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Kathmandu Saturday November 10, 2001 Kartik 25, 2058.
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Government withdraws
‘controversial’ regulation, decides to release 68 Maoists
Post Report
KATHMANDU, Nov 9 – The emergency cabinet
meeting today decided to withdraw the "controversial" Public Security Regulation
2001, paving the way to the much-awaited third round of dialogue between the government
and the Maoists.
The warring Maoists have been demanding the
withdrawal of the regulation, which gives extra authority to the district administration
to take action against anyone.
"The government has decided to completely
scrap the regulation," Minister for Information and Communication Jaya Prakash Anand
told The Kathmandu Post.
The cabinet meeting also decided to "begin
the process of releasing 68 Maoist cadres who are in government custody at present,"
Minister Anand said. "The government has decided to withdraw cases against these
people. But it would take some time before the release materializes."
According to Minister Anand, the government also
decided to make public the whereabouts of Maoists leaders and cadres who are in the police
custody. "The Home Ministry will soon say whether it has any record of the people
whom the Maoists have been terming as missing," he said.
This decision has been taken in view of the
demand put forward by the Maoists who had earlier presented a list of their members whom
they claim have been "missing" since they waged the "People’s
War" in 1995.
The government has released 67 Maoist cadres,
some of them central leaders, since the peace talks with the Maoists began on August 30.
The talks were held for the second time on September 14.
And this major decision of the government has
now paved the way for the third round of talks between the two sides, which sources say
would be held next week, before the Tihar festival. The government took the decision in
haste as its chief negotiator for the talks, Minister for Physical Planning and Works
Chiranjibi Wagle, is leaving for South Korea during Tihar, which begins next Wednesday.
"Now that the government has decided to
fulfil all the demands put forward by the Maoists, there is no hurdle whatsoever in
holding the third round of talks," a source close to the Prime Minister’s office
said.
The government had been lingering its decision
to scrap the regulation, which they had agreed with the Maoists during the beginning of
the talks in Godavari more than two months ago.
It’s not only the government, which has
come out with this decision to ease the environment for the talks with the Maoists. The
Maoists too showed their commitment on holding the talks when they decided to back down
from their earlier demand of a republican state. Establishment of a republican state was
one of the three political demands put forward by the Maoists during the talks with the
government with other two being the formation of an interim government and the Constituent
Assembly.
Meanwhile, Home Minister Khum Bahadur Khadka has
welcomed the Maoists move not to raise the issue of a republican state during the talks.
Addressing a programme in Rautahat today, Khadka hoped that this change in their stand
would bring a positive result in the third round of talks.
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