A Fragile Peace?

Some of you may know that Nepal is just emerging from a long Maoist insurgency that crippled most of the country and made travel around Nepal quite difficult. As part of hte peace process elections were held and a new constituent assembly has been formed to draft a constitution and develop a new government. However as with all these things, bureaucracy is slowing the process and fighting between the main political parties is causing problems. I thought I would recount one of these arguments that is being played out at the moment...

For the Nepali new year the 2nd National Games were held in Kathmandu. These games include every sport from swimming and athletics to football, badminton and chess! Each major group in Nepali society entered a team including the police, the armed police, the western states etc ect. However the games were shrouded in controversy as the Nepali Army (NA) refused to compete in events that had participants from the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA - Maoist). They claim that the PLA, which should be being integrated in to the NA as part of the peace process, hadn't entered properly and thus were breaking the rules. In reality the NA have spent so long viewing the PLA as the enemy that them both competing on an even platform was probably never going to work. General Katawal of the NA withdrew all his contestants from events with PLA competitors and in doing so angered the Maoist led political party the U-CPN (I think this stands for unified communist party of Nepal). General Katawal has also angered the U-CPN by reinstating 8 army generals who had didn't have their contracts renewed at the end of the last year, this was part of a process to shrink the army to allow space for the PLA.

The situation escalated to such a point that on Tuesday both sides were reportedly planning minor coupes to regain control. The NA plan involved sending the UN monitors of the Maoist cantonments home and seizing all the PLA weapons before overthrowing the government. the U-CPN threatened that unless Katawal steps down, retires and is replaced by a Maoist friendly general they will quite the government and start the agitation (terrorism) that thwarted the country for so long. I wonder if the army will ever accept responsibility to the government (whatever colour) and whether the PLA combatants will ever be able to accept joining the army who they fought for so long?

This example shows just how fragile the Nepalese political process is. Everyday there is political demonstration of some sort in Kathmandu center and large parts of the country are brought to a stand still by strikes which stop all movement along the roads and the airports.

I do not understand enough about the previous conflict to comment on which party or process is the best for Nepal (although my gut says that a party which still teaches children as young as 5 how to soot and still threatens families with torture for not supporting their cause is not ideal), I just hope that the country manage to sort their political process out as there is no hope for development until the situation is stable.