The Peace Talks And After
-
Baburam
Bhattarai
The seven month long ceasefire and peace talks between the old monarchical regime and the revolutionary democratic forces led by CPN (Maoist) have finally collapsed on August 27. The international community, capping with the UN Secretary General to the government of Australia down under, have expressed serious concern over it and called for solution of all outstanding problems through continued dialogue. This warrants a short overview of why the talks failed and what the prospects for the future are:
There has been lot of media
dissection on why the talks failed and many have tended to put the blame on
procedural matters and similar secondary issues. But we, and for that matter
any serious student of political science and history of democratic struggle in
Nepal, would locate the impasse on the seemingly irreconcilable class and
political contradiction between a feudal-bureaucratic monarchy backed by
foreign imperialist powers and democratic forces fighting for complete
sovereignty of the people on all state affairs.
A cursory glance at the two
political proposals put forward by the two warring sides at the negotiating
table ( i.e. by the CPN( Maoist) during the first round of talks on April 27
and by the representatives of the royalist regime during the third round of
talks on August 17 ) would suffice to bring out the huge gap between the two
political positions. The talks failed precisely on those core political issues
which could find no meeting point despite any amount of diplomatic niceties and
procedural finesse.
The CPN (Maoist) proposal identifies the two-and-a quarter century old feudal-bureaucratic state presided over by the autocratic monarchy, with cosmetic reforms in 1950 and 1990, as the root cause of all class, national, regional, gender and other contradictions and seeks basic structural transformation in the political, economic, social and cultural spheres of the state simultaneously to solve the fundamental problems of the country. However, given the stage of strategic equilibrium in the seven and half year long civil war and the sensitive geo-strategic positioning of the country sandwiched between two super states of India and China, the proposal offers the creation of a transitional state system through democratic means with common minimum content and form/process of promulgation of a new constitution. Whereas a round-table conference, interim government and election to a constituent assembly were proposed as the process of creating a new constitution, the minimum content of the new constitution were proposed as: unrestricted sovereignty of the people; no ‘unchangeable’ features in the constitution; creation of a new national army; proportional representation of different classes, nationalities, regions, dalits, women etc. in the legislature and proper representation of all in the government; a secular state; guarantee of rights to self-determination and autonomy to oppressed nationalities and regions; guarantee of multi-party system, rule of law, freedom of expression etc; education, health and employment as fundamental rights to all; revolutionary land reform on the basis of ‘land-to-the tiller’ and protection to national industry and trade; and abrogation of all unequal treaties and strict practice of non-aligned foreign policy.
Along with these, it was proposed
that political parties would be free to propagate in favor of a republican
state during the election to the constituent assembly which would be held with
no preconditions attached. In sum, the essence of the CPN (Maoist) proposal was
to let the people exercise their sovereignty in an unrestricted manner and
complete the unfinished agenda of bourgeois democratic revolution in the
country.
Contrary to this, the so-called
‘Concept for Forward-looking Reforms in the State-system’ proposed by the old
regime eulogized the traditional role of the monarchy as quintessential for
national unity and sought to preserve it for ever as ‘indispensable basis’ of
the constitution. On the crucial issue of the Royal Nepal Army(RNA), which has
been the bulwark of the monarchy and a vehicle for counterrevolution time and
again, the old regime was not even prepared to discuss, leave alone negotiate,
and rather sought outlandishly the immediate surrender of arms by the People’s Liberation Army(PLA). Also it rejected almost all the
other ‘minimum content’ of the new constitution proposed by us, by making offer
of only selective ‘reforms’ on peripheral issues to hoodwink the gullible, like
twenty-five percent reservation for women. The most significant hurdle,
however, was the obstinate unwillingness of the old regime to go for a new
constitution and its ridiculous stand to introduce ‘reforms’ through
‘amendments’ to the old moribund constitution, which is already mutilated
beyond recognition after the royal take-over October 4 last.
Hence these two irreconcilable
political positions of the two warring sides practically sealed the fate of the
peace talks after the third round on August 17-19. Any observer with a sense of
objectivity and conversant with the ground reality of class and political
balance of forces in Nepal (i.e. a triangular contention between the
monarchists, parliamentarists and revolutionary democratic forces) would,
however, acknowledge that a free and fair election to a constituent assembly
under an interim government would have been the best course of compromise
acceptable to all the three contending sides. It is quite ironic that both the
monarchist and parliamentarist forces, who swear by the sovereignty of the
people and multi-party democracy, have chickened out of going to the sovereign
people to elect a constituent assembly, and thus precipitated a bloody civil
war in the country. No sane person or organization would now blame the CPN
(Maoist) for an intransigent stand, as the Party openly espousing a strategic
goal of people’s democratic republic has come down to the
immediate slogan of a constituent
assembly.
