Deepening Distrust

The past weeks have seen two issues, which threaten to derail the Nepali political process, come directly and starkly to the fore. 

Responding to the recruitment process initiated by the Nepal Army (NA), in defiance of the Maoistdefence minister’s orders, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of the Maoist Party (CPN-Maoist) announced recruitment to its ranks as well. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which states there would be no additions in either army, came under direct threat. At the leadership level, tensions escalated between the Maoists and the Army, and Maoist and non-Maoist parties, and have still not been resolved. 

Even as this was happening, on the ground, rising ethnic assertion brought the country to a standstill. Tharu political organisations called a strike and shut down the Tarai for more than a week, objecting to their official categorisation as a Madhesi community-- they claim a distinct indigenous identity while Madhesis insist that Tharus are a part of the larger Madhes. Three persons, including a policeman, were killed on March 6 during the protests, while dozens were injured. The deadlock persists and thegovernment has remained incapable of brokering a compromise. 

These two episodes are symptomatic of the state of the Nepali state today. On one hand, there is an extremely fragile peace process, which is coming under immense strain because of inter-party acrimony, Maoist belligerence, and the Nepal Army’s defiance. On the other, state authority is crumbling in thedistricts, where any group can operate with total impunity under a political cover to demand what they think is their share of the pie. 

Nepal is the only country in South Asia with two standing armies. Both armies have their respective days of celebration. The PLA put up a massive show of strength in mid-February on the 14th anniversary of the Maoist War in a United Nations (UN)-supervised cantonment in the southerndistrict of Nawalparasi. It was attended by the Prime Minister, defence minister and all top Maoist leaders. A few days later, the Nepal Army put up a show on Shivratri, in keeping with tradition. The programme was attended by all constitutional functionaries.

The existence of these two armies was recognised, ipso facto, by the peace accord. But there was also recognition that this was an inherently untenable situation. And that is why provisions were made regarding the ‘integration and rehabilitation of former Maoist combatants’ and for the setting up of a special committee that would decide on the future of the Army. 

There has been little movement on this critical issue since the agreement of November 21, 2006. Initially, the non Maoist parties wanted to leave the implementation of this clause till after the CA elections, since they calculated that a massive defeat for the Maoists would put them in a weaker position on integration. The poll results, however, defied expectations and a victory meant that the Maoists became even more assertive. From privately accepting that they would have to settle for a few thousand people in the NA at lower levels before the polls, they demanded group level entry and space in the NA's command structure after the election results. 

Complicating the integration issue is the fact that the all-party consensus broke down and the minimum degree of understanding required between the Nepali Congress (NC) and Maoists went missing. Non-Maoists also became wary of the stated Maoist commitment to transform into a democratic force and started viewing the NA as the only force that could prevent a total Maoist takeover. At this stage, when their distrust for the Maoists has only grown, they are unwilling to take the risk of the Maoists taking control of the Army through integration. 

The Maoists have also been ambiguous on integration. There is a dogmatic faction within the party which is happy to keep the PLA intact as an asset and a bargaining tool that can be used later, in case things do not move according to their plot. There are, moreover, close to 4,000 Maoist armed cadres who were disqualified by UN monitors for being underage and late recruits. Though the Maoists have repeatedly stated they will discharge the disqualified cadres, there has been no movement in this direction. Sources indicate that in certain ‘divisions’, Maoist commanders have not even informed those who were disqualified about their status, fearing a reaction. 

An Army Integration Special Committee (AISC) headed by Prime Minister (PM) Prachanda, but with the participation of all key parties, was set up in October 2008. The PM told his PLA cadres at the Nawalparasi celebrations (PLA’s 14th anniversary of the Maoist war) that they were now under the AISC ‘in principle’. But the Maoist chain of command for the PLA is intact, with Nand Kishore Pun ‘Pasang’ as commander. 

This is the background against which the recent controversy over recruitment arose. The Nepal Army issued recruitment notices around October last year. It was in December, when a PLA deputy commander, Baldev, announced that they would also start recruitment as a response. Thedefence minister, Ram Bahadur Thapa ‘Badal’, formerly the ‘deputy commander’ of the PLA, ordered the NA to stop recruitment with immediate effect. The United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) also issued a statement pointing out that recruitment to either of the two armies would be against the Peace Accord. 

The Chief of Army Staff, Rukmangad Katuwal, responded by stating that the process had moved too far ahead and the NA would continue with recruitment. The country is thus witness to a strange situation, where the NA chief and his boss, the Defence Minister, are having a public spat. The NA managed to garner the public support of all non-Maoist parties, who had been observing with worry the increasingly warm ties between sections of the Army and the Maoists, and who saw this as the right opportunity to increase the gulf between the two. The NA has also secured the private backing of various international actors, including USA and India. 

The Army’s defence is that they were not engaged in additional recruitment but were filling in existing vacancies, and that this was allowed by the CPA. The NA claims to have done this twice before, when G.P. Koirala was Prime Minister. They also point out that they had informed the Defence Ministry of this decision in October, and it took more than two months for the Defence Minister to object to the exercise. UNMIN has made it clear that they had privately written letters to the NA on both the previous occasions when recruitment was initiated, and that the Peace Accord says there would be no recruitment, not even to fill existing vacancies. PLA commander, Pasang, accused the NA of violating the Peace Agreement and urged thegovernment to act against the Army. Unofficial reports suggested that Defence Minister ‘Badal’ strongly asked the Prime Minister to sack Army chief Katuwal when the NA went ahead with the process. An NGO, the International Institute for Human Rights, Environment and Development (INHURED International), has also filed a case against the NA in the Supreme Court, challenging the recruitment. 

