A day after assuming the post as the head of the 12-member secretariat, the former Lt Gen of the Nepal Army had proposed to station 154 ex-army personnel in all 28 Maoist cantonments to supervise ex-Maoist fighters after UNMIN leaves the country in mid-January. [break]
The UN political mission has been monitoring the combatants since 2007 and Sharma proposed to form the mechanism to replace the UNMIN´s arms monitors.
According to the plan, seven ex-army personnel will be stationed in each of the major seven cantonments while five former soldiers will be sent to monitor ex-Maoist fighters in each of the 21 satellite camps located in different parts of the country. Such a mechanism is supposed to monitor over 19,000 combatants round-the-clock much in the fashion UNMIN´s 72 arms monitors have been doing for over three years.
“We had been discussing this plan for long and the coordinator proposed it for discussion on behalf of other members [excluding Maoist members on the secretariat] on Wednesday,” said secretariat member Dipak Bhatta, an expert on security issues.
But the proposal was turned down by the Maoist representatives in the secretariat that is meant for overseeing the proposed integration and rehabilitation of the Maoist combatants.
“It is not the business of the secretariat to hold discussions on the kind of mechanism that will be needed [to monitor the combatants] after the exit of UNMIN,” Chandra Prakash Khanal, PLA spokesperson and a Maoist representative in the secretariat, told Republica, “If such a mechanism is needed, it should be agreed first at the political level and in the Special Committee.”
He further added that there would be no more discussions on the plan in the secretariat.
It may be recalled that ex-British Gurkhas had monitored the combatants and their arms before the arrival of UNMIN´s arms monitors in 2007.
The first meeting also discussed the possible date of formally bringing the combatants under the command and control of the Special Committee, a government formed body to carry out the much-awaited integration and rehabilitation of the Maoist combatants.
But Maoist representatives said the Special Committee and political leadership should fix the date for a formal program to hand over the cantonments to the Special Committee.
kiran@myrepublica.com
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