Street stir will demand talks

August 11, 2004
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Kathmandu: Public clamor for the restoration of peace and holding of talks are contradictory. Government is wise to this and this week saw a semblance of unity in government, which was projecting their stance unitedly that it will only hold talks that will bring peace. If there were any moves towards this, this week saw steps towards the establishment of peace secretariat. The public are hardly aware that no office as yet has any record, official or otherwise of the contents of talks previously held between the Maoists and government. If any thing, our loaded civic society bases its demands for talks on statements by government and media portrayed in the already loaded media.

This curious phenomenon of lack of records even after three sets of talks with the Maoists held by three separate governments – the first Deuba Ministry followed by Lokendra Bahadur Chand’s talks and lastly the S.B. Thapa government, having no records to show itself is equally curiously covered up in the media clamor for talks. The fact of the matter is that Maoists have so far merely dealt with governments having ensured the isolation of systematic actors from the talks. Meanwhile, governments thus isolated in the talks have been redundant. As yet it is the Maoists who chose the contents and the moment the talks are dissolved.

In a real sense thus, this week saw the Maoists strategy appear to be working hard to include the Maoist demand for UN mediation. Evidently, this new criteria for talks set by the Maoists is to ignore the government call for talks at the very outset. The government standpoint has been that it is open for talks, that the talks should be decisive, and both parties should have prior commitments for optimal flexibility. Evidently our civic society and media would want this from one end only, that of government.

This week conformity of the government point of view from UML government Minister’s broden well for the government standpoints. This is unfortunately distinct still from the UML party standpoint which is immediately evidently at all costs. This, moreover, is closer to the Nepali Congress standpoint which now says that it will initiate talks bunking a government role in the peace process outright. There is no denying therefore the speculation that at one phase in the imminent future the talks will be ground for the UML leadership to pull-out of government remains well founded still. Already there is reason to believe in rumors that such scenario will see Madhav Nepal’s UML take to the streets this time separately from the planned agitation of the Girija Congress and its four party allies. It is this context assembly becomes relevant adoption of the possibility of a constituent assembly becomes relevant.