National 6 (Spotlight Weekly)

Thanks For The Advice...Now Goodbye

As fighting between government forces and Maoist rebels intensifies, one civil society group is raising the voice of the people. But is anyone listening?

By JOE BAVIER

There doesn't seem to be much of a future in peace brokering these days.

The post-festival fighting season is raging once again. Attacks by the rebels are intensifying daily. The government has created two new army divisions. And the High-level Peace Committee set up to coax the Maoists to the negotiating table is now threatening to push them away for good with an ultimatum on new parliamentary elections.

But Bishnu Pukar Shrestha, secretary of the newly formed Citizen's Peace Commission, is not ready to give up just yet.

“Even though the process is slow, we are not totally pessimistic,” he says.

The CPC was formed last month in an effort to pressure the government into taking real steps towards resolving a conflict that will soon enter its ninth year, having already cost the lives of some 9,000 Nepalis.

Made up of an impressive collection of the country's civil society heavyweights, and including leading human rights activists, a former election commissioner, an ex-ambassador to China, and headed by 22-year veteran of the Supreme Court, Justice Krishna Jung Rayamajhi, they've been making the rounds attempting to put the brakes on what is shaping into an increasingly inevitable large-scale showdown between the government and the rebels.

And for a government that has for months emphatically proclaimed its readiness for peace talks, what they have to offer should be quite attractive. With members from all over the political spectrum and the ability to call upon former negotiators for both of the warring parties, the CPC hopes to create a system of back channels between the government and the rebels in order to cultivate a fertile climate for talks.

“We want to develop confidence between the government and the state. Because neither of them has confidence in the other,” Shrestha says. “The situation will be conducive only when they work to bring peace from the bottom of their hearts.” But so far, that's been the main stumbling block.

“What we are saying to the government is to make access for a group of citizens so they can meet with the Maoists and bring their views to you,” says Shrestha. “And you will have to send some messages to them. The main thing the government should do is to make public all those who are under arrest and who they've made disappear.”

But after a busy two weeks during which they met twice with Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, held talks with the government's new High-level Peace Committee, and have been pushing to meet with the heads of the political parties and the Palace, responses to these two principle demands have largely been ambiguous.

“They did not say no. They just said, 'We are in favor of peace talks. So we will try the best we can.' The government is just enforcing the Terrorism and Disruptive Activities Ordinance. They are not able to make public the names of all of those that have been disappeared. It has been a very slow process. They only say, 'Two people are over here. One is over there.' And only after two or three months. That doesn't help the peace talks.”

And neither will another parliamentary election without the rebels, Shrestha says, though he does see the value of leaning on them to negotiate.

“If the Prime Minister declares elections, there will be no peace talks,” he says. “There must be pressure on the Maoists to come to the table. The Prime Minister saying, 'I will declare elections' means, you will have to come to the negotiating table. But we've met with the PM twice already. And I don't think that he, himself, will be able to declare elections. I think that he is thinking that in his own mind.”

But if the real chances of holding elections next year look slim, the likelihood of getting both sides to peace talks appear positively anorexic. And though the Citizen's Peace Commission says it sees signs of good faith in encouraging phone calls from CPN (Maoist) Politburo members, last week's attack on the Mahendra Highway is being interpreted by many as a major change of tactics and perhaps the beginning of a final bloody phase of the war.

For the government's part, for all its public peace rhetoric, its actions have been consistently hawkish. Last month, despite much public protest, it renewed the controversial Terrorism and Disruptive Activities Act as an even more draconian ordinance. It is continuing to boost troop numbers across the country. And when, during Dashain, the Maoists declared the unilateral ceasefire that had been called for by the Citizen's Peace Commission, among others, it was revealed that the Royal Nepali Army was in the middle of launching an offensive of its own timed to coincide with the festival.

With such telling signals coming from both sides, it takes some creative optometry to see the glass as half full. But still, the CPC is managing to pull it off.

“We are optimistic. We have formed this commission with the full determination that we can do something. This is our hope. We can change their attitudes. It will take time.”