By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS
Kathmandu : The dreaded guerrilla army of the Nepal Maoists, that fought a 10-year war against the government and played a major role in terminating the royal family’s hold on the kingdom, actually comprises just about 19,000 combatants, a minister said Wednesday.
Home Minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula made the disclosure while appearing on “Sajha Sawal”, a question and answer programme started by BBC Nepali service.
Appearing on the popular programme that was recorded in Chitwan district in south Nepal, where one of the major cantonments of the Maoist army, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is located, Sitaula said that a UN team that was verifying the corralled soldiers has found that of the initial 31,000-odd combatants, only about 19,000 are eligible to stay on.
In March, the UN mission in Nepal (UNMIN), that was called in to manage the arms and combatants of the guerrillas and ease the peace negotiations, registered the PLA troops and their arms.
It found there were 31,152 combatants, including a considerable number of women.
Soon after the registration, UNMIN started verifying the records of the troops to see how many were legal recruits.
In the accord the Maoists signed with the new government of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, they had agreed to discharge all fighters recruited when they were under 18 and were regarded as child soldiers.
They had also agreed to release all recruits pressed into the PLA after the truce was declared on May 25, 2006.
With reports that the guerrillas had started a massive recruitment drive in violation of the accord, it was anticipated that the PLA’s size would be slashed considerably after the scrutiny.
The pruning by UNMIN has been a cause of discontent with the Maoists who in the past once stopped the verification till the UN agency agreed to review some of the contentious cases.
The Maoists allege that many of the combatants considered child soldiers by UNMIN are actually adults but look small since that is a trait of Nepalis.
So far, UNMIN has refused to divulge how many soldiers have been found unfit, saying the disclosure can be made only after the Maoists agreed to it.
The number of the verified combatants is an important issue in the peace process since according to the agreement, they would have to be merged with the state army or rehabilitated.
The merger with the army, once their bete noir, is a thorny issue. Rehabilitation, on the other hand, would place a sizeable financial burden on the cash-strapped government.
However, there is a strong belief that not all PLA combatants were barracked. Many of them were transferred into other rebel departments.
One of the PLA deputy commanders, for example, is a legislator in the current parliament.
There have been a large number of desertions as well. Some of the deserters are said to have fled with their arms.
Finally, the Maoists have yet not discharged all the combatants found illegal by UNMIN.
Another UN agency, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, last month said that Maoists were forcing child soldiers who had left the camps to return and had forcibly taken at least one girl back.
The pressure tactics, it said, usually came when it was time for UNMIN to inspect the camps.