Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Niraj Aryal

With the birth of Maoist led armed rebellion in 1996 ( February tentatively) , the Maoists in addition of controlling the rural areas also successfully swayed the governments in Kathmandu their own way as and when they wished to do so.. This is a game that was very well played by the Maoists in the past and that continues to date. I will prefer to call it a "strategic political maneuvering played with proper finesse".

Since, the famous Girija (mis)adventure to dissolve the first democratically elected Parliament in the mid-1994 until now, the country has seen countless change of the guards at Singhadurbar.

All together, governments formed thereafter share something in common and that were their priorities to tame the Maoists properly and to force them to join the mainstream politics. As promised, these randomly selected men in government also gave the Maoist issue a top priority.

In reality, some utterly failed to even bring the Maoist for peace talks whereas, some others at least showed their functioning linkages with the Maoists to ultimately bring the rebels to the table for talks. All put together, results were depressing for public each time, who were eagerly waiting for peace to prevail on a permanent basis. The peace talks never succeeded. People still look back to those rare instances and ask, who was playing with whom? The government or the Maoists? Still a mystery indeed.

In the not so distant past the government and the Maoists, since 1996 held two rounds of peace talks, one in the year 2001 under the premiership of Sher Bahadur Deuba of the MELAMCHI fame and the second in 2003 under the Prime-minister Surya Bahadur Thapa. The Maoists also declared ceasefire five times since 1996.

In reality, governments kept on changing in Kathmandu revolving around a common target which was never achieved that was to tame the Maoists. On the other side, the Maoists kept on gaining strength as they were effectively using period of peace-talks and ceasefire presumably to arm themselves, extort money and also a much needed pause from the armed conflict in order to regain the lost energy.

But later cease-fires were broken and peace talks failed repeatedly. People kept on guessing the reasons for failures of the successive peace talks and also the inability to exploit, in the mean time, the periods of ceasefire to achieve the said targets. Perhaps, both the Maoists and the government then preferred to keep the public in dilemma.

This time it is different though. It may be just because Prachanda is bringing himself in the front for the peace talks. There is a hint of success this time. Prachanda may have felt the difference, the public feels the same and the government is also confident. Previously it was different. Thus I here raise few questions, which may not still bear importance but they are here for your consumptions:

Is it that previously the Maoists did not wanted the peace talks to succeed? Or, Is it that this time Prachanda wants to take all the credits? And finally why the Maoists supremo himself in the past did not appear for peace talks? Keep on guessing!

Nevertheless, he is sure to dominate the talks with his revolutionary ideologies, which he has mastered in the mean time.