Nepal’s Peace Process at tenterhook ------ 3
Krishna Paudel
The peace process:
The popular movement led by Seven Party
Alliance ( SPA) and
aided by the Maoists in the background culminated on 24 th April 2006 forcing the king to reinstate the dissolved parliament and appoint Girija
Prasad Koirala prime
minister for the fifth time in 13 years. Immediately after, the prime minister appealed to the Maoists to declare a ceasefire
and join a peace process desired by the nation as expressed through the popular movement. In May 2006,
the Parliament voted
unanimously to curtail the king's political powers and constitutional prerogatives, if any .
This paved the way for the government and Maoist
rebels to begin peace talks, the first in nearly three years. On 16 June 2006 the rebel leader Prachanda and the PM Koirala held talks - the first such meeting between the two leaders -
and agreed that the Maoists should be brought into an interim government and interim parliament. But this
could only be possible after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement ( CPA) signed by
the government leader GP Koirala and Prachanda
, the Maoist leader, in November ( 2006) declaring a formal end to a 10-year
rebel insurgency. The rebels were to join a transitional government and they would also be represented in the interim parliament
commanding the same number of nominated seats as that of the second largest
party in the parliament ,
the NCP UML.
Under the CPA , the Maoists agreed for their weapons to be placed under UN supervision ( United Nations Mission in Nepal, UNMIN). Under the agreement signed, the Maoists combatants would be registered, verified and housed in 21 temporary camps across Nepal and the state would pay them allowances for their upkeep. The number of Maoist combatants and their weapons together with the same number of weapons from Nepalese army would be kept under the scanner of UNMIN’s supervision. The process of decommissioning of Maoist weapons and adjustment/rehabilitation of Maoist combatants would only start after the elections are over, as agreed.
However, the Maoists proved cleverer especially at the time of registering the number of their war time combatants and weapons under UNMIN’s surveillance. Since the Maoist Party had never declared the exact number of their militia that had taken part in the so called People’s war, they recruited many new party cadres and new combatants to register them as their war soldiers and house them in temporary camps while they also deliberately resorted to keeping their active political and militia workers out of the camps and employed in pseudo-militia-politics. They formed a new militant youth wing named the Young Communist League ( YCL) led by erstwhile militia commanders making the league a fearsome entity for anyone who didn’t comply with them at the same time serving their party interest and prepared to bring all advantages to its own fold. The government and other mainstream parties didn’t make their disenchantment on these Maoists gimmick apparent because they feared that the peace process might die prematurely. The Maoists, in a way, got a free hand to get themselves pampered in the pretext of ad-hoc peace process.
In January 2007, the Maoist leaders entered parliament under the terms of the transitional constitution. In April 2007 former Maoist rebels joined the interim government, a move that took them into the political mainstream. An interim constitution was drafted and passed with an overwhelming majority votes in the parliament to lead the nation towards the constituent assembly ( CA) elections.
All this was, however, not a smooth process. The differences among parties emerged at times to derail the whole of the peace process only to be saved with the dying minutes agreements. The already declared election to the constituent assembly became the first casualty to party differences and became an event of continual postponement. The proposed May-June election had to be pushed back to November because of the Maoists’ unwillingness for the earlier. In order to divert their attention from the CA election and sound more radical, the Maoists quitted interim government to press demand for monarchy to be scrapped. This forced the postponement of November's constituent assembly elections further. In October 2007 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Nepal’s parties to sink their differences to save the peace process In December 2007 the Parliament approved abolition of monarchy as part of peace deal with Maoists, who agreed to re-join the government. However, this was agreed among political parties and the Maoists that the first seating of constituent assembly would stamp a final decision on the fate of monarchy as an institution once and for all.
The coalition culture among political parties and the Maoists
under which parties ironed out their immediate differences for a
successful transformation towards republicanism and Democracy was deteriorating and it was not to be a good sign in the coming
days for an embryonic peace process in Nepal.
The constituent Assembly and the changed scenario:
What the parties couldn’t
foresee was the shift in power equations the elections
would bring along. The
first constituent assembly elections in Nepal were
held on 10 April 2010. What appeared as a shocking
and unexpected outcome saw the former Maoist rebels win the largest bloc of seats (237 out of the total of 601, 205 elected directly and almost
396 nominated under a newly formulated proportional representation system
and its other
provisions ) in elections to the new constituent assembly,
but they failed to achieve an outright majority. Despite the elections and the result bringing the Maoists
back as the largest party into the
Constituent Assembly, they had never renounced violence nor
had distanced themselves from
their weapons or their party militia.
Although the
constituent assembly elections were not meant to change the government, the
Maoists as the largest party deservingly claimed prime-ministership soon after. Other political parties than the Maoists, couldn’t trust this
erstwhile rebel group to the extent of leading the government while still being
the revolutionary force against the Nepalese state. The stalemate and mistrust prolonged and it was already over months before GP Koirala handed over the PM’s
position to the Maoist leader, Prachanda. During this time the mistrust among parties had already
widened and this rift got worsened at the time of the election of the first
president of Nepal.
Nepal became a republic
abolishing an almost two and half century long institution of Monarchy. in July
2008 . Although the Maoist leader, Prachanda, had first given assurances to Nepali
Congress leader GP Koirala that in a gesture to recognize his contributions to peace
process , constituent assembly election and abolition of monarchy, the Maoist party would support Mr.
Koirala for the
esteemed position of the nation’s first president.
