Status Quoists go for military supremacy in Nepal
Nepal’s Constituent Assembly (CA) Chairman Subhas Nembwang has rejected a motion registered against an unconstitutional step of the country’s president.
The Unified Communist Party of Nepal Maoist (UCPNM), Nepal’s largest political party after the 10-April 2009 historical election, had registered the motion for a democratic debate in the CA legislative.
After Prachanda sacked the Army Chief who defied the civilian supremacy by disobeying government instructions, the President Dr. Ram Baran Yadav further defied the executive government by re-appointing the Army Chief Rookmangud Katwal.
As the President aligned with his Nepali Congress party and other monarchist parties, the general public have begun to question his eligibility for holding this head of state position.
Nepal’s three-year peace process has now got further complicated after the major previously ruling monarchist and rightist parties have apparently favored the military supremacy over the civilian supremacy.
The coalition partners of the previous government headed by UCPNM Chairman Prachanda had theoretically agreed to sack the Army Chief Rookmangad Katwal whom a special Rayamajhi Probe Commision had already blacklisted and recommended legal actions for his serious human rights violations. However, they foiled the government’s action against the Army Chief by boycotting the May 3 cabinet meeting called for the purpose. Following the boycot of the cabinet meeting, the government sacked the Army Chief whom President Dr. Ram Baran Yadav reinstituted him at night.
Maoists have marked this step of the ceremonial president as a serious and silent coup against the establishment of the republic. Maoist Prime Minister Prachanda immediately resigned from his post after the president maintained a parallel rule by openly raping the interim constitution in which no executive power lies in the president.
After having come out of the government, Maoists have preferred their motion against the President’s move to be discussed in the Constituent Assembly; however, at the request of anti-Maoist parties, the CA Chairman Subhas Nembwang has banned this agenda from entering the House.
Against this new move by the House Chairman, Maoists have revealed that they would not keep silent over this dictatorship. They have been discussing in their party for launching a peaceful movement demanding for the correction in the president’s unconstitutional step, which, they have termed as ‘coup’.
Maoists argue that their motion must be allowed to enter the House for debates since it contains serious concerns about the civlian supremacy over the military supremacy. But other parties say that Maoists are totalitarians and that their issue must be banned in the parliament.
Nepal’s Maoists returned to parliamentary political system after 10-year armed insurgency in which more than 15 thousand people lost their lives.
Although Maoists’ agendas of election of constituent assembly, republic, and federalism have emerged victorious in the country, other previously ruling parties such as the Nepali Congress and the Unified Marxist-Leninist, whom the former insurgents speak of as ‘status quoists’, still hesitate to accept the presence of Maoists in the mainstream politics.
After the former rebels won most of the election seats in Nepal, the previously ruling parties have created a new alignment against Maoists.
Ordinary people in the streets say that they are afraid of the possiblity of foreign-backed military campaigns for mass murder in the near future.
A prolonged civil war may be inevitable if the major political forces, like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, prefer to maintain their rule with the economic and military assistance of foreign forces.
Maoists have time and again expressed their commitment to the peace process and peaceful politics.
At present, the UN has been monitoring Nepal’s peace process. The Nepali Congress leaders have accused the UN rappporteurs from Europe and America of being Maoists.
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