He handed over the proposed action plan to the NC and Maoist leaders at the three-party meeting held at Annapurna Hotel Tuesday afternoon.
Nepal, who is chairman of the Special Committee on Supervision, Integration and Rehabilitation of Maoist Army Personnel, also presented the plan during a meeting of the committee held at the Prime Minister´s Office after a long interval. The Committee meeting, which has been called for Thursday morning, is expected to finalize the plan.
A source told myrepublica.com that the plan, in the initial phase, offers the combatants to choose among politics, integration and rehabilitation. They will have to choose one among the choices at the grab.
For this, all the combatants will be interviewed by designated teams in their respective cantonments to know their preferences. The plan has proposed to mobilize as many teams as possible to complete the process by April 30.
A source told myrepublica.com that the plan, in the initial phase, offers the combatants to choose among politics, integration and rehabilitation. They will have to choose one among the choices at the grab.
Maoist sources said that they expect a significant number of the 19,602 eligible combatants living in the UN-monitored cantonments to join politics.
As per the action plan, those combatants who want to be rehabilitated in society will be offered skilled-based training, formal and informal education, said the source. The plan is silent about providing economic incentive to such combatants though the Agreement on the Monitoring of the Arms and Armies (AMMAA) says the combatants can be offered economic rehabilitation packages.
The AMMAA provision says, “The verified combatants of the Maoist will be offered a choice between economic and various other alternatives for rehabilitation.”
The plan, first of its kind, has been floated at a time when the government is set to complete the three-year-old peace process before May 28, 2010, the deadline to complete the constitution drafting process. The integration and rehabilitation of the combatants is at the centre of the peace process.
Before starting the combatants´ management process, top political leaders -- Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Nepali Congress President Girija Prasad Koirala and Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal -- will fix the number of the combatants to be integrated into the security forces.
Another member of the committee told myrepublica.com that the leaders have already agreed informally to integrate 3,000 to 5000 combatants into national security forces. “This informal agreement will be formalized under the plan very soon,” said the member on condition of anonymity.
According to the source, those willing to join national security forces will have to meet standard norms, including education. Such standards will be decided in accordance with the spirit of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, AMMAA (signed on December 8, 2006) and the agreement between the political parties signed on June 25, 2008.
“The ranks of such combatants will be decided on the basis of their education after they meet existing standards for joining security forces,” the source said.
Meanwhile, a meeting of the top leaders of UCPN (Maoist), Nepali Congress and CPN-UML on Sunday decided to fix the number and criteria of the Maoists combatants to be integrated into the security forces during the talks scheduled to be held in presence of NC President Girija Prasad Koirala on Wednesday.
A three-party meeting attended by various top leaders including Dahal, UML Chairman Jhala Nath Khanal and the NC Vice President Ram Chandra Poudel made a decision to this effect on Tuesday.
Janardan Sharma, a Maoist representative in the Special Committee, said that his party will comment on the action plan only after a discussion in his party. “We just got the action plan and are not in a position to comment for the time being,” Sharma told journalists while emerging from the meeting on Tuesday afternoon.
kiran@myrepublica.com
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