Peace And Constitution: Where Are They?

Siddhi B. Ranjitkar

Peace and Constitution are the two things required for Nepalis aspiring to build Nepal a federal democratic republic. They need these two basic things to immediately complete for saving the country from the current political chaos that has been plaguing Nepal so far. Political leaders have been saying that they have been working on building a consensus on these two things but they have not done so, yet. The political transition period has been the environment conducive to breed criminals. In addition, political leaders have been blessing their cadres for their political and other crimes adding fuel to the fire of political criminalization. Political leaders need to think of the benefits of the common folks rather of their cadres to get out of the current political deadlock.

Completion of the ongoing peace process is the prerequisite for a lasting peace in Nepal. Integration of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Nepal Army and formation of Truth, Reconciliation And Rehabilitation Commission are the two main components of the peace process. However, political leaders have been focusing only on the integration of the two armies. None of the political leaders has been serious about discussing the setting up of Truth, Reconciliation And Rehabilitation Commission despite the pressure put up by the local and international human rights organizations.

Truth, Reconciliation And Rehabilitation Commission is for finding out the truth about the perpetrators of human rights violence and the victims of such violence that had happened during the 10-year conflict period, reconcile with each other the victims and the perpetrators of crimes against humanity and then rehabilitate the victims of violence. However, setting up of Truth, Reconciliation And Rehabilitation Commission has been placed on the back burner.

Victims of the conflict have continued to suffer. Families of enforced disappearances perpetuated both by the state security forces and the Maoists have not been informed about the whereabouts of their loved ones. They have continued to agonize over the whereabouts of their loved ones. Both the state and the Maoists have completely neglected the problems of the victims of the conflict. The peace process will not be complete without resolving this problem of the victims of the conflict but the politicians have not seriously thought about it.

Another major component of the peace process is certainly the integration of the two armies. The UCPN-Maoist leaders want the integration of PLA with honor whereas the NC and CPN-UML leaders want the PLA to surrender without any condition. The UCPN-Maoist leaders want the integration of PLA with the arms but the NC and CPN-UML leaders have been asking them to surrender the weapons before integration.

UCPN-Maoist leaders have fear for surrendering the weapons to the government before the completion of the writing of a new constitution. They have the doubt about the NC and CPN-UML keeping their words of completing the writing of a new constitution after surrendering the arms to the government. Therefore, they have been concerned with it and have publicly said that they will not surrender the weapons to the government before completing the writing of a new constitution and then promulgating it. In addition, they have been saying that only the defeated army will surrender the arms whereas the PLA and the Nepal Army have won the war; so, there is no question of the only PLA surrendering the arms; if they really want PLA to surrender the arms then both the PLA and the Nepal Army need to surrender the weapons.

One positive development has been both the UCPN-Maoist and the NC leaders have been trying to reach an agreement on the number of PLA members to integrate. The UCPN-Maoist leaders have been scalding down the number of PLA members to be integrated whereas the NC leaders have been scalding up the number thus making the possibility of reaching the point where both parties will meet.

One of the thorny points of the integration of the two armies has been the return of the properties seized by the Maoist cadres during the conflict period to the owners mainly the NC leaders. The NC leaders have linked it with the peace process. Seizing anybody’s property is illegal if anybody is for the rule of law but the NC leaders instead of going either to the police or to the courts they have politicized it. Why they don’t initiate a legal process to get back the property they have allegedly lost to the Maoist cadres is the question they never answer. However, they have stuck to their demand for returning the seized property as the precondition for completing the peace process.

UCPN-Maoist leaders will never be able to convince their cadres of the need for returning the seized property. The Maoist cadres believe that NC leaders including other feudal lords according to their definition have forcibly grabbed the land from the poor when they had been in power. So, the Maoists are not for returning the land they have grabbed. Even, one of the vice-chairmen of UCPN-Maoist Mohan Vaidya ‘Kiran’ has publicly said that he is not for returning the property the UCPN-Maoist cadres have seized.

Prime Minister chairs the Army Integration Special Committee (AISC) set up for integrating the two armies: PLA and the Nepal Army but its performances have been lackluster. PLA has come directly under the umbrella of the AISC after the UNMIN (UN Mission in Nepal) left Nepal. AISC has the representation of PLA and the Nepal Army among others. However, it has been unable to move forward to integrate the two armies because the top leaders of three major parties such as UCPN-Maoist, NC and CPN-UML have not been able to build a consensus on integrating the two armies.

