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NEPAL: KING WITHOUT A KINGDOM

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KATHMANDU, Sep 1 2006 (IPS) - It has been five months since Nepal\’s Rhododendron Revolution forced autocratic King Gyanendra to restore parliament and hand power back to an alliance of parliamentary parties. Since then, a restored parliament has carried out one of the most dramatic transformations of state structure ever realised without violence or bloodshed, writes Kunda Dixit, Publisher and Editor of the Kathmandu-based newspaper, Nepali Times. In this article, Dixit writes that Nepal still faces the larger challenge of resolving the insurgency. A ceasefire has been in force since April, and negotiations are underway between the government and the Maoist rebels. In the past month, the peace process has been stuck over disagreement on the issue of what to do with Maoist weapons. The rebels are under pressure from their rank and file who don\’t want to give up their guns, and the government is under pressure from the United States and India not to bring the Maoists into an interim administration until their weapons are laid down. There is a good chance that Nepal can come out of this having resolved not just the conflict but also the social injustices that are at the root of it. But it needs all parties to look beyond immediate strategic gain to ensure peace and stability so that Nepal\’s long-suffering people can finally hope for economic progress.

It has been five months since Nepal’s Rhododendron Revolution forced autocratic King Gyanendra to restore parliament and hand power back to an alliance of parliamentary parties. Since then, the parliament has carried out one of the most dramatic transformations of state structure ever realised without violence or bloodshed. It stripped the 237-year-old monarchy of all its powers: the king no longer has control over the national army; royal succession will now be decided by parliament’s state affairs committee; female succession will be allowed; and the king has to pay all taxes.

”Royal” has been removed from the name of Nepal’s national airline, it is no longer ”His Majesty’s Government”, and Nepal is no longer a Hindu kingdom but a secular state. In fact, the king of Nepal is now no more than a tourist attraction. The parties restored democracy through a largely non-violent three-week street protest in April, something the Maoist insurgents couldn’t do in 10 years of fighting and 14,000 deaths.

But although the movement succeeded in removing the king from the picture, Nepal still faces the larger challenge of resolving the insurgency. A ceasefire has been in force since April, and negotiations are underway between the government and the Maoist rebels. The United Nations has been invited to monitor the peace process and demilitarisation ahead of elections to a constituent assembly some time next year.

In the past month, the peace process has been stuck over disagreement on the issue of what to do with Maoist weapons. The rebels are under pressure from their rank and file who don’t want to give up their guns, and the government is under pressure from the United States and India not to bring the Maoists into an interim administration until their weapons are laid down.

In the past week the Maoists have tried to exert pressure on the government through huge rallies in the capital as a show of force. Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala is adamant that armed Maoists must not be admitted into the political mainstream. After his party’s recent central committee meeting, rebel leader Prachanda said there is no question of going back to the jungle. But he has warned of another people power uprising in the streets if the government insists on his party laying down weapons.

Koirala is planning to meet face-to-face with Prachanda to resolve the stalemate, and they probably will. If that happens the next step will be for the government and the Maoists to form an interim government to prepare for the election to an assembly that will draft a new constitution. That election will essentially be a referendum on the monarchy, and judging from the headlines in the Nepali media these days, campaigning has already started. The anger in the streets in April was such that many young educated urban Nepalis feel the monarchy has to be done away with once and for all. Because of this pressure, most parliamentary parties have changed their manifestos to state that their goal is a ”democratic republic”. The Maoists feel that the parties have stolen their republican slogan and that even though they helped topple the king in April, the parties are getting all the credit. Since they have no representation in the restored parliament they want it dissolved and replaced with a new interim house.

Nepal is not out of the woods yet. But luckily the conflict is not intractable. It is not an ethnic or separatist war, and there is now political will on both sides to sort things out through the current peace process. Everyone agrees that Prachanda needs time to convince his warriors to lay down their arms. But he is under even more pressure from the international community –including India, which brokered the deal between them and the parties– to lay down arms before they join an interim government.

Two earlier ceasefires broke down because both the army and the Maoists used the truces to rearm and regroup, which made the Nepali people wary of peace overtures. But this time it may be different. The Maoists know they can never capture state power through military means and are convinced they can exploit the disarray of the political parties to gain parliamentary supremacy. The Nepali Army has been bogged down in a messy war in which it has earned a bad reputation for human rights violations, and knows it may never be able to defeat a determined guerrilla force in Nepal’s rugged jungle terrain.

There is a good chance that Nepal can come out of this having resolved not just the conflict but also the social injustices that are at the root of it. But it needs all parties to look beyond immediate strategic gain to ensure peace and stability so that Nepal’s long-suffering people can finally hope for economic progress. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

 
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