The European Parliament (EP) has called upon His Majesty King Gyanendra to reciprocate the Maoist call for unilateral ceasefire and engage political groups, including Maoists, in constructive talks with a view to restoring democratic processes in the country.
In the resolution on Nepal, European Parliament welcomed the ceasefire declared by the CPN (Maoist) and calls for an indefinite extension of the Maoist ceasefire.
The resolution, adopted on Thursday, called for urgent action by the Nepalese authorities with a view to the upcoming Troika visit and asked them to cooperate at these meetings to enable a fruitful discussion to take place, with a view to furthering the peace process and reinstating democracy, with the guidance and encouragement of the international community.
A high level European Union Troika is to visit Nepal in mid-October to assess the political situation in the country.
The Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have called on King Gyanendra to guarantee the full sovereignty of parliamentary democratic authorities. They have also asked for the international community to establish a Contact Group, made up of Nepal’s key partners and international organisations (the EU, the US, India and the UN), in order to provide coordinated international action with regard to Nepal. They have also proposed that the European Parliament appoint a special rapporteur to monitor the situation.
MEPs called on the Council and the Member States for suspension of military aid to Nepal to continue. They asked that all aid to Nepal be monitored and that `smart sanctions’ be imposed in order to maintain pressure on the royal government to restore democratic governance and explore all avenues to peace talks. They called on the Commission and the Member States to scrutinise closely all development assistance to Nepal and to make sure that it serves its prime purpose of poverty alleviation and addresses the underlying causes of conflict in the country.
Noting that Nepal was due to hold municipal elections on or before April 2006, the House called for parliamentary elections to be held at the same time. Parliament calls for the EU to send an election observation mission to monitor these elections, MEPs calls for all political parties to be able to participate fully in the elections, a statement posted on the official website of the European Parliament said.
Major political parties—that are continuing their agitation against the royal takeover of February 1 this year—have, however, dismissed call for municipal elections by the royal government terming it as totally irrelevant. They have been demanding that the country return to a constitutional and democratic process before any elections could be held.
Strongly condemning violence in all forms and by all parties, the MEPs stressed that basic human rights and freedoms must be upheld in Nepal, and asked that both the King and the Maoists sign human rights accords to curb abuses. They noted the release of some political prisoners, but said they remained deeply concerned that other political leaders, students and human rights activists are still being detained in prison.
The European Parliament welcomed the UN initiative of deploying a Special Rapporteur and a UN Office of Human Rights in Nepal, which will carefully monitor the human rights situation and calls for a follow-up to the 2002 London International Conference, to be organised by the Contact Group of key partners, which should set out the principles and values needed to underpin a peace process in Nepal and bring together all major players from the international community, as well as King Gyanendra, the Maoist rebel groups and the main political parties.
The EP stressed that any restrictions on media freedom should be lifted immediately and that all political prisoners in detention should be either released or charged. The MEPs asked the King to provide rehabilitation for the 30,000 Kapilvastu villagers displaced by violent conflict.
The European Parliament renewed its firm call upon the Nepal government to re-establish the Tibetan Refugee Welfare Office (TRWO) in Kathmandu and to allow the representative office of the Dalai Lama to resume operations in providing relief services to Tibetan refugees as an implementing partner of the UNHCR.
Nepali authorities had asked the TRWO and office of the representative of the Dalai Lama in Kathmandu to close down in January this year– days before the royal takeover.