The long and winding Nepali peace process is nearing a new crisis point, the national elections scheduled for 19 November, which are designed to create a new constituent assembly to finally agree a national constitution. (We are three years past the deadline set in 2006 for agreeing a new constitution.)
As PN went to press, it wasn’t clear if negotiations between the parties were going to manage to avert a major boycott of the elections, after the interim government…
Nepal
1 October 2013News in Brief
1 September 2013News in Brief
During the last six years of ‘peace process’, one key issue has been the integration of Maoist guerrillas into the Nepali armed forces – after they had fought each other in a bitter civil war for the previous 10 years.
On 26 August, the integration process finally came to an end, as 66 men and four women were commissioned as officers in the Nepali army after a nine-month training course. In July, 1,352 other ex-Maoist combatants completed a seven-month training course and entered the…
1 July 2013Comment
My father was a Gurkha and we lived in a British army camp in East Nepal where all the Nepalis lived on one side of the camp and all the British on the other. My father, a commissioned officer was given housing on the British side which made things kind of weird for me and my sister.
I would swim, ride horses, and attend the whites-only small, makeshift elementary school. At sleep-overs, I found myself wanting to eat the colonel’s daughter’s strawberry-flavoured imported Punch and…
8 March 2013News in Brief
Things are getting rather strange in Nepal, now in the seventh year of a very convoluted peace process.
The constituent assembly, elected in 2008, is now way past its legal expiry date (extended several times) and political parties have been thrashing around for months trying to agree on what to do.
The latest wheeze, suggested by the ruling Maoists, is for the current coalition to stand down, and the…
5 February 2013News in Brief
The slow-motion train-wreck that is the Nepali peace process tumbled further out of control in January, with new levels of inter-party hostility and deepening cracks within the Maoist camp.
The two main opposition parties, the Nepali Congress and the United Marxist-Leninists (UML), have stopped trying to reach an agreement with the ruling Maoist party (UCPN-M).
On 26 January, Congress and UML supporters attempted to blockade the prime minister Baburam Bhattarai and…
1 December 2012News in Brief
Six years of unsatisfactory ‘peace process’ have not delivered a new democratic constitution for Nepal, or a human rights accounting for crimes committed during ten years of brutal civil war.
The country is without a parliament as the supreme court ruled in May that the constituent assembly/parliament elected in 2008 could not extend its term any further. Elections scheduled for the end of November have been deferred until April. As PN went to press, the president was setting a tight…
17 October 2012News in Brief
Nepali politics, after six years of 'peace process', seems to be well and truly stuck. The country is without a parliament as the supreme court ruled in May that the constituent assembly elected in 2008 (which also functioned as a parliament) could not extend its term any further.
There is no agreement between the major parties on whether or how to hold new elections, and no agreement on the shape of the constitution.
There is enormous pressure for a new constitution to…
25 September 2012News in Brief
Not much change here. First, Nepalis fought a bitter civil war for 10 years. Then the liberals, the communists and the Maoist guerrillas made a historic peace deal in November 2006, and kicked out the monarchy in 2008.
Then they all spent the last six years not agreeing a new constitution, and breaking all the deadlines for completing the peace process and achieving a new democratic normality.
On 20 September, the liberals, the communists, the Maoist ex-guerrillas and…
28 August 2012News in Brief
The Nepal peace process has been staggering on now for nearly six years, since the comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) of November 2006. The CPA deadlines for agreeing a new constitution and electing a new government have been broken again and again.
Nepali politics are now floating in a void, with no agreement on how to move forward given that there is no constitutional basis for the government that now exists. The options being pushed at the time of going to press were: fresh…
2 July 2012News in Brief
After six years, the Nepali peace process is entering an explosive new phase. The directly-elected parliament/constituent assembly failed to agree a new constitution at the end of May, and was dissolved, pending new elections in November.
The Maoists, formerly a guerrilla insurgency, then the party with most seats in the constituent assembly, are currently the dominant partner in the coalition caretaker government.
On 18 June, the party split into two.
The party in…
27 April 2012News in Brief
The Nepali peace process, which has followed the negotiated end of the 10-year civil war in 2006, continues to stagger on.
One of the biggest problems in the process has been the fate of 19,600 registered Maoist ex-guerrillas, promised integration into the Nepali security forces (or demobilisation and ‘rehabilitation’) as part of the 2006 comprehensive peace accord.
On 20 April…
30 March 2012News in Brief
The Nepali peace process managed to get past a major hurdle back in November when the Nepali army dropped its outright opposition to taking in (a limited number of) former Maoist guerrillas, and agreed to ‘integrate’ them in a new, effectively non-military, ‘directorate’ carrying out forestry and development duties.
Integration was required by the comprehensive peace accord (CPA) that ended the civil war back in 2006. Major issues remain, including the ranks to be given to…
1 March 2012News in Brief
Nepal’s peace process continues to stagger on. The 10-year civil war ended in November 2006 with an agreement that, among other things, Maoist guerrillas would either be integrated into the Nepali security forces or demobilised. This has been the trickiest issue in the peace process, with the army for many years refusing point blank to accept members of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
As previously reported (PN 2542), a compromise has been reached whereby only 6,500 of the 19,600…
24 January 2012News in Brief
On 9 January, 15 Nepali political parties issued a joint statement criticising the Maoists, currently heading the government, for obstructing the Nepali peace process, which has been staggering on since the end of the civil war in 2006.
A major sticking point has been the fate of the former Maoist guerrillas, who have been living disarmed in “cantonments” since 2006. In November, it was agreed finally that only 6,500 of the 19,600 ex-fighters would be integrated into the security…
15 December 2011News in Brief
Peace News has been tracking Nepal’s rickety peace process which has had another deadline. After the end of the civil war in 2006, the Maoists stopped being guerrillas and became ministers, as they formed the largest party in the new parliament in 2008.
Having resigned in 2009 after disputes with the Nepali army, the Maoists are back in charge. Maoist prime minister Baburam Bhattarai announced on 28 September that he had set himself until the end of November to complete the peace…