India does not want the UN to sit in as neutral umpire in talks between Prime Minister GP Koirala’s government and Nepal’s Maoists.
NEW DELHI: India does not want the United Nations to sit in as neutral umpire in talks between Prime Minister GP Koirala’s government and Nepal’s Maoists. This is a major snag now, as no other mechanism is in place to oversee the discussions. The challenge in Nepal, after the victory of the pro-democracy forces, is how to disarm the Maoists and bring them to the political mainstream.
India is willing to let the UN be involved in de-mobilisation of the Maoist cadres. However, New Delhi has put its foot down on the UN monitoring the ceasefire between the Maoists and the army. India wants civil society to be involved in this, but this is not a realistic proposition. There have been talks of Scandinavians as in the monitoring mission in Sri Lanka, or Norway getting involved, but so far New Delhi is not comfortable with either of these. Also, South Block wants the elections to the Constituent Assembly to be overseen by Nepal’s election commission and not the UN.
Officially, India has not commented on its position about UN involvement.
While the top Maoist leaders are willing to have a go at democratic politics, reports of armed cadres continuing to extract money from hapless citizens in the provinces are still coming in. Senior Maoist leader Badal is reported to have some differences with Prachanda and Baburam Battarai over the switch to mainstream politics.
Political parties are angry with the Maoists for not allowing their cadres to carry on legitimate political activities outside the Kathmandu valley. So far the differences between the Maoists and the political parties are under wraps but would come to the surface unless the differences are quickly resolved. The political class in Nepal are wary of a force which still wield arms.
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