UNMIN had been in Nepal to keep the records of the weapons of the PLA and their numbers and of the Nepal Army and then store the weapons in their respective containers and keep the keys of those containers with the respective army, and monitor the activities of both the armies following the Comprehensive Peace Agreement the government of Nepal reached with the current UCPN-Maoist. One of the main tasks of the UMNIN was to be the witness of the integration of the two armies but that did not happen, as the three major political parties did not step back from their stand on the integration of the two armies.

Leaders of both the NC and CPN-UML had spent their valuable time on charging the UNMIN with favoring the Maoists. They needed to focus on integrating the PLA while the UNMIN was still in Nepal but they had never done so believing once the UNMIN would leave Nepal they could force the Maoists to surrender their weapons. However, their belief did not come true. Rather the PLA have upgraded their standard and strengthened their professionalism during the last three years of their stay in different cantonments. UNMIN left the country after the last deadline for the integration of the two armies in presence of the UNMIN expired.

Both the NC and CPN-UML have the faction that does not want to see the completion of the peace process rather it wants to dissolve the Constituent Assembly and return to conflict. NC leaders such as Khum Bahadur Khadka and Govinda Raj Joshi both implicated in corruption cases by the Commission on Investigation into Abuse of Authority (CIAA) but released by the Supreme Court of Nepal on the technical ground, and CPN-UML leaders such as KP Oli and Madhav Nepal lead the faction in their respective party. Naturally, they don’t want the integration of the two armies. They have been conspiring against completing the peace process and the constitution writing. They have been for dissolving the Constituent Assembly that has been elected to write and promulgate a new constitution.

The UCPN-Maoist also has a faction led by Mohan Vaidya ‘Kiran’ that does not mind dissolving the Constituent Assembly. This faction has been charging the Chairman of UCPN-Maoist Prachanda with giving up too many things that have come to their hands to the NC and CPN-UML. Followers of this faction want to go for another decisive people’s movement rather than going along with the NC and CPN-UML leaders.

The NC leaders also have decided in the meeting of the district chairmen of the NC held recently that the NC will launch a movement after the expiry of the term of the Constituent Assembly if the peace process and drafting of a new constitution are not completed during the three months extended period following the five-point deal the leaders of the three major political parties signed off on the midnight of May 28, 2011, and endorsed by the legislature-parliament. They don’t believe any more in completing the peace process and the writing of a new constitution within this period. They want to go head-on confrontation with the Maoists dissolving the current Constituent Assembly. They see the largest number of votes of the UCPN-Maoist in the current Constituent Assembly has been the major hurdle to achieve their political goal.

The writing of the new constitution has been almost complete. Leaders of the major political parties have to sort out only a few controversial issues. Leaders of NC and CPN-UML want the PLA surrender the weapons to the government and the PLA go home before the completion of the writing of a new constitution but the UCPN-Maoist leaders want to complete the writing of a new constitution and promulgation of it before the PLA is disarmed and its member sending home. The UCPN-Maoist leaders don’t trust the words of the NC and CPN-UML in view of their past defaults.

The ‘sub-committee on sorting out the contentious issues of a new constitution’ presided over by Chairman of UCPN-Maoist Prachanda has started working again. According to the news aired by the state-run ‘Radio Nepal’ the sub-committee has been working on the system of governance: one of the most controversial issue. UCPN-Maoist has proposed to make a presidential system whereas the NC wants the continuation of the parliamentary system but the CPN-UML wants the direct election of a prime minister. They have been working on building a consensus on this issue.

Similarly, they have another two major contentious issues such as state restructuring and the system of elections. As in the case of the system of governance, the three major political parties have different proposals for a number of states the country to divide, and for the system of elections, too. They need to build a consensus on these two major issues before completing the draft of a new constitution.

On June 26, 2011, speaking at the Reporters’ Club, Secretary of UCPN-Maoist C. P. Gajurel has charged Chairman Subash Nemwang with not sending the reports prepared by the thematic committees for discussions for 13 months consequently causing the delay in completing the constitution writing. Gajurel has said that Chairman Nemwang has been responsible for the delay in the constitution writing not the political parties that have been defamed and wrongly pointed at for not completing a new constitution. If Chairman Nemwang has not held the reports stating the political parties have not built a consensus on those matters, the lawmakers would have discussed them Gajurel has stated.

