By Anga R. Timilsina

After the signing of eight-point understanding between Nepal’s seven political parties (SPA) and the Maoists, the peace process seemed to have gained a lot of momentum. However, the current status of the eight-point pact can best be described as: “The operation was successful but the patient is still dead.” The implementation of the provisions outlined in the understanding seems to have been stalled because of many reasons including the lack of preparedness, transparency and accountability in the peace process. Most significantly, Nepal’s peace process is characterized by an unusual sequencing of priorities, discussing the formation of an interim government and the holding of constituent assembly elections before addressing immediate humanitarian needs in the war-torn areas. On the other hand, the international community is eager to support Nepal’s peace-building, but they are still in the process of figuring out where exactly Nepal’s peace process is heading.

Since Nepal’s problem is home-grown, it is logical to think that the solution should also be home-grown. However, in the name of being unique, we cannot ignore hard-learned lessons from conflict prevention and peace-building of many countries emerged from or undergoing armed conflict.

What Went Wrong?

In the comprehensive framework, it should explicitly be mentioned that with the help of the United Nations, the Maoists agree to demobilize their army before the formation of an interim government and decommission their arms immediately after the constituent assembly elections. This is very important because there are many people inside and outside Nepal who fear that the Maoists will join and use the mainstream politics so long as it benefits them.

There are many potholes in Nepal’s peace process. First, both the government and the Maoists seem to be more concerned about power-sharing arrangements, less about consolidating peace. Otherwise, they would not have spent much of their time and energy on just two political issues: the dissolution of reinstated parliament and the formation of an interim government and an interim parliament.

Second, the experts on conflict preventions and recovery argue that Nepal’s peace process has not followed a logical sequence and thus, risks a failure of sustaining the peace. When we look at the international experiences, the process of peace-building starts once the government and the rebels sign a peace agreement containing a framework for comprehensive political settlement and post-conflict reconstruction. Based on the agreement, the donor community develops a framework for rehabilitation, reconstruction and development so that each donor knows its contribution to the overall interventions and there should not be duplications of efforts or a gap between emergency relief and reconstruction and development efforts. “The General Peace Agreement for Mozambique” (October 1992) and the “Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement on the Cambodia Conflict” (October 1991) are two examples of comprehensive peace agreements. Similarly, the “Haiti’s Interim Cooperation Framework (2006),” which was drawn on the failure of Haiti’s previous nation-building efforts during the late 1990s, is a good example of a joint government and donor plan for rehabilitation, reconstruction and development.

After the comprehensive peace agreement and a framework for reconstruction and development, the peace process then proceeds through three overlapping yet distinct phases: the initial stabilization of a war-torn society; the transformation or institutional building; and the consolidation.

The initial phase, which takes few months and aims at laying a foundation for sustainable peace by addressing the urgent needs and stabilizing the war-torn society. The policies in the initial phase include: establishing effective mechanism for monitoring ceasefire, returning refugees and internally displaced persons, establishing property rights so that ceased property is returned to the rightful owners, establishing community justice or some kind of healing process in order to facilitate the harmonization and reintegration process, implementing demining programs, reviving essential infrastructure (roads, bridges, telephone and water) and services (education and health), strengthening and empowering local governance institutions in order to increase service delivery and facilitate the reconstruction process, and reviving the productive sector of the economy and achieving the macroeconomic stability.

The second phase of peace-building, which lasts to three years, is the institution-building phase and focuses on the formation of an interim constitution and an interim government, Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR), security sector reform (redefining civil-military relations, establishing civilian oversight of the military, increasing transparency and accountability of the security sector, and revamping promotions and leadership development), civil service reform, and elections to draft a new constitution and form a new government.

The final phase, also known as the consolidation phase, lasts up to a decade and aims at strengthening the institutions to the point where rapid economic growth and sustained social development can take place. In sum, whether a post-conflict country can sustain peace largely depends on the effectiveness of policies in each stage. If the higher order objectives are not made, the lower order achievements will ultimately prove transitory. In other words, the consolidation of peace measured by the GDP growth in the graph 1 depends on whether policies are appropriately prioritized and sequenced.

When we compare Nepal’s peace process with above-mentioned process, it is not hard to understand that Nepal is a unique and intriguing case study. Nepal’s peace process is very fragile because of two things: First, the peace process is moving ahead without a comprehensive framework for peace-building. Second, Nepal is focusing more on the political aspect of peace-building and ignoring social and economic aspects. The hard learned lessons from other war-torn countries show that just focusing on the political settlement is like going after symptoms than disease. If the process of rehabilitation and reconstruction is not carried out along with the political settlement, the conflict is likely to resume in one or the other way. Sustaining peace is probably a harder task than reaching peace agreements largely because of the nature of peace-building, which is very complex, involving multi-dimensions: multi-lateral (involvement of many actors), multi-sectoral (security, emergency and relief efforts, governance, democratization, infrastructure building, and long-term development), multi-leveled (national vs. local level programs), and multi-staged (immediate, mid-term and long-term stages).