Despite his good relations with Mr Koirala
under an entirely
changed scenario where, unlike before, the Maoist had become the largest party and the
apparent kingmakers, Prachanda backtracked from his informal assurance to GP Koirala
for presidency and instead started on his own game
plan . The Maoist party supported a veteran republican leader from another
lesser known faction from the Terai , Ram Raja Prasad Singh, into
presidency . In a bizarre twist of parliamentary
calculations, the Maoist’s candidate lost the presidency battle and Mr. Ram Varan yadav, a second generation leader from
the Nepali congress party unexpectedly got elected
to the position of Nepal’s first president by majority parliamentary/constituent assembly
votes. By this time, Nepali politics which had for the last three years , was taking its major
decisions unanimously or overwhelming two-third majority ( agreement based)
among parties, had returned to majority-based democracy. It was the beginning
of the end of unanimous politics and decision
making especially at a transitional time in history of the nation. The process
of constitution making/promulgating , state restructuring and many other significant issues could
never be sorted out without the major political stakeholders agreeing with
minimum differences.
The Maoist led governemnet
In August 2008 a new
government was formed under the leadership of the
Maoist leader Prachanda.
This was a coalition government with the Nepali
Congress going into opposition while most other parties represented in the CA
joining it and making it
a strong two-third majority government. Prachanda’s government lasted for 9 months but was not able to do much
either in constitution writing or any other tasks that were expected from them.
Instead, Prachanda’s
government resorted to settling its wartime scores with the civil
administration and country’s police , their wartime foes. This culminated into
a sad exit for him when under Maoists party’s decision,
Prachanda took a
decision to sack the commander-in-chief of the Nepalese Army with the accusation of disobeying/defying
the country’s prime-minister, thus civil supremacy. This decision was taken
without the support from other coalition partners leaving the Maoists alone in
minority position within the assembly. The president on the other hand
reinstated the sacked Army Chief and asked him to take command of the force not
letting the Maoist appointee to dismantle the tradition of the Nepalese Army.
The Maoists obviously cried foul on the presidential action denouncing it as an
army backed subjugation of Civil supremacy, the essence of a Democracy.
As a result in May, 2009 Prachanda stepped down as the prime
minister making way for Madhav
Nepal , a CPN UML
leader to succeed , with the backing of most of the parties in the seembly excepting a Terai faction of MJF ( Madhiseh Janadhikar Forum) and Maoists. Since its ouster from the government, the
Maoists launched a vicious campaign against the president and India, believing
the latter had obvious interference in its design to keep the ex-rebels away from
government. The Maoists continued their protest movement for almost one year
against the president’s action, Indian policy and
demanding an immediate resignation of the prime minister who according to them
led a ‘puppet’ government. The constitutionally mandated two year term for the
CA was about to be over and the Maoists and the governing coalition parties had
to forge a last minute agreement for its extension in order to save it from its
premature death as the Constituent Assembly had to yet take steps towards
constitutional drafting. The Maoists agreed to vote for CA extension only if
the PM committed to resign. Finally after one year in office, prime minister Mr. Nepal decided to
bow down from his position amid pressures from a certain influential faction of
his own party. However, this couldn’t rescue the already mangled peace process
as after 5 elections to appoint a new prime minister, the CA has not got any success thanks to the diverging party stances.
Why political parties agree to disagree so much?
The Maoist
party commits itself to conservative communist ideology
and propagates that transforming the state’s
political system into a rather autocratic sounding people’s republicanism
is their objective. They maintain this is the only way of liberating people
from ages old feudalism and aggressive expansionism
designed by those who are against the patriotic
will of the people.. To this end, the Maoists will not settle for less and would
like all their encamped combatants to be fully integrated into the national army. Others fear, these indoctrinated party cadres
trained to work for a certain political ideology and abide by their own petty principles will eventually eat into the apolitical discipline of
the national army culture contaminating its
independent character. The
exponents of this view subscribe that, the
Maoists want to thrust their party agenda once they are able to overcome the
national army, the only potent threat to their intention of hijacking the
political future of the country and ,therefore,
it’s dangerous with its sinister design. The Maoists,on the other hand , accuse the
other political parties of sticking to their rigid conservative stance to the
extent of becoming regressive without intentions to consolidate the
achievements made till date.
What next !
It is as perplexing.
The
multi directional tug-of-war and ensuing stalemate caused that has manifested
in not being able to form even a
government let alone the constitution, in effect, shows the exact character of present Nepali
politics. It is as tense or frozen! But owing to party’s ideological
differences and their far off polity objectives, this situation had to come to this
state today or later.
Easier said that done, there can
be an easy solution if the parties agree to sit together and hammer out a
packaged solution not for the temporary gains or losess of ministerial berths or who is to be at the helm but for the distant
future of an ailing nation. A negotiated deal on major
issues like: the new political system to be adopted,
issues in state restructuring and army integration
modalities is to be reached first and
foremost, for others are just by-products of distrust .
We have beaten about the bushes without daring to jump into real issues first
despite it being evident that it merely helps procrastinate things for eternity. If parties negotiated along to
reach here, they can walk beyond
this point, too, through further negotiations by trying to find a middle way if they decide to seriously look out for
one. But if any one of them tries to negate or alienate the other looking to grab a temporary advantage to mount a sinister move in more favourable future circumstances , it
merely helps destroy any good prospects for the nation. No force should have
this kind of
agenda or try to hijack the state mechanism, this can only make our Fate
undecided perennially. There is no dearth of politicking , but a true spirit of
accommodation for all, agreement, inclusion understanding for other is what is
missing from among us . Politics is doing its bit, but what we lack are basic human ethos to reach out
for the differences which we personally don’t have within.
( from
reflections and recollections : Krishna Paudel)
( facts
and dates cited are from various media sources recorded in my diary )
