Armies within barracks

While top Maoist leaders Puspa Kamal Dahal and Dr. Baburam Bhattarai are busy with their PR drive meeting different groups of the society and the deadline for the Interim Constitution Drafting Committee was extended, the solution to the thorny issue of managing the arms of the rebels was nowhere in sight during July. However, on August 9 the government and Maoists signed and sent their separate letters with identical language to the UN indicating that this thorny issue is very likely to be resolved amicably. Both have agreed to keep the Nepal army within barracks and Maoist army within cantonments.

The other contentious issue that was in hot debate throughout July was the drafting of Interim Constitution and different political parties and civil society have put different suggestions to the drafting committee. The Maoists' suggestion asks for turning Nepal into a people's democratic republic (Loktantrik Ganatantra) in the interim constitution itself. Their alternate suggestion is to hold a referendum about the monarchy together with the election to the Constituent Assembly. The Nepali Congress has suggested retaining the constitutional monarchy in the interim constitution.

After the contents of the letter dated July 2, which Prime Minister GP Koirala sent to the United Nations Secretary General asking for UN help in managing the rebel arms, was made public, the Maoist leaders were quick to notify the UN that the proposal was not acceptable to them as it wanted to decommission their arms while the government army was allowed to retain its arms. The disagreement resulted in the postponement of another summit meeting between the seven party alliance and the Maoist leaders scheduled for July 21.

Maoists have said quite clearly that they are not going to lay down their arms or disband their army as such steps by the Maoist rebels elsewhere proved suicidal. They give the example of Nicaragua where the Sandinista did the same and were elected to the power and ruled the country from 1979 to 1990. But later as the Contras, supported by the USA , rose up with arms against the Sandinista government and there was another election, the Sandinistas were voted out and they were without their army and they could not reorganise.

Going by this logic, as presented by Maoist Supremo Prachanda in an interview with a vernacular weekly, the possibility of disarming the rebels force is almost zero. As a result, the possibility of holding elections to the Constituent Assembly is too zero, at least in the near future, say, April 2007, a date named by PM Koirala in his letter to the UN Secretary General.

On the positive side, this reference to Nicaragua by the Maoist leader indicates that he is aware about not only the US support to the Contra, but also to the erratic fluctuation of the Sandinista policies (for example, on agrarian reforms) and the failures of such policies which impoverished the country.

The last week of July saw a UN team parleying across the political spectrum to identify what Nepal exactly wants the UN to do to help in arms management. The UN team found a wide gap in the views of the stakeholders and asked them to narrow down these differences. With the August 9 letter, this problem seems resolved.

The challenge now is to ensure honest implementation of the agreement that produced the August 9 letter.