KATHMANDU: Sunday’s postponement of peace talks between Nepal’s government and former Maoist rebels does not signal a failure of the process, say civil society leaders.
“What it shows is that our leaders didn’t do the proper homework—but we are very much optimistic that the talks will succeed,” Bishnu Rimal, vice-chairman of the General Federation of Nepali Trade Unions said.
Sunday’s meeting, the fourth in a week, started with discussions between officials on both sides but ended within minutes of Prime Minister Girija Koirala and Maoist leaders meeting face to face. No official reason was given for the impasse but sources on both sides indicated that the sides remain deadlocked over the future of the monarchy and how to manage the soldiers and arms of the Maoist and Nepal armies.
Koirala also faces dissension within the alliance of seven political parties (SPA) that united one year ago to fight the direct rule of King Gyanendra. They succeeded when April’s ‘people’s movement’ drew hundreds of thousands of chanting Nepalis to the streets despite curfews until the monarch relinquished power and restored parliament.
Within the seven parties, Koirala’s Nepali Congress (NC) party is most adamant that the monarchy, which parliament has stripped of all powers, have a ceremonial role in the interim constitution that is now being revised by the political parties, including the Maoists.
“According to reporters and the Maoists, the NC is going back on its commitments. They don’t want to give up their power and privilege,” said Om Gurung, president of the Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities.
“We are a little bit worried about the talks — last time there was much hope,” he added in an interview.
The former Maoist rebels, who led an insurgency from the country’s jungles for 10 years, want the constitution to declare Nepal a republic or delay a decision on the monarchy until elections to a constituent assembly. In Tuesday’s talks the two sides agreed to hold those polls by mid-June 2007.
Maoist leaders also disagree with the government over treatment of the rebel army. The politicians want its arms seized and held until the assembly elections, but the Maoists are arguing that their fighters should keep their weapons and be placed in cantonments, like the Nepal Army.
“It will not take much time to resolve other issues once a breakthrough is made on those two issues,” Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai said after Sunday’s talks were postponed indefinitely. “PM Koirala is positive on finding a solution to the conflict. But he appears to be under pressure from royalist and external forces,” added Bhattarai, reported The Himalayan Timesnewspaper.
His tone was much more conciliatory than that of other Maoist leaders, who have threatened to unleash massive street protests if the current talks fail.
During their decade-long violent struggle to defeat the monarchy and establish a society where indigenous people, lower caste Hindus and women would have a share in power, the Maoists gained control of most of rural Nepal, one of Asia’s poorest nations, while security forces were limited to heavily guarded bases in the country’s 75 districts.
Up to 14,000 people were killed in the war, most of them innocent villagers caught in the crossfire.—Dawn/The IPS News Service
