KATHMANDU - Fears over a powerful monarchy
backed by an army appear to have been allayed, but
the people of Nepal are unlikely to find their
homeland a safe and peaceful country until they
can persuade the Maoists insurgents to lay down
their weapons for good.
May 18 was a
red-letter day for Nepalis. The country's
parliament, the 205-member House of
Representatives, took the drastic step of turning
the monarchy, which until April 24 was alive in
its absolute form, into a virtually redundant
institution.
A nine-point declaration,
adopted without a single dissenting voice,
effectively raised the status of Nepalis from that
of king's
subjects to proud citizens
of the country to which they belong. The tag "His
Majesty's government" has been removed in favor
of
a simple expression -
the government of Nepal. What has traditionally
been known as the "Royal Nepal Army" was directed
to drop the word "royal" so that a sense of
belonging could be promoted among servicemen and
women.
The army leadership has also been
formally told that the Nepali Army will be placed
under a civilian government elected through
parliament. The house also assumed the
responsibility of making laws relating to
succession to the throne, a privilege previously
assigned to the reigning monarch.
Ironically, the lawmaking body, revived by
King Gyanendra himself in the wake of a popular
April movement, stripped most of his powers,
positions and privileges. The only solace to him
and his heir apparent, Paras, is that parliament
has stopped short of abolishing the institution of
the monarchy itself, for the time being at least.
But, if the present level of anti-king
sentiment persists, the monarchy could be a part
of history within years. A new constitution, to be
drawn by an elected constituent assembly, might
not leave any role for a traditional institution
which looks anachronistic at the start of 21st
century. Besides, brutal repression and atrocities
the royal regime has unleashed on the people since
October 2002 are too recent to be forgotten.
The Maoist leadership believes - and
claims - that the pro-democracy protests, formally
launched by an alliance of seven political
parties, picked up momentum from the active
support of their unarmed workers in the field.
Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as
Prachanda, issued a statement saying that while
his party welcomed most of the initiatives taken
by the parliament, they were inadequate.
In his opinion, there was no need to
retain the monarchy, even in its ceremonial form.
Since the country was already on the threshold of
a republican setup, the Seven Party Alliance (SPA)
should have had the courage to declare Nepal a
republic.
"Yes, it has been an inadequate
step," said Madan Regmi, a political analyst,
supporting the argument of the top Maoist leader.
In fact, the Maoists are unhappy with SPA
leaders because they think the Maoists are not
getting the credit they deserve. "Now they want to
marginalize us, they want to bypass us, and they
want to minimize the role of the Maoist movement,"
the New York Times quoted Prachanda as saying. The
paper on Sunday said the top Maoist leader was
interviewed on Friday night in an Indian city that
he insisted remain unidentified.
Two young
Maoist leaders who recently defected from the
group publicly asserted that Prachanda and another
of his senior comrades had spent eight of the 10
years of insurgency in India. Posters have
appeared in Kathmandu indicating that top Maoist
leaders would appear in a public meeting scheduled
for June 2. Ostensibly, the rebel leaders are
getting ready to make their first public
appearance in the capital.
The alliance of
seven parties is being constantly reminded of the
12-point understanding it reached with the Maoists
in November. The Maoists want that understanding,
which was subsequently renewed, to be honored and
implemented speedily. The rebel leaders announced
a ceasefire and formed a three-member team to
conduct preliminary talks in preparation for a
higher-level parley at a later stage.
For
its part, the government consisting of SPA
representatives also declared a ceasefire, lifted
the "terrorist" tag from the Maoist leaders and
began withdrawing criminal cases against them from
the courts, and made public announcements that a
three-member negotiation team would be headed by
Home Minister Krishna Sitaula.
A matter
of trust But the level of trust needed to
carry forward the agenda is not there on either
side. The main objective is to reach an agreement
on elections for a constituent assembly, which
would write a new constitution, replacing the
existing one promulgated in 1990.
For
that, the Maoists want an early dissolution of the
present parliament, together with the formation of
an interim government with representation from the
Maoist camp. One Maoist leader, Matirka Yadav, has
gone to the extent of demanding that a Maoist
leader should be given the chance to head the
interim government, which would oversee elections
for the constituent assembly.
From the
Maoist standpoint, the present parliament as well
as the government derive legitimacy from an old
constitution and old format which is not
acceptable to the people committed to form a new
Nepal. They are also rejecting suggestions that
they abandon their weapons in the runup to the
polls for the constituent assembly.
The
Maoist leadership also remains ambivalent about
demands from human-rights groups that those
involved in cases pertaining to human-rights
violations should be punished.
