KATHMANDU, March 9: Commander of the Maoists´ People´s Liberation Army (PLA) Nanda Kishor Pun on Monday said they would not accept the Army Integration Special Committee´s decision to stop recruitment profess if it is targeted only against the PLA. [break]
"I believe the committee decided to instruct both the armies to stop recruitment process and the decision is not targeted only against us," said Pun, in an interview to state-run Radio Nepal Monday morning.
He said the PLA would accept the AISC decision only if it applied to Nepal Army´s recent recruitment as well. "I heard the committee decided to instruct both the armies to stop recruitment in both sides but I have not received any official information."
Hours after the Supreme Court asked the government to stay the recruitment by the PLA, the AISC, headed by Maoist party chairman and Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ordered the Maoist army to stop it. The AISC has eight members from the four largest parties in the parliament – two each from Maoists, Nepali Congress, Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) and Madhesi People´s Rights Forum.
The AISC has the responsibility to rehabilitate over 19,000 Maoist fighters staying in the UN-monitored cantonments across the country since 2006.
Pun said he would not stop the recruitment process until and unless Nepal Army reversed its already concluded recruitment process.
"We may also make similar argument with Nepal Army that we have already recruited the people in the past five-seven days if we are to argue for the sake of argument," Pun said. "But we are in favor of respecting the spirit of Comprehensive Peace Accord and Interim Constitution."
The Maoist commander also blamed the five ruling parties of pushing the row over recruitment to further uncertainty. "What double standard," he said, referring to a decision taken by high-level mechanism of the five parties last week. "They said Nepal Army´s recruitment drive as wrong but supported the recruitment done so far. We want this decision rectified by the cabinet."