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VOL. 27, NO. 23, February 15, 2007 (Falgun 03 2064 B.S.)
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Parallel Revival
The Maoist intention is drawn into question after it revived its infamous peoples' revolutionary councils just ahead of election
By A CORRESPONDENT
By resurrecting the dissolved peoples' revolutionary council units, the Maoists have raised many eyebrows. The revival comes at a time when the party leaders have been going overboard in their attempts to convince others about their sincerity towards Constituent Assembly (CA) election this time round.
Out of the blue, the Maoists, last week, announced the revival of revolutionary peoples' council units at local level to 'ease the problems faced by people at the local level.'
In the past, Maoist people's governments were operational in villages and district level as parallel forms of government undermining state authority during the conflict period. They were dissolved following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the seven political parties and the Maoists two years ago.
The recent meeting of the United Revolutionary People's Council of the party had decided to resurrect the party's people's government. Although the decision came within days of the high level steering committee's decision not to reconstitute the local bodies for the time being citing disagreements within the SPA, Maoists have assured that the people's government would not act as a parallel government like before.
In a statement issued by convener of people's council Dr Baburam Bhattarai, Wednesday morning, it has been stated that "since the local bodies have still not been re-constituted on the agreement among the seven political parties, the people's government have been activated to resolve the problems faced by the people in the district and local level and extend help in development related works."
The statement further said that the meeting which was presided over by Maoist chairman Prachanda also decided to start "model joint development projects" in 11 'autonomous state committees and two sub-committees.'
Additionally, the meeting has also re-constituted the central people's council appointing Dr Baburam Bhattarai as convener and Krishna Bahadur Mahara and Dev Gurung and its deputy-conveners.
Meanwhile, Ian Martin, Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Nepal , has said that he will soon be discussing with Maoist leadership over the reactivation of People's Revolutionary Councils.
Speaking on Saturday with Radio Nepal , Martin said, "So far as parallel structures are concerned, what the Comprehensive Peace Accord and the Arms Monitoring Agreement says there shouldn't be parallel mechanisms in areas of the state or state machinery. The Maoist leadership has said that the activation of the People's Council is not setting up a parallel structure but they said that it was happening because local bodies hadn't been formed by the Seven-Party Alliance and that it would be involved in supporting development work. That does sound that if it is going to substitute for responsibilities of the State, and I should be discussing this very soon, I think, with the Maoist leadership, by a meeting."
The revival of the PRC has also coincided with increasing frequency of attacks at local level by the Maoist-affiliated Young Communist League (YCL) cadres targeting other political parties.
The YCL cadres attacked and injured former minister Dilendra Prasad Badu and a team of Nepali Congress workers in Darchula district a few days ago.
Immediately after the YCL attack in Darchula, the government ordered police raids in YCL offices in Kathmandu valley, which was also backed by the Unified Marxist Leninist (UML).
