Oped»
Arm twisting
- STATE OF FLUX
APR 05 -
The Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML and India ejected the Maoist-led government from power because they were afraid of what they thought to be the Maoists’ uncontrolled expansion over state and society. The UML-led government that replaced it in May 2009 had one overriding objective: to destroy the sources of power that the Maoists had accumulated during their ‘people’s war’ and in the period of the peace process.
How much success, then, has the current governing coalition achieved towards fulfilling its aim? Most obviously, of course, the Maoists lost some strength, as they were no longer able to use the instruments of state towards their ends. The attempt to destroy their power over society was a somewhat different matter: in its crudest form, this would have required the deployment of the state security forces against the Young Communist League (YCL) and other militant Maoist organs. Given the fragile state of the Nepal Police this was not immediately possible. The Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA) and other agreements of the peace process had also accorded the Maoists legitimacy. If the state’s coercive powers were to be deployed against the Maoists, it would first be necessary to redefine the terms of the CPA by depriving the Maoists of the status they possess as one side of the peace process, equal in terms to the other.
A revision of the CPA has not been possible; for this would have required the consent of the Maoists. But it has been clear that over the past year, various actions have been undertaken — in breach of the agreement — that constitute an informal rewriting of the terms of the peace process. Nowhere has this been clearer than in the government’s attempts to release the Nepal Army from the constraints imposed upon it by the peace agreements — which gave it a stature equivalent to that of the Maoist People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Simultaneously, the government has tried to weaken the Maoists military by demonstrating intransigence regarding the demand for integration into the state security forces (this, it was thought, would give rise to resentment and decrease morale among the Maoist combatants) and to wean the PLA away from the control of the Maoist party by bringing it under the control of the Special Committee.
Not all of these goals have been achieved, but progress towards them has been substantial. In the person of the Defence Minister Bidhya Bhandari, the Army has found a willing defender of its interests. It has been protected from those who demand adherence to the peace agreements, and has been allowed to recruit personnel and import material to strengthen its capabilities, even as the Agreement on the Monitoring of the Management of Arms and Armies (AMMAA) prohibits both recruitment and replenishment of military equipment.
Perhaps more importantly, the government has succeeded in stalling demands for the “democratization” and “right-sizing” of the Nepal Army. These demands have been perceived as semantic camouflage for the Maoist urge to establish control over the Army and use it towards its own ends. All of the forces aligned against the Maoists have consistently thought that the chief means that the former rebels would employ towards this aim would be by pushing for wholesale integration of its combatants into the state Army. This has almost certainly been permanently blocked.
In the face of continued intransigence on the government’s part towards these demands, the Maoists have begun to feel that it is tactically wise to withdraw from their previous position. This is partially due to the Maoists’ own evolution during the years of the peace process. In the early post-Jana Andolan II days, the Maoists still believed that their primary source of power was their Army and that their success in pushing through their agenda would hinge upon their success in establishing the PLA as a powerful component of the state security forces. Over the past few years, however, the Maoists have had unexpected success in consolidating their control over society through their other organs, and the party has understood that it is these that constitute its major strength. The Maoists thus recognise that their army is not as relevant to the achievement of their goals as they once were. And they recognise that by pushing too hard on the integration issue they will further prolong the current deadlock and thus further delay the time when they will be back in government.
So from being a necessity upon which the Maoists’ ability to radically restructure Nepali state and society was contingent, the integration issue has become merely one that the Maoists can use tactically towards other ends. In particular, the party hopes that by demonstrating flexibility on this front, it will be possible to make the other parties more amenable towards their other demands — such as those regarding federalism, the form of government and the formation of a new “national unity” government under their leadership.
All of this means that no major changes will occur in the Nepal Army for the foreseeable future. It will continue to operate according to its old norms, largely autonomous of political control. The Maoists perhaps hope that they will be able to change this when they are finally able to assume control of the government, but that remains in the future, and it is certain that other political issues will have arisen by then which will make it difficult for them to do so.
More recently, the government’s efforts have gone beyond specifically attempting to weaken the Maoists militarily to damage their more general status — in the eyes of the public and some parts of the international community — as a rebel group struggling against the established order. There is great resentment among the parties in government that the peace agreements have conferred them a status as merely one side to the peace process. It seems to them greatly unjust that all of them altogether, at least theoretically, are considered equivalent to the Maoists. This is what lies behind recent claims by members of the CPN-UML and its affiliates in civil society that there are no longer two sides to the peace process, that by virtue of already having been in a position to lead the government, the Maoists are simply one of many parties competing in a multi-party framework.
It is also these factors that lie at the heart of the government’s troubled relationship with the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN). For, although the body is now responsible chiefly for monitoring the management of the Maoist army, it is still widely perceived as the international arbiter of the peace agreements. UNMIN’s very presence means that there are in fact two sides to the peace process and it stands in the way of the government’s goal of damaging the Maoists. While there is widespread recognition that the UN mission continues to be needed to ensure that the political track does not veer too far off course so as to destroy the peace process and thus damage all parties, sections of the NC and the UML feel that it needs to be cut down. This was why the government continued to attack UNMIN even after it had clearly been explained why the UN body could not provide the information regarding Maoist combatants that was demanded from it. The objective was to damage UNMIN’s credibility so as to neutralise its political importance, to ensure that it remained meek and compliant even as the government engages in egregious breaches of the CPA.
This attempt has not succeeded, however, and the government is still some way from attaining its goal of neutralising the Maoists’ status as one entire side to the peace process. Doubtless, it will be with the objective of achieving this goal that there will continue to be efforts to have the current government continue after May 28, or at least replace it with a similar governing coalition that excludes the Maoists.
Aditya Adhikari
aditya.adhikari@gmail.com
Posted on: 2010-04-06 07:29
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