbrellas.

A 92-year-old woman, bent double with age, limped to vote "for a peaceful future for my grandchildren".

CHILD SOLDIERS

My first trip into Nepal's countryside in 2005 had taken me to the Maoist heartland of Rolpa, a desperately poor province in the Himalayan foothills with just one, barely motorable road.

There, outside a tea shop beside a mountain trail, I met my first member of the Maoist People's Liberation Army. As the sun set and a crowd of curious farmers gathered, we spoke about his reasons for joining the war, the brutality of the police, the desperate poverty of his people.

His fervor impressed me, but then the darker side of the insurgency revealed itself: a line of child soldiers emerged at the trailhead, carrying rifles almost as tall as they were. A local health worker whispered of children effectively abducted for long indoctrination sessions or into the rebel militia.