Peace process at a crucial time

Speech by senior Maoist leader sows concern and confusion on key issue of disarmament.

The Nepalese media claim the chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal, Maoist (CPN) told a public meeting on Monday that the Maoists have thousands of weapons available outside the U.N.’s holding areas.

Under the November 2006 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the Maoists are depositing their arms in U.N. controlled cantonments as a condition for entry into the new Parliament. To date 31,000 Maoists have reported to the cantonments, where they are housed, and have put 3,500 weapons into supervised storage.

It is not clear whether the speech is as controversial as first appeared. In an interview with the BBC, the CPN’s second in command claims it was mistranslated and the word used could have meant either ‘guns’ (stored inside the camps) or ‘bombs’ (some stored outside the camp for safety reasons) or ideological weapons.

The U.N. too has appeared to react calmly to the reports: although they said on Tuesday they are “concerned” and “any reports of unregistered Maoist army weapons outside the cantonment sites will be investigated,” their spokesman appeared to agree this could be a misunderstanding and they needed to talk to the Maoist leadership before judging the reported remarks.

The peace process, which followed a decade of violence in which more than 13,000 lost their lives, is at a crucial moment. Perceived weaknesses in the government have led to the daily rise of new actors with contrary claims on the post-peace settlement.

This settlement is not yet fixed and it is unclear whether the king has a role to play in it –especially following the Prime Minister’s call last week for him to abdicate – and how the Madheshis – a sizeable ethnic minority living on the border with India who claim to be marginalised – will be included in it.