By IANS
Kathmandu : Former US president Jimmy Carter, who had urged his government to establish communications with Nepal’s Maoist guerrillas though they are still on Washington’s watch list of terror organisations, has expressed doubts about the rebels’ intentions towards the election.
Carter, who arrived in Kathmandu Wednesday on his second peace mission to Nepal, met Maoist supremo Prachanda to ask him if the rebels intended to take part in the constituent assembly election that will for the first time give citizens the right to write their own constitution.
Carter, who held an hour-long meeting with Prachanda at the five-star Soaltee Crowne Plaza hotel Thursday evening — his second in five months — expressed doubt whether the Maoists will take part in the election even if the government fulfilled their demands for the scrapping of monarchy and adopting a full proportional election system.
Talking to the media after the meeting, Prachanda said he had tried to dispel the fear by pointing out that his party had taken part in elections before it began an armed struggle in 1996.
He also said the Maoists were ready to participate in the June election. However, when that was deferred and fresh violence broke out in the Terai plains in the south, they realised that royalists were trying to sabotage the peace process and free and fair elections would not be possible as long as the king remained.
Prachanda is also saying that the peace process is the most important issue, not the election.
According to him, though foreign governments are pushing for an early election, it can’t be held before critical issues are resolved.
These include integrating the Maoists’ guerrilla army — called the People’s Liberation Army — with the Nepal Army, disclosure about the fate of the nearly 1,000 people still missing and paying compensation to the families of those killed during the 10-year civil war.
Prachanda has also issued an ultimatum to the government.
At an earlier interaction with journalists in western Pokhara city, he said if the government failed to start the process to implement the two demands by next Thursday — when Nepal’s parliament reconvenes after a 10-day adjournment — his party would start a new revolt.
The election, earlier scheduled for June, was postponed to November after the government of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala failed to take timely steps to hold the exercise, including enacting necessary laws and improving the security situation.
However, even the fresh Nov 22 date for the election could not be kept as the Maoists walked out of the government, made new demands and threatened to oppose the polls if the demands were not met.
The Maoists are asking parliament to sack King Gyanendra without leaving the decision to the election, though they had earlier agreed to do so when they signed the peace pact with the government last year.
It is ironic that the demand for the abolition of monarchy caused the election to be put off indefinitely.
Had the rebels not opposed it, the election would have taken place Thursday and by next week, King Gyanendra’s fate would have been resolved according to the will of people, a verdict that would have been accepted by the international community as well.