Further details of Maoist demand for PLA

By Bhola B Rana

Kathmandu, 27 June: Taking a tough position that’s likely to be rejected by government, Maoist politburo Saturday demanded all 19,000 PLA combatants should be integrated in Nepal Army or a separate security with them should be launched.
“We haven’t said anything about exact numbers in the modality of the comprehensive peace agreement (CPA). All verified by UNMIN are qualified for integration. This is the spirit of the CPA.
“It’s against the spirit of the CPA to specify numbers. We’ve concluded to specify numbers is not take the peace process to its conclusion,’ Chairman Prachanda said after conclusion of the 10-day politburo meet.
The Maoist chief said the politburo decided to start discussions with other political parties to ‘integrate a separate unit of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) or another force’.
He said referring to integration in CPA: ”The modality doesn’t specify the security force. Modality should be specified by political understanding.’”
The leader of the main opposition rejected integration in state security agencies calling for setting up standards for integration.
He rejected the present standards for recruitment of Nepal Army, Nepal Police and the Armed Police Force (APF).
Prachanda, who’s still the PLA chief said: “Ruling parties have mentioned standards of the existing security agencies for recruitment. Nepal’s peace agreement has it’s own specialties and accepted norms. There should be standard norms not for recruitment but for integration. We didn’t come to an agreement for integration of PLA.”
The politburo took the policy decision on the PLA after being empowered by the standing committee and as ruling parties said only limited numbers of the former fighters will be integrated in state security agencies as individuals if they meet their recruitment norms.
The fighters are in 28 cantonments and satellite camps under limited UNMIN watch.
Maoists are obviously using the former fighters as a bargaining chip for negotiations with the government by hardening party position.
The integration, resettlement that should have been completed in six months hasn’t been completed even in three years.
Western nations are funding their stay in the camps by contributions to a peace fund managed by the government.
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“The whole country is paying the price of political instability. At this stage I’m on a standstill. If these sort of political gimmicks go on, I am insecure. My family is at risk and I cannot work in that situation. I have burnt our hands already and we can’t be in fire again. Today it is very difficult to continue and consolidate what we have, forget about expansion or reinvestment. Forget about any diversification, both horizontal and vertical.”

(Tycoon Rajendra Khetan, The Himalayan Times, 27 June)