Though the UCPN (Maoist) had reached a gentlemen´s agreement with the government in this regard last Monday, the agreement was ambiguous. [break]
When Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal briefed the Special Committee for Supervision, Integration and Rehabilitation of Maoists combatants about this on Wednesday, Maoist representatives on the committee had offered their own interpretation of the gentlemen´s agreement.
"We have shown flexibility to let the army recruit competent human resources and buy extremely necessary arms to carry out its mission," Barsha Man Pun, a Maoist representative on the committee, told journalists while emerging from the Committee meeting Wednesday morning.
Dr Ram Sharan Mahat, a Nepali Congress representative on the Committee, told Republica that the prime minister informed the Committee NA would be allowed to recruit necessary human resources and procure materials under the agreement reached between himself and Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
The meeting was supposed to take up the task of finalizing a plan of action for the integration and rehabilitation of Maoist combatants, a code of conduct for ex-Maoist fighters, and directives related to command and control of the combatants, but it did not. The Committee is meeting again on Thursday evening to discuss these issues.
Meantime, the technical committee of the Special Committee also met on Tuesday after a long gap. As Maoist representatives on the technical committee were absent for a long period due to their party´s differences with the government, the committee has not been able to finalize documents related to modalities of integration and rehabilitation, rank harmonization and a rehabilitation package, according to one member.
These developments follow the four-point agreement reached between the government and the UCPN (Maoist) on Tuesday. The agreement, among other things, has pledged to complete the outstanding tasks of the peace process between September 17 and January 14, 2011.
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