The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) is at pains trying to convince people that it has no plans to “capture state” by force. All they need to do is match their verbal assurances with actions.
One such area is integration and rehabilitation of the Maoist ex-combatants and the other is the one related to successful discharge of disqualified fighters. However, the Maoists have been skipping the scheduled meeting of the Special Committee for Supervision, Integration and Rehabilitation of Maoist Combatants which, as agreed, needs to be held every Sunday. They did it last week citing “previously” scheduled programs. They repeated the act this week. The reason this time is the “ongoing second phase of protest programs”. This is ludicrous. The postponement of the meeting has delayed finalization of the code of conduct prepared by the Technical Committee of the Special Committee for cantoned Maoist combatants thereby delaying the process of integration, rehabilitation and the management of 19,000-plus Maoist combatants.
The fate of the more than 19,000 UN-verified combatants thus continues to be in a limbo. It has been more than three years since these ex-combatants (in addition to 4,000-plus disqualified individuals) have been living in 28 cantonments. Even the progress on those deemed disqualified by a verification process undertaken by UNMIN has been stalled with new demands placed by Maoist army commanders. These demands, ranging from one million rupees and gratuity payment for each discharged fighter, only points at the fact that the 4,008 disqualified combatants will still be living in cantonments even after the Nov 19 deadline. The unexpected hurdle vis-à-vis the discharge process has raised eyebrows. Their dilly-dallying act will only lend credence to the charge that the party is using these combatants to extract political mileage.
Successful integration and rehabilitation of the Maoist combatants (both qualified and otherwise) is an important component of the Comprehensive Peace Accord of 2006 and the Interim Constitution. However, for reasons best known to themselves, the Maoist leaders have been coy about moving ahead seriously and speedily on this front. Although, on paper, the Maoist army is under the command of the Special Committee, in reality it is the Maoist party in general and its chairman in particular who call the shots. That some of the Maoist leaders, including very top ones, keep threatening other political parties of using their army does not help matters at all.
We urge the Maoists and the government as well as other political parties to give utmost priority to integration and rehabilitation of the Maoist fighters. This is not only essential for the fighters but also for the overall peace process.
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Coming so far from the peace commitment of moist, their violence attitude carried over till date. Till now the public fear the life because we have only one but they have many reason they can cook to lit it off. The reason to me seems like because they want to maintain their attitude toward violence and keep good stamina of troubling people, this time life would be bit of more so why no suffocation to public? This is what looks to me and probably to many others, so they will never integrate the
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Suman Basnyat
I am expecting a strong and hard statement from security council and UN body in near future not so far. There are symptoms that they are extremely upset by the Maoists dillydallying. The issue has been raised with due importance and you know how quickly the matter of child soldiers travels through the highways of communication to all levels of global governing bodies. Worst for the maoists and better for reactionaries!
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