(Nepalese American council (NAC) is very proud to announce that the Kathmandu Post is publishing a series of 3 articles by Dr. Anup Pahari titled "Negotiating and end internal war in Nepal". The article appears today (Feb 03, 2003)), Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. Attached below is the first in the series.

This was the article, Mr Kul C. Gautam referred to during his brief during NAC's executive teleconference meeting on 18th Jan , in Nashville, Tennessee Please send your comments to Dr. Anup Pahari at apharai@erols.com(?? -Ed) for feedback.

It can be viewed at http://www.nepalnews.com/ Kathmandu Post's Features subsection.
Negotiating an end to internal war

With best,

Gaury S Adhikary
President, NAC
Ann Arbor, MI)

The latest cease-fire between the government and the Maoists, and renewed prospects for a negotiated settlement, have signaled a temporary halt in the slow death of the nation. For the second time in as many years, albeit in different political circumstances, the Maoists and the Nepali state are poised to pursue peace over war. That it has taken such devastation in human lives and institutions to arrive at this point of initial truce should not take away from the enormous courage
and determination of the agents who initiated this venture.

This time around, those at the peace table will deliberate in an environment of unimaginably high expectations and a margin of error so slim it is almost non-existent. Theirs is not an enviable role by far. It is, however, a role that people who trade in the currency of power and public expectations have pre-approved and must face up to. To see this process to its desired end they will need to draw on untold reserves of patience and perseverance, with matching support from us all. But, that is not all they will need. War perpetuates itself without conscious effort because revenge and recrimination wage themselves. Waging peace, on the other hand, demands deliberate, consensual and coordinated human effort. It is heartening that the billigerents in Nepal appear to have surveyed and acknowledged the mounting indications of the futility of imposing a unilateral "solution" to what are society and polity-wide disorders.

There are now signs of consensus where it counts that it is no longer possible to "solve" the crisis by waiting it out, fighting it out, or by political maneuver, co-optation and classical Nepali divide and rule strategies. The Maoist insurgency is unlike any other social movement in Nepal's history and is liable to resist solutions that have worked in the past. Indeed, the present crisis has no "solution" other than a negotiated resolution.

As negotiations proceed and hit the myriad turbulences that they inevitably will, it may seem at times more straightforward and in the interest of each side to seek the dubious remedy of continued war. It has happened once before in the history of our own tragic conflict, and has plagued peace efforts worldwide from Guatemala to Mozambique at various stages. While individual circumstances differed, the return to war resulted in each case from a misreading of the nature of the conflict and gross errors in judging renewed conflict as the better alternative to a negotiated peace.

There are no guarantees that the peace process in Nepal will be immune from such episodic crises. By attempting to provide a degree of clarity on the core issues, this article seeks to reinforce on the general public and on the parties entering into negotiations that even when viewed from the depths of the darkest and most hopelessly fruitless periods in the dialogues, a negotiated settlement will still remain more preferable, achievable and in the long-term interest of key parties compared to any unilateral "alternative" or "solution." This article is written with the purpose of making a reasoned and realistic case that dialogue and a negotiated settlement are the only alternatives for ending Nepal's current crisis. The case as it is laid out argues from three interrelated yet distinct angles that a negotiated resolution stands out as the only way to bring peace and to democratically re-institutionalize the needs and interests of the three parties in conflict - monarchy, political parties and Maoists.

Negotiations and nature of the conflict: A negotiated end to hostilities is dictated by the nature of the conflict itself. Highlighted below are the major intrinsic dimensions of the political impasse in Nepal, which together make the crisis highly resistant to non-negotiated "solutions."

(1) Three-way conflict: Most known internal conflicts involve two parties - typically the state vs armed rebels. In Nepal's case it is no longer a two-way (state vs Maoists) but a three-way contest - political parties vs. Maoists vs monarchy. If unilateral victories are hard to come by in protracted two-way contests, they are near impossibilities in three-way conflicts. There is no "solution" other than to seek a resolution.

2) Composition of Maoist movement: While we speak of the Maoist movement in
singular monolithic terms, it is in fact a movement composed through the intertwining of class, race/ethnic, regional, and gender interests and identities formed in opposition to real and perceived "oppressors." Thus, the will and motivation of Maoist leaders and cadre draw on deep and multiple wells of domestic discord over fundamental issues expressed and cemented through the ideological doctrine of revolution. Only talks and negotiations can begin to untangle such deep-seated social and
ideological antagonisms and reach the human communities that harbor them. Again, there is no "solution" other than to seek a resolution.

3) Constitutional crisis: The present Constitution is moribund. In the
current climate it is not only the Maoists but also mainstream political parties and members of civil society that see a need to revisit fundamental constitutional issues. Thus, the current dilemma goes well beyond the Maoist insurgency and has converted into a full-blown constitutional crisis. Redesigning the nature of the Nepali polity must not be conducted in the battlefield; rather, it is a task best tackled through talks. Once again, there is no "solution" other than to seek a resolution.

4) Advanced stage of insurgency: Guerilla insurgencies are said to progress
in four steps. The movement enters the third stage when it is able to replicate state-like structures and functions in the areas under its sway. The fourth and final stage of the guerilla insurgency is reached when entire regions come under the active control of rebels. By all accounts, Nepal's Maoist insurgency has crossed the third stage and is entering the fourth stage, making it a politically "dug in" insurgency. The "people's war" has also found ways to become economically "dug-in" through a countrywide network that systematically "mines" public and private assets yielding tens of millions of rupees each month in unaccounted and discretionary income to the managers of the "people's war. As politically and economically "dug-in" as the Maoist insurgency is, it is most difficult to foresee any "solution" other than to seek a resolution.

5) External factor: Internal wars usually have external linkages. Cuba,
Mexico, Nicaragua, and the United States were active in Central America and contributed in their own ways to the intractability of the domestic wars in the region. It is clear by now that although "Maoists" by name, Nepal's rebels have deeper and more extensive ties with India than they have with the Beijing regime. What is not clear is exactly what role official India plays or does not play in either condoning or curtailing the Maoist insurgency in Nepal. Complicating this further is the documented alliances that Nepali Maoists have forged with numerous communist movements in India, making official India's involvement or lack thereof somewhat moot. In brief, the "India factor" throws in a number of imponderables into the mix that together heighten the need to generate a domestic consensus for a peaceful end to hostilities. Precisely because Nepalis do not and cannot fully know India's position, there is no "solution" other than to seek an internal resolution.

(The author is a sociologist based in the US)