Peace gets chance

The signing of the seven-point peace deal on Tuesday is a major breakthrough in the stalled peace process. It’s easy to be cynical and see the development as just another agreement, similar to a dozen of such agreements signed by the parties, only to be forgotten and never to be implemented. But this is a different one. It’s the second most important agreement in the peace process since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA) in 2006 that heralded the end of the war and the beginning of a peaceful phase in the nation’s life. The seven-point agreement is complementary to the CPA in the sense that the latter had set principles and broader parameters of the peace process, while the former has addressed the nitty-gritty for its completion. Without this agreement, CPA alone would not have been enough to guide the peace process to a logical end.



This agreement was, however, long overdue. It should have come at most a year after the CPA, but who says politics is a smooth process, especially in the charged post-conflict environment? Parties’ ambitions, fears and suspicions—not to mention the intra-party dynamics in almost all the major parties—almost derailed the process. But sense has ultimately prevailed, and party leaders have shown maturity and courage to move forward on the peace process. Let’s give credit to all the leaders and the parties for their collective wisdom. Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, despite wavering for long, ultimately decided to go for peace and in the process has risked party’s unity as hard-line faction in the party has upped the ante against the agreement. Dahal has done an absolutely right thing in signing the deal; his only mistake was that he stoked for far too long the radical sentiments in the party. The issues that the radical faction is raising today were actually championed by Dahal not very long ago. The only difference is that Dahal has moved on, while the radical camp remains stuck in the past.  



The deal is a good one—it addresses the core concerns of both the NC and UML on the one hand, and the UCPN (Maoist) on the other. The Maoists have relented to the NC and UML’s chief demand to respect the sensitivity of the national army. In accepting NA’s standard norms for integration (of course, with some leeway) and non-combat mandate for the NA directorate, the Maoists demonstrated key flexibility, which was in turn reciprocated by the NC and the UML in substantially raising the rehabilitation package to be given to the combatants. Now the challenge lies in implementing the deal with full sincerity and urgency. There is a tight deadline ahead— the categorization of the combatants should begin in a week and complete in the next three weeks. Only successful completion of the peace process by November 23 will give a semblance of legitimacy to the extension of the CA term for the fourth time to allow the parties to complete constitution drafting. The nation expects sincerity from each political party to implement the deal in earnest and to create grounds for promulgation of the new constitution.

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Let’s live in peace and embrace diversity