Against this backdrop, the PLA then issued a statement saying they would also go ahead with recruitment. Pasang and other PLA commanders claim that Prime Minister Prachanda was only informed of the decision, and did not order it. This is highly unlikely as Pasang is a Prachanda loyalist, and the attempt to distance Prachanda could be a ‘good cop-- bad cop’ strategy. Pasang emerges looking radical to his cadres and soldiers for taking on the NA and his own leadership. And if and when a compromise is brokered, Prachanda comes out looking good to the rest of the national and international actors for having ‘kept the process on track’. 

For now, the PLA move will help the Maoists bargain with the AISC and the governmentwhen they demand that the NA stop recruitment. It will also help them further establish the ‘equivalence’ between the NA and PLA, which increases their strength in the integration debate. 

But a face saver is becoming increasingly difficult to find. INHURED has also filed a case against the Maoists in the Supreme Court for violating the Peace Accord, thus bringing the judiciary in to mediate on clauses of the Peace Accord, signed in good faith by the leading political actors. This has escalated tensions between the NA and PLA, though back-channels between the two exist. And it has made Prachanda’s task of reconciling interests of his party’s army and the national Army; of appeasing his radical cadre and keeping the peace process on track; of instituting civilian control of the Army, but keeping its sensitivities in mind; and of building up a consensus, that much more difficult. 

The second task, linked inextricably to the peace process, is that of Constitution writing. The time-table stipulates that the committees focus on internal discussions, solicit views from the public (40 teams are in thedistricts for this purpose now) and come out with a Draft Constitution by the end of April. While it would be relatively easy to come out with a consensus in certain committees (fundamental rights, for example, where the Maoists have accepted liberal democratic rights in principle), federalism is looking like an increasingly intractable issue. 

The Tharu protests are representative of why an issue like state restructuring is so complex. The Madhesi parties have been demanding a single Madhes province across the plains, though this is more of a bargaining chip than a serious slogan, given the heterogeneity within the Tarai and the lack of a support base for the Madhesi parties in western Tarai. The Tharus, encouraged by other national parties, have opposed this demand and said they want a separate province in the plains. Thegovernment has issued an official notification and, without consultations, it seems deliberately, put the Tharus in the list of Madhesi communities. The ruling party must have known that this would provoke a backlash, the calculation being that this could only expose the contradictions between the Madhesis and Tharus and weaken the Madhesi demand. But now, thegovernment will have to engage with the Tharu groups and possibly withdraw the categorisation. But when they do that, Madhesi outfits may well be infuriated. 

The point is that the federalism debate is occurring within an ethnically diverse society like Nepal at a time when state authority is weak and a culture of street protests and armed militancy has taken strong roots. The Maoists have proposed 14 predominantly ethnicity-based provinces. The Nepali Congress and Communist Party of Nepal (Unified-Marxist Leninist) still do not have a roadmap for federalism, apart from opposing ethnic states. The Madhesi parties are asking for a single Madhes based on regional federalism. 

It is difficult to figure out what could be a meeting point between these proposals and demands, and who could engineer a compromise that satisfies all sides. What is most likely is that, when the debate begins, possibly around April-end, it will spill out into the streets. When that happens, as the Madhesi protests of 2008 and Tharu protests now show, thegovernment will find it increasingly difficult to control the disorders without the use of force. With the use of force, however, the movements will only gain intensity. Negotiations will then have to take place between leaders in Kathmandu. But for identity movements without clearly defined leaders, as is the case of the Tharu agitation, the streets will continue to burn. And when there are multiple leaders, as in the case of the Madhesis, competitive radicalism will prevent any side from signing a deal which could be branded a ‘sell out’. 

At the root of many of the complex problems that face Nepal today is the role of the Maoist party, its strategy and the way it is viewed by its adversaries. The Maoists are the strongest party-- both because of their massive organisational machinery and committed cadre on the ground, and their numbers in the Constituent Assembly. They have cleverly used the state apparatus and policy measures to consolidate their base and entrench themselves further. At an ideological debate that took place in December, the party also decided to categorise the NC as the next ‘enemy’, with the monarchy gone, to polarise the polity in favour of republicans and the broad Left Front against status quoists, and to play on the contradictions between USA, China and India. 

The tendency of the Maoists to shift goalposts after the elections and their provocative statements have led to serious doubts among the non-Maoists regarding the former rebels’ commitment to multiparty democratic rule. This suspicion is compounded by the insecurity of these non-Maoist parties, especially the NC, which has done little to overhaul its organisation and go back to thedistricts to build up the party. So while the NC and the Indian establishment had hoped that this entire process would ‘tame’ and weaken the Maoists, the opposite has happened, with the Maoists emerging stronger than ever and in an unassailable position domestically. This has also given them the confidence to build ties with China on a scale unprecedented in Nepal’s history. 

The resulting distrust between the NC and the Maoists -- buttressed by distrust between India and the Maoists, and the Army and the Maoists-- is now complicating the relatively simple plot envisaged in the 12 point agreement signed in New Delhi on November 22, 2005. 

Prashant Jha is Contributing Editor, Himal Southasian Magazine; Columnist, Nepali Times, Kathmandu. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal