January 18, 2007	Thursday	Zilhaj 27, 1427

KATHMANDU: Former Maoist rebels entered the parliament that once outlawed them on Monday, filling enough seats to become the second-largest party in the temporary government.

It was an amazing transformation. Nine months ago the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) was labelled “terrorist” and many of its leaders sat in jails in Nepal and neighbouring India. Then Nepal’s opposition parties inched open the door for the insurgents to join a temporary alliance to oppose King Gyanendra, who seized direct power on Feb 1, 2005.

The hesitant partners succeeded in drawing hundreds of thousands of chanting protesters -- men, women and children -- onto the streets across this South Asian nation, forcing the king to recall Parliament. Since then, the two sides have managed to ride a bumpy peace process that produced the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in November and the temporary government that was sworn on Monday.

Its first task was to approve the interim constitution that will guide its decisions until elections to a constituent assembly, scheduled for late May or early June.

“We are here through this epoch making leap, and armed with a new ideology, philosophy and a new way of thinking,” said Maoist leader in Parliament Krishna Bahadur Mahara.

The Maoists are already building a front of leftist parties, which will comprise a majority in the 330-seat Parliament.

The Maoist contingent entered Parliament en masse on Monday evening, both men and women wearing grey suit jackets. One man sported a red beret with the symbolic hammer and sickle but overall their arrival was low-key. Many of them smiled and Maoist leaders were greeted with handshakes from their peers in other parties.

“This critical juncture is the new beginning of unity and reconciliation,” declared Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala.

The Maoists signalled their war against the state in 1996 by tossing homemade bombs at government buildings, after the country’s leaders ignored their 40-point demand for social and political reforms, including replacing monarchy with a republican system of government.

The uprising was virtually ignored in its early years, based as it was in the country’s west, long shunned by leaders in the capital Kathmandu in central Nepal and the most impoverished region of one of the poorest countries in South Asia.

The government called peace talks in July 2001 but four months later Maoists declared them failed and launched their first attacks against the Nepali Army.

In 2003, peace talks again failed and by last spring, the Maoists were said to control 80 per cent of the villages where most Nepalis live, and many observers had concluded the war was ‘unwinnable’ by either side.

The Maoists attracted many followers with a pledge to end discrimination against indigenous people, dalits (declared ‘untouchable’ in Hindu dogma) and women, who have been overwhelmingly sidelined in Nepal’s patriarchal society.

Outside parliament on Monday the mood was split among people working in small roadside shops or on the roadside -- although three of five people asked by IPS did not even know the new government was being sworn in.—Dawn/The IPS News Service