Farewell to arms

AFTER MONTHS of stalemate and two failed peace deals, there’s good news at last from Nepal. The trilateral negotiations between representatives of the Maoist rebels, the seven leading political parties and the UN have finally resulted in an agreement acceptable to all parties, and one that tackles almost all the crucial issues facing the country. The two main stumbling blocks before the earlier peace deals were disarmament and the future of the monarchy. Under the deal signed on November 7, the Maoists have agreed to disarm under UN supervision, in return for 73 seats in the interim parliament. Significantly, the Maoists’ share in the interim parliament is just one short of that of the largest party, Nepal Congress (NC). It reflects the government’s recognition of the Maoists’ strength, and should go a long way in mainstreaming Maoists’ political agenda. The future of the monarchy, it has been agreed, will be decided by a constituent assembly, which is expected to be in place by June 2007 once elections are held under the interim government. All royal property, meanwhile, will be sequestered.

The agreement, however, cannot be expected to be a magic wand that will wipe away strife and divisions overnight. The interim government, after all, will require former enemies to work together. Many of the leading mainstream political players – including Sher Bahadur Deuba of the Nepali Congress-Democratic and the NC’s Girija Prasad Koirala – are known to be moderately pro-monarchy and stridently anti-Maoists. The Maoists will be heavily outnumbered in the 330-member legislature. For the agreement to hold, all parties concerned will have to exercise restraint and work together to create conditions and institutions that will enable the people’s will to prevail.

Nepal is torn along linguistic, cultural, religious, regional and class lines. The Maoists led by Prachanda were able to gain a stronghold because they were seen to espouse the cause of the downtrodden peasants and workers, pitting their ‘democracy from below’ against the ‘democracy from above’ of the ruling elites. For a genuine people’s democracy to flourish, it will be important to ensure political economic empowerment of all sections of the population. This is a huge challenge for an impoverished, land-locked hill-State. Undoubtedly, the task ahead is uphill. However, the agreement is a promising start.