UN gets to verify Maoist soldiers in Nepal again

By IANS

Kathmandu : The UN Tuesday resumed verifying the soldiers of the Maoists’ guerrilla army in central Nepal, nearly one and a half months after the verification had been blocked by angry rebels who accused the world body of trying to disarm them. The verification is a critical part of the peace process.


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A team led by the UN Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) started interviewing the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers in a camp in Sindhuli district, southeast of Kathmandu, to check if there were any child soldiers or late recruits inducted in violation of the peace pact signed between the guerrillas and the government last year.

Nepal’s official media, headed by a Maoist minister, said about 500 combatants had been interviewed by the UNMIN.

The UN agency will crosscheck the answers with its own database to determine how many of the interviewees are under 18 and how many are late recruits.

The guerrillas are obliged to discharge such combatants immediately.

However, when the verification began in the eastern district of Ilam, the Maoists had a serious dispute with UNMIN over the number of soldiers disqualified by the inspecting body.

The rebels claimed that many of the combatants disqualified by UNMIN were not child soldiers and that the agency was trying to lower the troops’ morale by slashing their numbers.

They also accused the world body of trying to disarm them and going against the peace pact that says the rebels will only keep their arms locked up rather than hand them over.

Following negotiations between the two sides, a compromise was reached and UNMIN agreed to re-examine some of the disqualified soldiers.

So far neither side has disclosed how many soldiers were disqualified, giving rise to speculation that there is a large number of minors. Nor have the guerrillas discharged their child soldiers.

Meanwhile, there have been reports of over 1,000 soldiers deserting a camp in southern Nepal.

After the verification process is complete, Nepal’s multi-party government faces the most contentious part: how to integrate the PLA soldiers with the Nepal Army (NA).

There are around 30,000 soldiers in the Maoist camps. After the enmity that existed between the PLA and the NA during the 10-year-old insurgency, merging the two will be a very sensitive task.

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