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NEPAL: Peace Talks Postponed but Hopes High

Marty Logan

KATHMANDU, Oct 16 2006 (IPS) - 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 told IPS.

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 SPA 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 Times’ newspaper.

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.

Maoist leaders declared a ceasefire following the people’s movement and were taken off the ‘outlawed’ list. Since then the number of killings has plummeted but Maoists continue to extort ‘donations’ from the business community and villagers and their people’s courts still deliver rough justice. They have also expanded their collection of duties at the border with India, arguing that they need the money to feed their army, and blocked NGOs from working in some areas.

“We thought that Maoists would allow people to work and government officers would return to their posts in the districts, but this has not happened,” Shankar Sharma, former vice-chairman of the National Planning Commission, told IPS.

The government is so focussed on the political process that it has neglected development and local Maoist leaders refuse to make space for government or civil society until peace is concluded, he added.

The Federation of Nepali Chamber of Commerce and Industry has declared a general strike Tuesday to protest Maoist extortion, what it calls unreasonable demands from unions and government “indifference” toward such activities.

But the head of the United Nations team poised to support a peace deal was optimistic. “By international standards these negotiations are proceeding very fast,” Ian Martin, the personal representative of the U.N. secretary-general, told journalists Friday..

“I think we have to be very careful of the mood swinging from pessimistic to optimistic and to pessimistic again,” he cautioned.

 
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