Political actors giving priority to Power than Peace

June 2, 2004
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Kathmandu: The Nepal Foundation for Advanced Studies, NEFAS, organized a two-day national seminar, May 30-31, on ” Critical barriers to the negotiation of Armed conflict in Nepal”, in Lalitpur.

Nepal’s noted scholars and academicians participated in the two day event.

Welcoming the attending participants, the executive director of the NRFAS, Professor Anand Prasad Shrestha, said that the past democratic years have not only proved to be a costly exercise but are to a great extent held responsible for fueling, if not by default giving birth to the insurgency itself.

Professor Shrestha also stressed the need to tackle the core and the peripheral issues fueling the conflict with skill and foresight and not zoom straight into sensitive issues embodied in the former without so much as coming to some understanding on peripheral issues.

The FES Nepal representative, Dev Raj Dahal, on the occasion opined that Nepali politicians have not mustered enough “political will,” to    transform conflict and competition into a cooperative game. “There is a lack of national perspective in conflict perception and that the perspectives forwarded by various forces of society in resolving the conflict also suffer from rationality deficit as their orientations are partisan in nature– either inclined to garner benefit to individual leaders or particular party, or a group of parties or even a regime”, Dahal added.

He noted that the stubborn resistance of diverse political actors against each other subsumes the notion that political actors are giving priority to power over peace.

Noted journalist, M.R. Josse, presenting his working paper said that though the Maoists have periodically demonstrated their ability to mount sizeable attacks on State security forces and other targets, they have not been able to hold to their “gains” for long. According to Josse the Maoists have immensely benefited from the great divide that is in between the Palace and the parliamentary parties.

“The prognosis for a negotiated settlement of the insurgency is not very encouraging despite the deafening calls from some quarters for another cease-fire and follow up talks.

Similarly, senior economist Dr. Gun Nidhi Sharma presenting his paper maintained that “conflicts in Nepal with its historical, gender, political and social and cultural dimensions are imposing high economic costs to the society and that these costs were explicit and implicit in that while some of them are direct and quantifiable whereas many others are indirect and unobservable and which can be gathered only through impressions”.

The next day of the seminar saw the presentation of papers from Dr. B.R.Upreti and Mr. Shrawan Sharma.

Dr. Upreti said in his paper that since the Maoists do not trust the government and hence they demand the UN mediation at the talks. “If the UN is there at the talks, adds Dr. Upreti, the insurgency also could enjoy legitimacy and thus recognition as a potential political force.

Mr. Sharma concentrated mostly on how the talks should proceed and the role of the facilitators.