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Too little, too late

By No Author
The peace proposal floated by the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) to complete the integration and rehabilitation of Maoist combatants in the next 45 days has come too late, and offers too little—not to mention its ambiguity on issues that need clarity and specifics. From major parties such as the NC, UML and Madhesi parties to many fringe parties, they have all expressed dissatisfaction with the proposal and some of them even accuse the Maoists of backtracking over many issues on which they were close to agreement during informal negotiations.



The Maoists have also made some outrageous demands in their proposal—such as that the combatants opting for rehabilitation should get a cash incentive of as much as one million rupees each, 8,000 of them should be integrated into the Nepal Army, and that the army directorate into which they will be integrated should have a combat role as well. All of these demands were rejected by other parties in the informal negotiations and the Maoists had indicated they were willing to make further concessions.



Another pressing question about the Maoist proposal is, why it came at the eleventh hour— almost 24 hours after the deadline given by President Dr Ram Baran Yadav to form a consensus government had expired and after parliament had begun the process for electing a new prime minister. If the Maoists were serious about negotiating with other parties over their proposal with a consensus in mind, they would have floated it at least a week ago when the parties still had plenty of time to negotiate in earnest and strike a deal on a consensus government.



But that wasn’t meant to be. Thanks to their internal difficulties, the Maoists were in no position to negotiate on all the contentious issues of the peace process, reach an agreement with the other parties, and disassociate themselves from their arms and army. The peace proposal made public by the Maoist party was, therefore, just a formality.



For the last one and half years this newspaper has been consistently arguing that the Maoists should be given an opportunity to lead a national consensus government, but for that there must be tangible progress in the peace process, and that the onus of concluding the peace process lies with the Maoists. In the next 48 hours or so the country will, hopefully, have a new prime minister—the third in as many years.



A majority government—irrespective of who leads it—will find it difficult to conclude the peace process. However, as it has become abundantly clear that the parties can’t agree on a consensus government, they should at least learn to work together even under a majority government, and cooperate on peace and the constitution.


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Too little, too late