Nepal's Maoists reveal wartime scars

SHAKTIKHOR CANTONMENT, Nepal — As Man Bahadur Chhetri contemplates life away from the squalid camp in which he has languished with hundreds of comrades for five years, his thoughts turn to the horrors of war.



Chhetri is among 19,000 Maoist fighters who have been confined to makeshift rural cantonments since Nepal’s ten-year insurgency ended in 2006, as rival political factions argued over what to do with the fighters in peacetime.[break]



But his life is about to change, for the veteran of many bloody battles will ditch his uniform for civilian clothing after a landmark peace deal offering the fighters jobs in the regular army or help to reintegrate into society.



The slight 28-year-old sits with dozens of highly-trained guerrillas under a tent at the Shaktikhor cantonment in Chitwan, southern Nepal, recalling the hardships of the last 15 years.



Chhetri joined the Maoists when he was barely 15 and lost an elder brother, cousin and uncle to the conflict.



Six years ago his best friend was killed in a battle with the Nepalese army that left at least 50 Maoist fighters dead in the country’s remote hills.



“We were firing and advancing. But when I looked back, I saw that my friend had fallen. I felt like the sky was falling,” he says.



“Our comrades passed his body to one another in successive human chains. Shrapnel hit my head and later I realised that my left leg was also hit by a bullet,” he recalls, adding that blood was pouring from the wounds.



“I fell unconscious. My friends took me away for medical treatment.”



Chhetri and his colleagues have bided their time in a ramshackle township of tiny tin-roofed wooden and concrete houses while their future was put on ice by five years of wrangling between Nepal’s powerbrokers.



Around 40 share a kitchen, taking turns to cook with basic rations. They sleep in sparse living quarters, six to a room, and have little but volleyball, table-tennis and chess to help them pass the time.







Their daily duties revolve around morning exercise, guarding the entrances and watching towers, for which they receive a monthly stipend of 6,500 rupees ($80).



But the rules governing their confinement to the cantonment has been loosely enforced and the cadres are often seen wandering outside. Some venture out to nearby town of Narayangadh or even as far as Kathmandu.



The war ended when the Maoists struck a deal with parliamentary parties in 2006 and organised nationwide protests that forced the king to step down.



They went on to win elections two years later and abolish the country’s 240-year-old monarchy.



Under the final peace accord struck between the Maoists and the three other major political parties last month (NOV), Chhetri and his comrades are being offered places in the army they fought for a decade.



The alternatives are a retirement package of up to 800,000 rupees ($10,000) or rehabilitation that includes vocational training but no government cash.

“After discussions with my family, I made up my mind to go for voluntary retirement,” Chhetri told AFP.



As former fighters describe their reasons for joining the Maoists, a picture emerges of a country riven by a rigid caste system, abject poverty and gender discrimination.



Forty percent of camp inmates are women. One of them, Tulku Syangtan, 22, was first persuaded to join up by the Maoists’ avowed goal of ending violence against women.



“Traditionally, women are perceived as weak and dependent on others. I wanted to prove that we are at a par with men,” she said, adding that she had decided to integrate into the regular army.



But former rebels voice concerns that not much has changed in the country since the war and their aspiration to end inequalities and lift millions out of poverty remains a distant dream.



Sunita Gautam, 30, a battalion commander, has opted to join the national army she once fought against, but is angry over the way integration has been conducted.



“The United Nations Mission in Nepal has already verified us as combatants. But the peace deal says we have to fulfil the criteria set by the Nepalese Army to qualify for integration,” she says. “We are not satisfied with this.”



Gautam is proud to have fought during the “people’s war”, which she says helped her better understand her country and the contradictions inherent in society.



“We had high hopes when we joined the party,” she says. “But the country has not moved ahead as per our expectations.”

AFP

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