Rebels not ready to disarm until peace process completed - Maoist leaders

Despite spending the last three months engaged in peace talks with the Nepalese government, Maoist rebels are still not prepared to demobilise, disarm or integrate, their leaders said in the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, on Monday. "The government should stop raising their voices for demobilising or decommissioning only our military. Let there a be political solution first," Dinnanath Sharma, a senior Maoist leader and negotiator, said. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) would not engage in the demilitarisation, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) process until full peace settlements were made, Sharma said. The Maoists have waged an armed rebellion against the Nepalese government since 1996, demanding an interim government, a constituent assembly, a new constitution and a republic. They have walked out of previous talks in 2001 and 2003. The new interim government, formed in April by the country's seven main parties after King Gyanendra gave up direct rule following mass protests, had agreed to meet the PLA's key demands. However, now the government wants the PLA to disarm before the peace process is completed and prior to the elections for the Constituent Assembly (CA), which are scheduled to be held by 26 February 2007. The CA is considered a provisional governing body that would include the PLA and enable the forming of a new constitution and a democratic state. The PLA was infuriated when earlier this month the Nepalese government sought support from the United Nations to decommission them. "Any talk of decommissioning of arms of only the PLA before the election to the constituent assembly is just unthinkable," Prachanda, the Maoist chief said in a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday. International peace-building experts have also expressed concerns that disarming only the PLA would not be enough. "There is also a need to resize the Nepalese Army (NA), which has over 80,000 army personnel and is already an economic burden on the country," Druba Kumar, a defence analyst said. Activists also believed the government had to pay attention to the thousands of landmines that were planted near army barracks in civilian areas around the country. "The landmines are still a great risk to many innocent civilians who are unaware of where the landmines are planted," said Purna Shova Chitrakar, from the Nepal branch of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Other experts said that the government and the PLA should not delay the DDR process. "DDR is not just about collecting weapons and counting them and putting them - as they say - beyond use and making them unusable. It is also an important part of the peace process," said Dan Smith, secretary-general of International Alert, a British peace-building NGO. Deo Bahadur Ghale, a former UN peacekeeping mission expert, said an "immediate agreement" was essential for the DDR process. Meanwhile, child rights activists have also added their concerns about the need to immediately start the DDR process for former child combatants. "Early intervention is critical for the normal development of children even without a peace process. If you don't act now it could be too late," said Rosana Vega, a child protection officer for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Nepal, said.