Apart from this broader
ideological-political issue, the saboteur role of the RNA, with the prompting
of some foreign powers, has contributed significantly to derail the peace
talks. Not only did the RNA consistently violate the cease-fire and
code-of-conduct mutually agreed upon by the two sides, it openly challenged the
decision of the second round of talks to confine the RNA activities within five
kilometers of its permanent bases. The most serious and provocative incident
was the massacre of nineteen unarmed political activists by the RNA in Doramba
(Eastern Nepal) on the very day of start of third round of talks on August 17. This ghastly crime has now been
corroborated even by an enquiry commission sent by the National Human Rights
Commission owing allegiance to the old monarchical regime.
As most of the rulers of the
semi-colonial and dependent third world countries are just the puppets in the
hands of their foreign imperialist masters, the role of foreign forces cannot
be minimized in the internal political dynamics of the country. This ‘foreign
hand’ was quite visible and active in our case, too, and can be said to have
significantly influenced the outcome of the peace talks, despite their pious
official pronouncements to the contrary.
Even though a large section of the international community was seen sincerely committed and endeavoring for the success of the peace-talks, some forces could not conceal their sabotaging role from the beginning to the end. Leading this evil band was US imperialism led by one Mr. Bush and his arrogant ambassador Mr.Malinowsky. On the very morrow of the first round of talks on April 27, the US government put the CPN(Maoist) on the co-called “other terrorists” list, signed a five-year ‘anti-terrorist’ agreement with the royalist regime, announced the supply of several billion rupees worth of ultra-modern arms and equipments to the RNA and sent hundreds of military advisors and trainers. Also, sudden rush of hordes of US ‘strategic experts’ with dubious antecedents to the country at the same time could not have been a mere coincidence.
In the immediate aftermath of the break-down of peace talks the US ambassador, along with a few others, was seen hectically campaigning to make the agitating parliamentary parties surrender to the King, so as to ‘isolate the Maoists’. In the process these self-professed guardians of ‘democracy’ have unmasked their own autocratic monarchist and militarist characters and isolated themselves from the masses of the people fighting for their democratic rights and freedom.
The CPN(Maoist), however, as
reflected in the recent letter of Chairman Prachanda to the UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan, has been assuring the international community of its full commitment to all universal democratic
values and principles, and appeals to all to stop every sort of foreign
military and otherwise interventions in the country and let the Nepalese people
choose their own destiny themselves.
The
Future Prospects
Despite the
ultimate break-down of cease-fire and peace talks our Party has positively
assessed the
overall political developments so far. It
is our considered view that the decision to enter into cease-fire and
negotiation process
was correct in the concrete historical
situation, and through our sincere efforts to find a forward- looking political
solution in
a
peaceful manner we have won over millions of masses and middle-strata of the
population to the cause of democratic
revolution and isolated the regressive
monarchist forces. Even the opinion polls conducted within the status quoists dispensation
have over the months consistently showed that a large majority of
the people across all strata and regions support the
democratic programs and policies advanced
by our Party. This is one of the reasons why the so-called votaries of
‘democracy’ have chickened out of the
innocuous proposal of a constituent assembly which is supposed to be the
‘highest form’ of bourgeois democracy.
However, the political developments in the
country in the coming months are likely to follow different twists and turns
and the democratic forces would have to be prepared for every eventuality. As
the real power of the old state is now centralized in the monarchy and its RNA
and the formidable foreign power brokers are lobbying hard to make the King
share some power with parliamentary forces so as to mount a unified assault
against the revolutionary democratic forces, coming weeks may see yet another
governmental change. But whether the mask would be ‘white’ (i.e.Nepali
Congress) or ‘red’ (i.e. the revisionist UML), the real power will be wielded
by the King and his RNA and prodded by the foreign masters. Consequently a
head-on collision between the regressive and progressive forces would be
unavoidable.
A lot more
blood may be spilled. But it won’t be in vain. The birth of a fully democratic
and republican Nepal may not be too far.
[ Dr.Baburam Bhattarai was the Convener of the
5-member Negotiating Team of CPN(Maoist) and is also the In-Charge of the
International Department of the Party.]