What Should be Done?

In order to right the wrongs of Nepal’s peace process, both the government and the Maoists need to identify a logical sequence of the peace process on a pragmatic basis. On the other hand, the international community needs to be involved in the peace process, particularly in implementing the rehabilitation, reconstruction and development programs. It is recommended that Nepal’s peace process should follow the following sequence:

1. Signing a Comprehensive Framework for Peace and Reconstruction: Nepal seems to have pursued not a comprehensive but a “piecemeal approach to piece”: The signing of 12-ponit understanding followed by a subsequent 6-point understanding and a signing of a 25-point code of conduct followed by the 8-point understanding on political settlement. More importantly, neither the 12-point pact nor the 6-point understanding nor the 8-point understanding utters anything about the rehabilitation and reconstruction process. In order to gain international legitimacy and consolidate the achievements made so far, there is an urgent need to have a comprehensive framework for peace and reconstruction signed by both the government and the Maoists. This framework should include several clauses on peace agreements, ceasefire agreements, political settlement agreements, rehabilitation and reconstruction agreements and agreements on the role of the international community including the United Nations. Immediately after the signing of the comprehensive framework, a donors’ conference should be called on so that donors could figure out what part of the framework they are going to contribute and how much resources Nepal will need for the entire rehabilitation and reconstruction process.

2. Strengthening Local Governance: Empowerment of local actors and strengthening of local governance plays a vital role in sustaining peace. Effective peace-building requires a successful reintegration at the community level. The effective local governance substantially helps in bringing the rebels into the mainstream by providing a mechanism to deal with the issues related to community-based rehabilitation and reintegration, return of refugees and internally displaced persons, property rights, justice and reconciliation, healing process, and revival of essential infrastructure and services. Since local bodies are currently run by bureaucrats, the SPA and the Maoists could come up with a plan for a participatory local governance in order to make sure that, at the grass-root level, there is a high degree of inclusiveness and participation of all sectors of society in dialogue and peace-building.

3.Starting DDR Process: An effective disarmament and demobilization process should start as early as possible so that it will open the doors for the formation of an interim government including the Maoists. However, in the comprehensive framework, it should explicitly be mentioned that with the help of the United Nations, the Maoists agree to demobilize their army before the formation of an interim government and decommission their arms immediately after the constituent assembly elections. This is very important because there are many people inside and outside Nepal who fear that the Maoists will join and use the mainstream politics so long as it benefits them. There are a lot of doubts regarding whether the Maoists will be ready for laying down weapons if the election results do not favor them. The DDR process is at the heart of the problem and thus, decommissioning of Maoist arms and integrating Maoist army into the Nepali military should be a major component of the comprehensive framework. In order to send a positive message that the Maoists are serious for a negotiated peace settlement, a plan and formula for decommission and integration should be agreed upon by the government and the Maoists before the process of demobilization starts. There are some important questions regarding disarmament of Maoist rebels: How can the Maoist rebels be integrated into the state army and reintegrated into society? What should be the structure and size of Nepal’s military? How the military be restructured in order to accommodate the Maoist rebels? Several ideas have been floated including the formation of a border security force, creation of a civilian development force, and reduction of the Nepali Army’s size by one-third and replacing it by the Maoist rebels.

The government and the Maoists should understand that peace is a process in itself. No peace process is likely to succeed without a comprehensive framework for political settlement and reconstruction and effective implementation of the framework guided by a logical sequence.

4. Interim Constitution and Interim Parliament: It needs a legitimate mechanism and process to promulgate an interim constitution. Since the referendum on the interim constitution is a costly process, the reinstated parliament should promulgate the interim constitution. The interim constitution should have clear provisions for forming an interim parliament and dissolving the reinstated parliament. Once the reinstated parliament approves the new constitution, an interim parliament will be convened to accomplish the tasks laid out in the interim constitution including the formation of an interim government. The interim constitution should come into effect only after the demobilization of the Maoist rebels.

5. Preparations for Elections: The primary task of the interim parliament should be to craft the mechanism and process for holding the constituent assembly elections. After promulgating the laws on constituent assembly elections, the interim government should formally ask the Election Commission to speed up the preparation for elections. The Election Commission or the government should invite the international community to assist the electoral process and monitor elections.

Conclusion

The success of peace-building and the transition from conflict to peace and development hinges on whether peace is consolidated step-by-step. The government and the Maoists should understand that peace is a process in itself. No peace process is likely to succeed without a comprehensive framework for political settlement and reconstruction and effective implementation of the framework guided by a logical sequence. Most importantly, the international community and a sizeable fraction of Nepali people will continue suspecting the Maoist true intentions so long as the Maoists do not agree on a plan and strategies for decommissioning their arms. Thus, rather than rushing for making some unsustainable understandings or trying to patch numerous potholes of the peace process, it is desirable to go back to point zero, start again the process and follow a logical sequence thereafter.

(Anga R. Timilsina is a doctoral fellow at the RAND Corporation, a leading think-tank based in California, United States, and can be reached at: [email protected])

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