Nepal trying to march in step

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Nepal trying to march in step​

By Dhruba Adhikary

KATHMANDU - Nothing illustrates the deep divide that Nepal must cross to achieve lasting peace than the two armies that stand ready to stare at each other down the barrels of their guns.

In what could be considered an unfortunate calendar clash, this year the national Nepal Army's annual day falls on February 12, while the Maoists it fought for a decade commemorate the 1996 launch of their "People's War" one day later. While the Maoists' date is fixed at February 13, the Nepal Army's traditional event takes place on the day the festival of Shivaraatri is observed.

Known as the Royal Nepal Army before dropping the regal moniker in 2006 when the monarchy was deposed, the national Nepal Army consists of about 96,000 men and women and is funded by the government. The Maoist ranks of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) number nearly 20,000 combatants who live in camps monitored by the United Nations.

From the UN's standpoint, Nepal's ongoing peace process is still fragile. Efforts to forge a new republican constitution by a May 28 deadline are fraught with uncertainties and the mutual mistrust between the political party of the former Maoist rebels and the democratic parties makes people nervous. The lurking fear is that a constitutional crisis could lead the country into an indefinite phase of anarchy.

Nevertheless, all parties appear to be doing their best to meet the deadline for a constitution embodying a federal system, and most resolutely oppose leaving any space for the possible revival of the monarchy, even as a ceremonial institution.

Among the major challenges at hand before the end of May is the issue of the integration and rehabilitation of the former Maoist combatants.

The camps for former guerrillas must be dismantled before the UN's mandate for its special mission in Nepal expires on May 15. Suspicious of Maoist intentions, and claiming that the former rebels' party, the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), gained votes through intimidation in the 2008 elections, non-Maoist parties want them shut down immediately. The UN monitors are neither equipped nor mandated to stop PLA combatants with weapons in hand from leaving camps scattered around the country.

While the top Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal, better known as Prachanda, and his comrades have made public commitments to abide by peace accords, differences of opinion persist about what constitutes integration of the Maoist forces and how it can be accomplished.

The Maoist demand is for amalgamation (en masse) of its forces with the Nepal Army, forming a new national army for which a fresh structure and hierarchy would have to be adopted. The Maoists insist that since their men and women conducted armed insurgency for over a decade until the 2006 peace deal, they would neither need any training nor be required to meet the criteria applied to new recruits.

However, the Maoist leaders have also shown some flexibility by offering to allow some of their PLA soldiers to be absorbed into three other security agencies - the Nepal Police, the Armed Police Force and the National Investigation Department. The forces of reconciliation with former foes also led them to remove about 4,000 "disqualified" combatants from the camps, including minors and those not verified by the UN at the time of entry.

Reactions to the Maoist proposals vary widely, from outright rejection to partial acceptance for integration into various security agencies. Interim Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, who governs through a loose coalition of 22 parties, seems to favor placing about 5,000 combatants in army and police units, provided they meet the prescribed physical and educational standards.

Jhalanath Khanal, president of the Unified Marxist Leninist (UML), the moderate-left party to which the prime minister belongs, endorses this. Although she is in the same party, Defense Minister Bidya Bhandari says she is opposed to allowing politically indoctrinated Maoist combatants into a military which she says has to remain professional as well as apolitical.

Her position was initially articulated by controversial former army chief General Rukmangud Katawal, whom Prachanda, as prime minister, wanted to sack last May but couldn't as the president intervened. Chhatra Man Singh Gurung, the successor to Katawal, says he will carry out government decisions based on consensus.
The Nepal Army is not against the idea of letting in Maoists as individual recruits if they meet prescribed standards. But, within it, some of Gurung's ambitious colleagues are said to vehemently oppose accommodating PLA combatants in any shape or form. In this lies the potential for the entire peace process to stumble.

The Maoists contend that the process of writing a constitution and resolving the combatants' issue should move ahead simultaneously so that mutual suspicion is erased.

"We, the Maoists, are worried because we suspect other political parties are looking for a pretext to stop the constitution from being issued at the stipulated time," Maoist leader Janardan Sharma told Asia Times Online. "And they, on the other hand, seem to be thinking that we want to keep the issue of combatants alive until the next election, whenever it is conducted."

Geja Wagle, a security analyst associated with a group studying the question of integration and rehabilitation, says that while the Maoist idea is sensible, the promulgation of the constitution with Maoist combatants still in the camps would fail to create the grounds for sustainable political stability.

Both the democratic and Maoist parties are working overtime to make the Special Committee, tasked with integrating the two forces sort out the actual number of combatants to be integrated and set the criteria for eventual integration.

Even as a political party, the Maoists have not formally renounced violence. Their cadres, the Young Communist Group, continue to dominate the news media countrywide for launching armed attacks on groups for supporting rival political parties. And their agenda for radical reforms is seen by many as hindering preparations of the first draft of the new statute. Politicians in other parties claim the Maoists have forgotten that a clear commitment to engage in competitive politics accompanied their acceptance of the peace process.

In a report released last month, the independent Brussels-based International Crisis Group said the Maoist-led government had relabeled hundreds of criminal acts as "political cases". Impunity for past crimes, the report points out, encourages political violence now. None of the Maoist leaders has disputed this statement.

The Nepal Army has also come under intense criticism. It has been censured for not adhering to universally applied principles as well as human-rights standards. Human-rights organizations, including the UN, have expressed reservations over the government promoting erring officers and retaining the services of those who they said should be put on trial in civilian courts.

Competent UN officials keep telling the media that the Nepal Army's reputation as a troop-contributing country to international peacekeeping efforts could also be tarnished.

If the combatants' issue remains unresolved when the United Nations Mission in Nepal winds up its assignment on May 15, it is unclear whether the Security Council will consider an extension of its mandate or will devise another mechanism for the monitoring job it initiated in early 2007.

In the emerging context, while the UN is likely to direct its regular field office in Nepal to handle immediate challenges in concluding the current phase of monitoring, the international community might be required to return to Nepal should volatility threaten the peace and stability of South Asia.

Dhruba Adhikary is a Kathmandu-based journalist.

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