KATMANDU, 9 November 2006 — Communist rebels signed an agreement with Nepal’s government yesterday to lock up their weapons, confine their fighters to camps and join an interim government in a major step toward ending their decade-long insurgency.
The agreement came after more than 16 hours of negotiations among Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, the heads of the seven-party ruling coalition and Maoist rebel leader Prachanda.
“We have reached a historic agreement which has drawn a roadmap for a new Nepal,” Prachanda, whose real name is Pushpa Kamal Dahal, told a crowded news conference.
“However, the road ahead is tough,” he added.
Prime Minister Koirala called the agreement a victory for all of Nepal’s people.
“I believe this is a new revolutionary solution to the country’s problems,” Koirala said. “Now I believe the Maoists will leave their arms behind permanently and join peaceful politics.” The rebels agreed that thousands of their fighters would be confined to camps and their weapons would be locked up under United Nations supervision by Nov. 21. The guerrillas would then join a new interim parliament that would be set up by Dec. 1, Home Minister Krishna Sitaula told reporters after the talks ended early yesterday.
The same number of government troops and weapons are to be sequestered separately under UN supervision. It is still not known how many fighters the rebels have, but the government has around 90,000 soldiers.
Prachanda said the rebels have no intention of leading the interim government and want Koirala to continue as prime minister.
“To try to change the prime minister before elections next year would only sabotage the whole process,” Prachanda said.
Sitaula said a special assembly also is to be elected next year to decide the fate of King Gyanendra, who was forced to give up his authoritarian rule earlier this year by weeks of pro-democracy demonstrations.
Yesterday’s agreement is aimed at ending a decade-old insurgency that has killed more than 13,000 people. The two sides reached a cease-fire and began peace talks in April, but negotiations then stalled for months when the rebels refused to part with their weapons, and the government insisted that they give up their arms before joining an interim government.
Hours after Wednesday’s agreement was signed, hundreds of people blocked traffic and surrounded a communist office in the capital, Katmandu, to protest orders by the rebels that residents provide their supporters with shelter and food over the coming weekend.
The rebels plan to bring thousands of people to Katmandu for a mass rally Friday at which their top leaders are to speak.
Each Katmandu household has been ordered to provide food and lodging for 10 visiting rebel supporters.
“They have come to our houses and ordered us to open our houses to their people. This violates our basic rights, and we will not tolerate it,” said one of the protesters, Chatraman Singh Karki.
The agreement put a smile on the face of many ordinary Nepalis, who have been forced to live with killings, abductions, fear and shortages as the decade-old war against the monarchy brutalized the poor Himalayan nation and wrecked its economy.
“I still shiver from fear when I remember the days when the city used to turn into a ghost town due to rebel strikes,” said Kumar Thapa, a Katmandu taxi driver.
“When I heard the news on radio the first things that came to my mind was relief,” he said yesterday, hours after the two sides clinched the deal.
“Peace at last” read a banner headline in the English daily, the Himalayan Times.
But Prachanda and Prime Minister Koirala warned there was more work to be done and appealed for unity among the country’s fractious political parties.
“There are challenges to implement the agreement from reactionaries who want to see us fail,” Prachanda told reporters at a rare news conference.
The bespectacled rebel chief said the Maoists were proud that 10 years of fightinghad delivered “historic change.” Koirala said the peace was a “victory” for all Nepalis. (With a report by Reuters)