On June 27, 2011, almost after a month of signing off the five-point deal, the Legislature-Parliament has set up a 17-member parliamentary monitoring committee presided over by Chairman Subash Nemwang to monitor the progress of the enforcement of the five-point deal leaders of UCPN-Maoist, NC and CPM-UML reached on the night of May 28, 2011, and to put pressure on them to expedite the completion of the peace process and the constitution writing

Chairman Subash Nemwang was supposed to set up a high-level committee within a few days of the signing off the five-point deal but he could not show his ability to do so. The weakness of Mr. Nemwang has been he wants to please everyone particularly the political leaders consequently causing the considerable delay in completing a new constitution.

On June 19, 2011, Chairman Subash Nemwang has done a remarkable job forcibly removing four lawmakers belonging to the insignificant political parties and suspending them for a week for obstructing the House session demanding the government bring inclusive bill, ensure their rights to self-determination and change the names of the proposed provinces. However, the chairman had not shown the same guts to remove the lawmakers belonging to the large political parties such as UCPN-Maoist, NC and CPN-UML for obstructing the business of the parliament in the past causing considerable delay in deliberations of the parliament.

The leaders of the three major political parties have already spent one of the three months of the term of the Constituent Assembly they have extended on almost doing nothing but verbally assaulting each other. They have still two more months to complete the two major tasks such as completing the peace process and the draft of a new constitution of the nationally important. If they are really sincere to completing these two major tasks of the nation they can do but whether they are sincere or not remains to be seen. The leaders of three major political parties: UCPN-Maoist, NC and CPN-UML have been holding the bits and pieces of the peace process and constituent writing puzzles in their pockets; they need to put these bits and pieces together to resolve the puzzles.

Political leaders have been protecting criminals in Nepal. For example, speaking to the reporters upon arrival at the international airport in Kathmandu on Saturday, June 25, 2011, CPN-UML Leader KP Oli has blessed the chief of Youth Association of Nepal (YAN) Mahesh Basnet for protecting Parshuram Basnet allegedly involved in the deadly assault on the reporter Khilanath Dhakal in Biratnager from getting into the hands of the police. Mr. Mahesh Basnet has even challenged the administration to arrest Parshuram Basnet, for which Mr. Oli has awarded Mahesh Basnet the title of ‘true cadre of the CPN-UML’.

On June 26, 2011, speaking at an event of marking the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture in Kathmandu, Chairman of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Kedarnath Upadhyay has said that the cases of impunity have been rising in Nepal, as the government has not enforced the recommendations made by the NHRC for taking actions against the perpetrators of the human rights violence. So, Chairman Upadhyay has urged the media people to take up the cases of human rights violations for bringing the perpetrators of human rights violence to justice.

In the last week of June 2011, the Ministry of Home has planned to hold surprise checks on suspicious police units but the Nepal Police headquarters in Kathmandu have leaked out information about the ministry’s move making the plan a failure.

The Nepal Police Headquarters have circulated the plan of the Ministry of Home to conduct surprise checks and advised them to be alert to dealings in money; then the successive hierarchy of the police has passed on this message up to the grassroots levels.

Then, the grassroots-level Police removed a dozen checkpoints they had set up on the highways to collect unauthorized tolls. It indicates that the whole network of the law-enforcement officials has been involved in perpetrating illegal activities.

The irony is that the same law-enforcement officials have blamed the political leaders for protecting their cadres involved in serious crimes. District-level law-enforcement officials have said at their eastern regional security conference held in Biratnagar on June 29, 2011 that they have the difficulty in maintaining law and order because of the political pressure they face on the law enforcement as politicians often force them to release criminals from custody.

The peace process and the writing of a new constitution have created the period of the political transition that has been the environment conducive to breed criminals. So, even the law-enforcement officials have been involved in criminal activities. Politicians have been openly protecting the criminals. So, Nepalis need the completion of the peace process and then the promulgation of a new constitution so that the country can hold general elections for electing a new legislature and a government to enforce the rule of law.

July 1, 2011