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Nepal Peace Process Close To Deadlock
By KTM Metro Reporter in Kathmandu
January 13, 2010: The UN has said that the peace process in Nepal has been frozen during the past three months due to the tensions and mistrust among Maoists, the Government and the army. “The major disagreements that have brought the peace process close to a standstill remain unresolved, increasing the risk of its collapse,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said in his report to the UN Security Council, referring to the integration and rehabilitation of Maoist army personnel and the democratization of the Nepal Army.
“Positions have hardened at the opposing ends of the political spectrum, which has seriously eroded the common middle ground that had, from the outset, defined the peace process and remained its driving strength. There is a growing and worrying risk of the political discourse being dominated by extreme voices and the focus shifting away from the peaceful and democratic path,” he adds, calling on all parties to overcome their differences.
The Secretary-General’s report has focused on the UN Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) set up at the request of the Government of Nepal in 2007 to monitor the management of arms and armed personnel of the former Royal Nepal Army and its enemy, the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist currently Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-Maoist). Its mandate is ending on January 23, 2010. Mr. Ban has recommended the Secrity Council to renew the term of UNMIN if the Government of Nepal requests for it.
Citing the significant gains such as holding elections for a Constituent Assembly and declaring a republic the Government of Nepal has made since the end of the war, Mr. Ban has stressed the integration and rehabilitation of Maoist army personnel and democratization of the army are critical. “Regrettably, there is little progress to report on this front,” he has written.
“As the stalemate has continued, tensions have risen within and among the parties, and talks among senior leaders of the Nepali Congress, the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML) and UCPN-Maoist have remained inconclusive,” he adds. “The brinkmanship and confrontation between the Maoists and the Government, accompanied by a sharp and dangerous hardening of positions, is making a negotiated solution significantly more difficult.”
As violations of the peace accord, he has cited the UCPN-Maoist-led protests calling for “civilian supremacy” disrupting daily life and the functioning of Government offices around the country, sharply escalating tensions due to the seizure of land and crops by the people of the organizations affiliated to the UCPN-Maoist, and the repeated call by the government for fresh recruitments for the army.
Turning to UNMIN operations, he has noted that its Arms Monitoring Office continues to verify compliance by the army and the Maoists with restrictions on their weaponry, maintaining round-the-clock surveillance at the army weapons storage site in Kathmandu, the capital, and the weapons storage areas in the seven main Maoist cantonment sites. The Office also investigated Government allegations of misconduct by Maoist army personnel outside the cantonments.
But neither the army nor the Maoists have carried out previous recommendations to confirm the number of their respective personnel and increase their cooperation with UNMIN on the notification of troop movements, nor has there been progress on formalizing confidence-building measures related to joint humanitarian activities, Mr. Ban has said.
On human rights, Mr. Ban has said that no substantial progress has been made in addressing impunity and ensuring accountability for human rights violations committed during or after the conflict, as the Government has promoted a major general who had commanded a then-Royal Nepal Army brigade linked to arbitrary detention, torture and disappearances in 2003/04, to the second-in-command of the army.
For its part, UCPN-Maoist have failed to take any actions to address the alleged involvement of party members in serious crimes, both during and since the conflict, including the killings of a businessman and journalists and the bombing of a bus in 2005 that resulted in the death of 36 civilian passengers.
