Maoists, UML to revise ToR

UML for 8-member special committee

THIRA L. BHUSAL
KATHMANDU, Nov 3

The CPN (Maoist) and CPN-UML have agreed to make amendments and corrections to the Terms of Reference (ToR) for the Army Integration Special Committee (AISC).

Opposition party Nepali Congress (NC) and the ruling UML had opposed a Maoist move to effect some amendments in the ToR. They said the government made the amendments contrary to the past pacts and understandings reached among the then Seven-Party Alliance (SPA).

Maoists, UML and the NC will discuss the issue, according to Minister for Information and Communication Krishna Bahadur Mahara. "We decided to talk over the issue of necessary amendments and corrections to the ToR," Mahara said while emerging from three-hour-long talks of the High Level Joint Mechanism of the two parties held at Singhadurbar on Monday evening.

Senior UML leader Bharat Mohan Adhikari, one of the participants in the talks, said they raised the issue as they found that the ToR prepared by the government deviated from past agreements.

"We insisted there should be no deviation from past agreements and understandings," Adhikari told the Post.

The joint mechanism was formed by the Maoists and UML on Sunday. Senior Maoist leader Mohan Baidya leads the Maoist team while the UML team is headed by its former General Secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal. The Joint Mechanism was formed with a view to resolve differences between the two parties and to give suggestions to the parties for running the government.

The Cabinet on Oct. 25 finalised the ToR specifying the jurisdiction of the recently formed five-member AISC headed by Deputy Prime Minister Bam Dev Gautam. AISC will prepare a report providing details on integration and rehabilitation of Maoist combatants.

NC leaders have said that the government ToR violates the spirit of the seven-point agreement reached among the then SPA on June 25. The ToR delegates powers to AISC to set up separate norms for the integration of Maoist combatants instead of following the established criteria for recruitment by the security forces as per the past agreement.

During the talks, the UML leaders proposed to provide for two representatives from each of the four parties -- CPN (Maoist), NC, UML and Madheshi Janadhikar Fourm -- on the AISC. Currently, the committee has five members-two from the Maoists and one each from NC, UML and the Forum. The NC has refused to join the committee, demanding representation equal to the Maoists. "I proposed to make it an eight-member committee ensuring two members from each of the four parties so that the committee can immediately start its work," Adhikari said.
The leaders from the two parties agreed to set criteria with regard to making political appointments to constitutional bodies and other entities.

The government is yet to make appointments to vacant posts at the Public Service Commission, the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority and the Office of the Comptroller-General, among others.

Earlier, the government also announced it would form some high level bodies including the Peace Comm-ission, State Restructuring Commission, Commission on Indigenous and Ethnic Communities and Land Reform Commission. The decision will also cover appo-intment of members and heads of such commissions. "This was proposed with a view to consensus in selecting experts for such appointments," Adhikari said.

The two parties also decided to immediately send the committees, formed on Sunday to probe the growing indicence of tension between the youth wings of the two parties in the last couple of months, to the districts to study the problem. The committees are to submit their reports within seven days.

The Maoists and UML on Sunday formed joint committees to study the incidents of clashes between the Maoist youth wing Young Communist League (YCL) and the UML's Youth Force in Taplejung and Dhading districts. In September, one Maoist was killed in Taplejung district by UML cadres. In October, a YCL cadre from Dhading district was killed in a clash with the Youth Force.

Senior leaders from the two parties have instructed their committee members to hold joint meetings with representives from Maoist state committees and the UML's zonal committees to resolve disputes at the local level.

THE KATHMANDU POST