Politic-Economic-Society-Tech

Nepal Government, Rebels to Hold Landmark Peace Talks

By Gopal Sharma

A Nepali government team is due to meet Maoist rebels in Kathmandu on Thursday for landmark peace talks aimed at ending the Himalayan kingdom's bloody insurgency which has claimed over 1,800 lives in five years.

The meeting is the first formal direct contact between the two sides since the rebels, who model themselves on Peru's Shining Path guerrillas, took up arms against the constitutional monarchy in early 1996.

The location and time of Thursday's meeting have not been disclosed.

The talks come five weeks after Sher Bahadur Deuba became the troubled kingdom's prime minister and issued an invitation to the rebels for negotiations.

They also follow a wave of attacks by the rebels on police posts killing dozens of security personnel in an upsurge of violence after the June 1 massacre of King Birendra and eight other royal family members by drunken crown prince Dipendra.

The rebels have agreed to a truce and exchanged dozens of prisoners as a goodwill gesture ahead of the talks.

The moves have raised hopes of ending the violence that has racked the poverty-stricken nation's economy, slowed industrial production and delayed development projects.

``This chance for peace through the negotiating table in place of guns is one that must not be thrown away,'' said an editorial in the English daily Kathmandu Post.

Chief rebel negotiator Krishna Bahadur Mahara said on Wednesday that he would press for a one-party communist republic in place of constitutional monarchy for Hindu Nepal in talks with Physical Planning and Works Minister Chiranjivi Wagle.

The rebels are demanding an interim government to prepare a new constitution for the establishment of the ``people's republic'' in the picturesque nation visited every year by tens of thousands of Western tourists.

Nepal is home to some of the world's lofty mountain peaks including Mount Everest (news - web sites) and tourism revenue of $168 million in 1999 contributed nearly four percent of GDP (news - web sites). The rebels have said foreign visitors are not their targets.

Landlocked Nepal, perched in the central Himalayas between China and India, established a constitutional monarchy and a multi-party democracy after weeks of violent street protests in early 1990.

``There cannot be any compromise against the monarchy,'' Prime Minister Deuba said at a meeting on Wednesday.

The Kathmandu Post urged the government to try to accommodate as many Maoist demands as possible and asked the rebels to be resilient.

Mainstream political parties late on Wednesday asked the government as well as the rebels to show ``utmost seriousness'' to make the talks successful.

Last year, a government minister met the rebels informally but efforts for formal dialogue were derailed by a row over the release of two jailed Maoist members.

Analysts said Thursday's meeting alone could not resolve the fast growing Maoist insurgency.

The rebels have proposed a second and third round of meetings to be held on September 10 and 25.

source: Reuters, Aug. 30, 2001,