KATHMANDU, March 2: The commander of the Maoist People´s Liberation Army (PLA) Nand Kishor Pun said on Monday that the Maoist army would also fill the "vacant positions" in its ranks.
"We heartily appeal to Nepali youths who are at least 18 years old, healthy, willing, capable and filled with a sense of sacrifice to join the PLA," said a press release issued by Pun on Monday.[break]
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The recruitment process would begin from Tuesday. The PLA hopefuls have been asked to contact the PLA headquarters in the seven main UN-monitored PLA cantonments across the country, said Pun who replaced Unified Communist Party of Nepal chairman (and now prime minister) Pushpa Kamal Dahal as head of the PLA.
Pun further that the high-level mechanism of the five ruling parties that met on Saturday supported the Nepal Army´s act of recruiting 3,000 additional and new personnel, which was a violation of the Comprehensive Peace Accord (of November 2006).
"This has opened ways for the PLA to fill the vacancies in its originally registered 31,315 personnel with UNMIN that got reduced due to various reasons," said the Maoist commander in the press release.
The five ruling parties who met at the prime minister´s official residence at Baluwatar on Saturday said that it would not scrap the army recruitment.
United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) had issued a press release in December last year saying any recruitment by either army was against the Comprehensive Peace Accord.
Former commander of the PLA and one of the Maoist Constituent Assembly members from the Maoist party, Barsha Man Pun told myrepublica.com that since the Nepal Army had gone ahead with its recruitment plans, the PLA should be allowed to do the same. Another Maoist parliamentarian Dina Nath Sharma expressed disbelief, saying the PLA´s recruitment drive was not true.
Of the 32,250 originally registered Maoist combatants, UNMIN, after completing its verification in December 2007, put the number of combatants at 19,602. Its verification results showed 8,640 did not appear for follow-up interviews and were thus disqualified. Also among the disqualified were 2035 personnel who had joined after the cut off date of May 25, 2006 (after which no one could be recruited) and 1973 who were under the age of 18 on that day.
These combatants have been living in the seven main and 21 satellite cantonments across the country monitored by UNMIN since the formal end of decade-long Maoist conflict soon after the success of the second people´s movement in April 2006.
The PLA´s call for recruitment comes soon after the Nepal Army completed its recruitment of 2,884 personnel. It had invited applications for a little over 3000. The training of new NA recruits has already begun in then barracks of the army.
There was verbal duel between Defense Minister and Maoist leader Ram Bahadur Thapa and Chief of Army Staff General Rookmangud Katawal over the recruitment. Thapa publicly asked the Nepal Army to stop its recruitment plans. Nepal Army replied that it had already sought the Defense Ministry´s permission (in October last year). The army also argued that it was not violating the CPA and was merely filling up the vacancies in its ranks and recruiting new personnel.
A writ petition against the NA´s recruitment is being heard in the Supreme Court. The hearing would continue on Tuesday.
damakant@myrepublica.com
(Tilak Pokharel contributed to this report.)
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