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Kathmandu Tuesday October 31, 2000 Kartik 15, 2057.
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Maoists set deadline
By Damakant Jayshi
KATHMANDU, Oct 30 - Maoists have set a
deadline till Tuesday for the government to state its position on their demands,
ex-communist lawmaker and human rights activist Padma Ratna Tuladhar said Monday.
The Maoists have demanded that the status
of arrested rebels should be made public and the process of the release should start at
once, Tuladhar told The Kathmandu Post today.
When contacted, Deputy Prime Minister Ram
Chandra Poudel, who had held informal talks with a Maoist representative Friday, said,
"We are going to respond in a day or two and there is no fixed deadline."
Poudel declined to comment about the
government's response on meeting the rebels' demands, saying "I will not say anything
at this moment".
A lot hinges on the government's response
as to how the things would turn out. It was Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Ram
Chandra Poudel who had been in the limelight in trying to bring the rebels to the
negotiation table. On October 12 the DPM had asked Tuladhar to bring a "dialogue
package" from the Maoists.
However, it is not yet clear in what
capacity was the DPM holding talks. On Friday Deputy Prime Minister Ram Chandra Poudel
held "unofficial" talks with a high level representative of the underground
Nepal Communist Party (Maoist) at an undisclosed location in Kathmandu along with Tuladhar
who had set up the meeting at the request of the DPM. The talks had lasted two and half
hours.
The Maoists, during and after the secret
unofficial talks, have demanded a formal discussion with the government. The Maoist
representative, Rabindra Shrestha, central committee member of NCP (M) reportedly told the
DPM that they would not participate in any unofficial talks, insisting that talks be
upgraded to official level.
Tuladhar today clarified that
although DPM Poudel had suggested in the Friday's meeting to hold a couple or more of
unofficial talks, Shrestha had expressed inability to take part in further unofficial
talks.
"He (Shrestha) had insisted on
immediate holding of official talks after meeting their demands," said Tuladhar.
Besides the release of the rebels who are
reported missing, the Maoists have been demanding that the government stop offensive
against them and what they claim to be "state terror" against the rebels and
their sympathizers. The rebels have now also demanded the release of all those arrested
rebels.
This was confirmed Saturday, a day after
the unofficial talks, when Pushpa Kamal Dahal, a.k.a. "Comrade Prachanda," who
is the general secretary of the underground Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), demanded in
a statement, the release of all the missing rebels after the Tihar holidays, which ended
yesterday.
Prachanda reiterated what Shrestha had said
in his meeting with DPM Poudel as to future talks : The Maoists would, henceforth, only
sit for formal talks if their demands are met.
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