KATHMANDU: Now that the peace negotiations to end the Maoist rebellion in Nepal are underway, the tough part follows — making sure that the rebels and the government, poles apart in their positions, stay engaged in it.
In their first official meeting with government negotiators on Sunday, the Maoists made their opening bid for power through a four-page list of demands, the chief of which argues for an interim government led by the Maoists.
“The rebelling forces should lead an interim government after a roundtable conference, and this government should hold elections to a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution,” chief Maoist negotiator Dr Baburam Bhattarai told journalists after the first round of talks.
Dr Bhattarai’s statement, in a nutshell, illustrates the Maoist strategy for pursuing the peace negotiations that have begun after several false starts. It underscores the rebels’ aim to control the levers of political power and shape this Himalayan kingdom’s future in a way that will go beyond, what they say, is today’s mere “electoral democracy”.
In its place, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) — which began a communist revolt in 1996 modelled along the lines of Peru’s Sendero Luminoso uprising but has lately turned into a movement grouping Nepal’s diverse peoples and movements — wants to institute a structure that includes myriad voices and groups in this society.
The grievances of various groups in multi-cultural, multi- ethnic and multi-lingual Nepal, where the Hindu religion and Nepali language is actively fostered by the state, have been taken up by the rebels. This is why these diverse groups form the base of the Maoist movement today.
It is also clear that the rebels are in a hurry, but they may not get all of what they want.
Government negotiators, led by Deputy Prime Minister Badri Prasad Mandal, merely said they would study the demands and get back to the rebels in the next round of talks exactly when that will be held is still unclear. Minister Narayan Singh Pun said: “It is unwise to hurry the negotiations because the issues involved are serious and have to be discussed carefully.”
The difference in approach, though significant for keen observers of the Maoist rebellion in Nepal, matters little to the general population who have long been clamouring for peace and stability.
Kathmandu is all focused on the peace talks. On Monday, throngs of citizens could be seen standing on the sidewalks and reading newspapers detailing the first day’s talks.
Both Pun and one of the top rebel negotiators, Krishna Bahadur Mahara, proclaimed that the negotiations were held in a “cordial atmosphere”. But a careful reading of the Maoists’ demands on the first day points to difficult days ahead.
The rebels have also put forth several demands they want the government to fulfil immediately.
Then there is a long list of demands — 24 in all “ that deal with social, economic and political issues they want addressed. This list is a scaling down of the original 40-point demand that the Maoists gave the government before they began their uprising in 1996, but many of the salient features remain the same.
For the short term, the Maoists have demanded that the government release their top leaders, withdraw criminal court cases filed against these leaders, and send the army back into the barracks.
For the long term, the chief Maoist demand is still to turn this monarchy into a republican state, but they have also indicated a willingness to compromise.
“On the question of monarchy and other forward-looking proposals, the parties could go to the people with their own proposals and the latter’s verdict should be acceptable to all,” Dr Bhattarai said.
By this, he tacitly acknowledged that the Maoists “views on the monarchy and those of other political parties differ, and that the people would be allowed to decide the fate of the institution through the constituent assembly. Government negotiators have said that the monarchy and multi-party democracy will not be bargained away.
Many analysts note that after the optimism of the first round of talks wears down, the negotiators will have to deal with three thorny issues: the integration of the Maoist army with the government army, the fate of monarchy, and a new constitution.
These same issues led to the collapse of the peace negotiations in 2001. At the time, the government’s refusal to agree to the demand for a new constitution and discuss the fate of monarchy led the rebels to pull out of the talks, precipitating a 10-month long emergency rule that led to widespread killing and human rights violations by both sides.—Dawn/InterPress News Service.