While the
Nepalese military has been accused of human-rights
violations, the Maoists have also used brutal
methods, such as killing teachers in front of
their students and cutting off the hands and legs
of villagers who expressed the inability to give
them food or shelter.
There have been
numerous incidents of abductions, recruitment of
underage children for the Maoist militia and
extortion of money as donations to finance the
armed rebellion. More than 13,000 lives have been
lost in the 10 years since the rebellion began.
However, leaders belonging to the SPA are
clearly against the idea of dissolving parliament,
an assembly which increased its power through
Thursday's declaration. The oft-repeated
contention is that the present parliament (elected
in 1999 for five years but dissolved prematurely
by the king in 2002, and revived on April 24 this
year) should be kept alive until the plan to elect
a constituent assembly materializes.
They
think conservative and regressive elements could
raise their heads if there were an absence of an
institution representing the people's collective
will. The rebel camp does not appear to buy such
arguments. The Maoist demand is that the
commitment to the constituent assembly should be
unconditional, but the SPA and other pro-democracy
groups insist that the Maoists must make a
pre-poll pledge to engage in competitive politics,
and not revive their plan to set up one-party
authoritarian communist rule.
Suspicion
over the Maoists has persisted because of the
breakdown of peace talks twice since 2001. The SPA
is also concerned by the fact that Maoist
guerrillas have not stopped extortions, reports on
which are coming from across the country.
Kathmandu-based Western diplomats, who in
the past supported the Maoist decision to join the
political mainstream, have begun to express their
worries. "Is this an indication of the leadership
losing grip among its cadre?" wondered a diplomat,
reflecting a view of the European Union.
One US official, Assistant Secretary of
State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard
Boucher, repeated his country's perception of
Nepali Maoists when he spoke to a Senate committee
in Washington on May 18, "We and many in Nepal and
in the international community remain wary of
Maoist intentions."
Prime Minister Girija
Prasad Koirala, who heads the Nepali Congress, and
the six other party leaders are often accused of
entering into an understanding with an extremist -
and unpredictable - group. Accommodating the
Maoists was a monumental mistake, intellectuals in
the non-leftist camp observe.
But others
disagree, and say that efforts to bring a militant
group into the mainstream must not be seen as a
mistake. If it is a mistake, they argue, it was
made because of the king's arrogance, direct rule
and his concomitant actions to sideline the
legitimate political forces for several months.
It was also a failure on the part of
Western powers, particularly the US, which could
not persuade King Gyanendra to fulfill the SPA
demand for the restoration of the democratic
process before they were forced to join hands with
the Maoists through the 12-point understanding.
The US had wanted the king and political parties
to work together, but what happened eventually was
that the political parties and the Maoists decided
to act together against the monarchy.
Some
political analysts also say that it was remiss of
the US not to exert timely pressure on India,
which is being described as a strategic partner,
to stop Nepali Maoists from using Indian territory
to carry out and expand their activities.
The US could have drawn New Delhi's
attention to the fact that if not checked, armed
insurgencies could spread and destabilize other
parts of South Asia, including India itself. The
Maoists initially used to criticize both India and
the US, the former for being expansionist and the
latter for acting as an imperialist force. Now
they have ceased to rebuke India; their hatred is
focused only on the Americans.
On May 16,
the European Parliament moved a resolution on
Nepal, calling the international community to
establish a contact group, to be made up of
Nepal's key partners and international
organizations, such as the EU, the US, India and
the United Nations. The resolution also proposed
the appointment of a special rapporteur to monitor
the situation.
The Maoists, too, have a
commitment to leave their armed fighters under UN
supervision pending elections. However, the
Americans view the situation differently. As was
evident in Boucher's statement in the senate
committee on May 18, the US continues to think
that among Nepal's partners "India has a key role
to play". While there is an element of truth in
that because of geographical proximity (with an
unregulated border) and cultural similarities, it
is unrealistic to conclude that India alone could
resolve the issues at hand.
Indeed, Maoist
leaders have said time and again that they are
prepared to work with the UN or any other neutral
organization with international standing with
regard to laying down arms in the period leading
up to the elections for a constituent assembly.
While both China and India, Nepal's
neighbors to the north and south, respectively,
might find it wise to keep the US away from their
doorstep, the two are unlikely to jointly work to
help Nepal get out of the present mess.
So
if New Delhi and Beijing cannot work in tandem on
Nepal, they cannot oppose the involvement of an
organization like the UN.
Dhruba
Adhikary, who has been a Dag Hammarskjold
Fellow, currently heads the Nepal Press Institute.
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