It is urgent to form a skilled taskforce to commence the process immediately for identifying the long-lasting way of management of arms and combatants and its implementation.
By Sushil Dahal
Sushil DahalAfter the summit talks held between seven political parties and CPN (Maoist), a new hope of peace has arisen. Both the parties have signed the long awaited peace deal. People have expected that the centuries long social and political problems will be resolved. But to translate the decisions into action, it is essential to reach a conclusion after making minute analysis of the technical and practical aspects. In case of failure to recognise and resolve the complexities of the agreement, the implementation of the historical decision may be derailed.
The model of the decision regarding the management of arms of the Maoists appears quite peculiar. It does not seem to resemble with any model practiced hitherto by the UN’s disarmament model (a part of DDR). Enough homework and endeavor is required at this moment to make this process a success.
Mutual trust plays a vital role but if we ignore the technical and practical aspects, it may cause an accident. A part of this historical accord says that when the fighters of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) stay inside cantonments all weaponry will be safely stored inside except ammunition and cache of arms needed for cantonments’ protection. It further says to lock up Maoists’ weapons under a single–key formula. In the lock up process and the supervision, a mechanism will be included with UN’s record siren as its device. What should be clarified in the above-mentioned decision is whether it has included the direct presence of the UN officials or not. Does the word ‘device’ include manual presence or not? If not, what is the device that can prevent those who try to bring out the arms from the cantonments? Many things depend on mutual trust and understanding. However, if trust consists of technical and practical aspects, it breeds permanent and positive effects. Technically, it is a blunder to believe that having locked the store and fitted the siren can ban the use of arms outside the cantonments.
In the accord, concerning the Nepal Army, it is said that the process of democratisation of the Army will be executed by interim Council of Ministers taking suggestions from interim legislature. It is also said that the army will be mobilised by the cabinet according to the new Military Act. It is not practical for the army to ask for the copy of cabinet decision when it is mobilised for any task. The Ministry of Defense deserves full right to mobilise the army under its control. Moreover, there is no provision in the Military Act to indicate the areas of army mobilisation. Due to these reasons, in the historical decision, there lies higher possibility of the misuse of Army, a non- political institution, for political interest. Therefore, it will be helpful to maintain clean image of the Nepal Army even in the period of transformation only with the system of approbation to the decision of army mobilisation from the interim legislature that consists of proportionate representation of all parties.
There is no obligation to use a model for Nepal selecting from the models implemented in other insurgency afflicted countries about arms management. A number of examples of failed arms management process in those counties can be found. Take Kongo, a restive African nation, for instance. The circumstances of Nepal and of those countries differ but it would be a wise step to include the positive aspects of arms management under the UN peacekeeping mission. In the case of Nepal, as stated in the historic agreement, the act of arms storage can be made disciplined to some extent provided that the direct presence of the UN officials is ensured for continual supervision of arms storages and the seal of UN is used in the muzzle and trigger of each weapon. Otherwise, anybody expert in making trench bunker in the uphill can make back door and underground door secretly.
As mentioned in the document of agreement, it is not an easy task to manage arms and militants and it this process is more complex in the context of the election of Constituent Assembly at hand. It is so because in the accord both the concerned parties have agreed that with arms neither the Maoist combatants nor Nepal Army go amidst people, but combatants in half calf military dress even without arms will be enough to create mental pressure to the public. In order to ensure adult franchise among all eligible Nepalese citizens, a system ensuring that there will be no access of combatants to common people needs to be formulated. Only the arms management will not have completion of arms management. It is most essential to manage even the weapon holders adroitly. The political agreement has opened a new avenue for the political solution for the time being and the process of arms management in the agreement is merely an immediate way out to assist the process of political solution.
Hence, it is urgent to form a skilled taskforce to commence the process immediately for identifying the long-lasting way of management of arms and combatants and its implementation.
(Dahal is the Managing Director of Orient College. He worked as Public Relations Officer (Major) in the Nepal Army. He can be reached at: [email protected])
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