So what does cantonment handover mean? Or, what will be done to mark the handover of cantonments?[break]
According to Dr Ram Sharan Mahat, who is a member of a three-member committee tasked with making arrangements for the program, Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal will sign a minute announcing handover of the chain and command of his party´s 19,000 combatants to Chairman of the Special Committee and Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal at the Shaktikhor cantonment in Chitwan.
Then the former head of the People´s Liberation Army (PLA), Dahal, will hand over the flag of the Maoist army to the prime minister, according to the proposal of the arrangement committee.
As per the proposal, the prime minister will hoist a national flag at the Shaktikhor cantonment following the lowering of the PLA flag.
According to the plan, Dahal will present himself at the cantonment before the prime minister reaches there and receive a final guard of honor from the PLA.
“The prime minister and Prachanda [Dahal] will make only written speeches at the function,” said Mahat, adding that they will not make any off-the-cuff statements.
Command and control of the PLA
The Special Committee for Supervision, Integration and Rehabilitation of Maoist Combatants will have command and control the Maoist combatants after the handover of the cantonments at 11 am Saturday as per the Directives for Supervision, Control, Direction and Code of Conduct for Maoist Army Combatants, 2010.
The Special Committee headed by the prime minister will through its mechanism start monitoring exit and entry of combatants. In addition, it will supervise daily activities, sanction leave of former fighters and record their presence.
To control the former Maoist fighters, the government-formed committee will obtain daily, weekly, bi-weekly and monthly reports on cantonments, combatants and weapons in a prescribed format.
“Transfer and leave of cantonments commanders will be effective only when the Special Committee grants permission on the recommendations of the principal commander of the cantonments,” reads the document on command and control of the PLA.
Similarly, the committee´s permission is essential for transfer of the arms and ammunition.
There will be a mechanism in place for controlling the combatants. Such a mechanism will have government at the top, followed by the Special Committee and its secretariat. Principal Commanders from each cantonment will be under the secretariat.
There will be a cantonment management central coordinator´s office and local cantonment management offices to implement the directives and the code of conduct. These offices are yet to be set up.
The recently deployed monitors comprising the Nepal Army, Nepal Police, Armed Police Force and the PLA will oversee the implementation of the directives and code of conduct, according to Balananda Sharma, convener of the secretariat.
100 participants at handover function
The government is inviting around 100 people to attend the cantonment handover function.
Besides top leaders of major parties represented in the Special Committee, members of the Special Committee and its secretariat have been invited. Ten senior Maoist leaders will join the team. Peace negotiators Krishna Sitaula, Pradeep Gyawali, Ramesh Lekhak, Dev Gurung and Krishna Bahadur Mahara and some civil society leaders will also attend the function.
Similarly, ambassadors of China, Denmark, France, Finaland, Germany, India, Norway Russia, Switzerland, the UK and the USA have been also invited. UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Robert Piper, OHCHR-N Chief Jyoti Shanghera and Tamrat Samuel, head of the Asia-Pacific Division of the UN Department of Political Affairs, are also in the government´s invitee list.
The government has booked three aircraft of the Nepal Army -- Sky Van, Avro and MI-17-- for politicians and bureaucrats while the ambassadors and UN officials will be flying to the cantonment by an UNMIN helicopter.
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