Conditions in Reena's village illustrate why the movement continues to draw strength. Only 40 miles from the capital, about 5,000 villagers endure a serf's existence. The nearest paved road, electricity and hospital are a three-hour, bone-jarring ride down an old dirt track. Most land is owned by upper-caste Brahmins. Natural springs are the only source of water. The vast majority of women give birth in their homes, some sacrificing their lives in the effort. There are no cars, no televisions and no flush toilets for dozens of miles. Since Maoists drove the police out four years ago, there has been virtually no government presence. But villagers also say little has changed since the Maoist insurgency began. For centuries, the elite in Katmandu has done virtually nothing to develop Nepal's countryside. Villagers and Western diplomats agree that this remains essentially true. "This place was never a nation state up until the 1950's," James F. Moriarty, the new American ambassador to Nepal, said in an interview in Katmandu. "It was a bunch of subjects of the Nepali king." He said that Nepal was working to curb the human rights abuses by its forces and that the military aid from the United States, India and other countries had prevented the Maoists from seizing control of the country. "I think the outside world ignores this at their peril," he said. "There is a real possibility that there will be a Maoist government here." That possibility is amply displayed in the high-altitude garrison town of Simikot, perched in a barren mountain valley in the far northwest. In Simikot, and in most of Nepal's 75 districts, army soldiers control small headquarters towns and move out of them only in heavily guarded convoys or by helicopter. All food, fuel and supplies are airlifted into Simikot, a town of 3,500 people that is surrounded by miles of territory controlled by neither the army nor the Maoists. The nearest asphalt road is 70 miles away. Today, the modern world has intruded in the form of the Maoists. During a visit in mid-November, a local government official said the town was on high alert after receiving reports that Maoists had massed several thousand villagers for a political meeting. They feared that the Maoists could be gathering for a "human wave" attack on the district headquarters, a tactic they have not employed since 2002. "There are not many killings," said the government official, who appeared visibly frightened as he sat in a bunker-like office ringed by concertina wire and poorly equipped policemen. "But mental torture, there is a lot of mental torture." A handful of parents from nearby villages that lie outside government control said they had moved to Simikot to save their children from forced Maoist recruitment. All asked not to be identified out of fear of Maoist retaliation. Maoists often block villagers from entering Simikot, and give those who do "visas" that demand they return within a fixed number of days. One woman said her 19-year-old son was one of eight or nine young men forcibly recruited by the Maoists on Nov. 16 from a nearby village. She said the youngest of those abducted were 13 or 14 years old. There was little the government forces cloistered here could do. Through an intermediary, the villagers contacted a local shaman and asked him to pray to jhebdak, a god known as a "protector deity." "The ceremony took place," she said. "The god, the shaman said, promised to protect our children."