NEPAL: Thousands of Maoist rebels gather in 28 camps around the country as part of a peace deal due to be signed in Nepal

Record ID: 346182

  • Title: NEPAL: Thousands of Maoist rebels gather in 28 camps around the country as part of a peace deal due to be signed in Nepal
  • Date: 20th November 2006
  • Summary: MALE AND FEMALE MAOIST CADRES MARCHING IN GROUP THROUGH THE FOREST
  • Embargoed: 5th December 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Nepal
  • Country: Nepal
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA2WSCQ42T0REB4ZAESA2O6EU1I
  • Story Text: After drilling his troops beneath the trees in the foothills of Nepal's Himalayas, vice-commander "M. Star" congratulated them on a job well done. The men and women under his command, dressed in camouflaged combat fatigues, most carrying old-fashioned bolt-action rifles, greeted his words with the raised fist of the Maoist "red salute".
    They are part of thousands of Maoist rebels collecting in 28 camps around the country as part of a peace deal due to be signed on Tuesday (November 21) which is supposed to end a decade-long insurgency that has claimed more than 13,000 lives.
    The rebels are due to lock up their weapons before the signing under United Nations supervision, although they will retain the keys to the stores.
    They say they have achieved their main aim, agreement to hold elections to a special assembly to draft a new constitution and, they hope, end a centuries-old monarchy.
    "Now there is the old regime and new regime going together, old army and new army. We are going to join the interim government in order to create a conducive atmosphere for a fearless situation, to conduct the election running both the regimes and both the armies together, we are going with our army and our regime," said one commander.
    Hundreds of rebels have descended on the small village of Dasharathpur, 350 km west of Kathmandu, beside a former government agricultural research station where the Maoists hope to set up a riverside camp.
    For the time being they have been billeted in local houses and mill around the streets, many in casual clothes with their weapons hidden. Some played volleyball in a nearby field as a dozen tailors made hundreds of new uniforms.
    Well-drilled in the Maoist rhetoric of "the struggle against exploitation by feudal aristocrats", many nevertheless told moving stories of why they joined the insurgency.
    20-year-old female soldier Manneyeta, with pink and yellow plastic flowers in a bracelet around her wrist, said neither she nor her brother had been Maoists. But her brother's death forced her into the rebel army at the age of just 15.
    Again and again, rebels said brutality or harassment by the security forces had convinced them to join the PLA. Now they are hoping to get jobs in a new, reconstituted national army.
    Last week, rebel chief Prachanda told Reuters the insurgency would not be over until his forces had been fully integrated into the state army, after constituent assembly elections are held.
    But it is far from clear if and how that will happen.
    Diplomats say Nepal's army chief is unwilling to absorb large numbers of rebels, and especially reluctant to employ rebel commanders.
    For the people of Dasharathpur, though, six months of a ceasefire have already brought dividends. Gone are the days when soldiers would arrive on patrol and beat or even kill them for sheltering the Maoists.
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