Critical Barriers to the Negotiation of Armed Conflict in Nepal

Organized by Nepal Foundation for Advanced Studies (NEFAS)

30-31 May 2004

The seminar kicked off after a brief inaugural session where Ananda Srestha welcomed the participants and introduced them to the themes of the discussions that were to follow. Dev Raj Dahal, the FES representative in Nepal, pointed to the gravity of the situation brought about by the embeddedness of the conflict in today’s political life and asked the participants to search the history to find out successful examples of resolution. Chairman of the session Soorya Lal Amatya said that the two conflicts- the political and the violent- could be resolved if the conflicting parties were serious about a resolution.

Mana Ranjan Josse had authored the paper for the first session titled History and Genesis of Nepal's Maoist Insurgency: Tools for Negotiating Conflict where he described the genesis of the Maoist problem. He listed some issues like ethnic inequality and bad governance as the contributory factors to the Maoist conflict. Josse lays down principles for the resolution of the conflict, describes how past negotiations fared and provides some tools for conflict all of which were issues that found lively debate during the plenary. Commentator Bihar K. Shrestha added to Josse’s presentation by saying that the resolution needed a national consensus, rather than the partisan paths being followed by the political actors on the scene, to resolve national problems. Ananda Aditya had chaired the session.

Some of the points from the floor discussions of the session are given below:

• Josse talks about the 1971 insurgency, (the Naxalite movement) but does not provide linkages to the movement in India’s West Bengal.
• Here are some additions to the causes of conflict. The government’s non- adherence to constitutional provisions like equity and social justice, corruption, internecine fighting in parties, economic liberalization, lack of transparency in political decision making and party accounts, non-representation in state power and use of resources, increasing unemployment of those below the poverty all contributed to the conflict.
• Regarding the genesis of the Maoist insurgency, there was no government in the rural areas then. After 1990, the government entered the villages with guns, not with development programmes.
• Since the insurgency is also a security problem, the virtual absence of the security council to deal with it initially may have contributed to the security aspect of the Maoist insurgency.
• Historically, most parties in Nepal have agitated, sometimes violently, to get to government. The Nepali Congress had taken up arms and then participated in elections later. Maoists may not be an exception to the rule. In fact, they were already in the electoral system after 1990. Only later did they take up arms.
• There is lack of inclusionary politics whether it is in the economic or the political sector.
• Women have been willing to die by participating in the insurgency. This is because of the long history of exploitation they have been facing.
  

The second session saw Guna Nidhi Sharma making his presentation on Cost of Conflict and Donors’ Dilemma: How is Nepal Coping? After explaining the governance background that contributed to the conflict, he tries in his paper to look at the different costs that the conflict was adding to the economy. But he stresses the social costs of conflict which are incalculable. He also points to the share of the donors in the development of the country and, by extension, their share of the governance problem. Commentator Bharat Pokhrel said that huge amounts of the budget were being diverted to security because of the conflict, tourism was on the decline and that the Maoists were still going on with their destructive activities as a matter of policy saying that it is necessary to construct a new Nepal. Arjun Jung Shah chaired the session.

The following are excerpts from the floor discussion:

• People of the young generation are dying every day. How do we index such intangible costs?
• Economic writing should have been provided in tables and graphs. On page 5, you rather suggest judgmental analysis than empirical analysis to make your point and then go on immediately to provide World Bank data.
• The biggest cost is the loss in human face. We have lost about 12,000 lives in the process and some of them were good people.
• The insurgency has feminized poverty further, feminized agriculture (ploughing of fields by women). How do we calculate such costs? Costs of trading village subsistence products for Coca Cola also needs to be found out.
• The paper talks about government costs. There is private cost as well. And, in between lies the corporate sector that is spending a lot on security. Also, how do we calculate human costs?
• There are so many drastic changes in the social sector that we cannot realistically calculate them in economic terms.
• The loss in education and health affects the future generations. Several generations will have to bear the brunt if the present one suffers from lack of education.
• Village resources are flowing to the urban sector, because of the insurgency. This is the opposite direction of what the flow should actually take.
• Should we not be focusing on the benefits of the insurgency rather than costs? For example, the 25 thousand security force has reached 72,000 ensuring greater security to the state.
• The conflict also has positive aspects. Maoists are teaching people for survival through human labour in their own areas. We should learn from that.
• Donors have their links with the Nepalese elite and are far placed from Nepalese reality. Some NGOs that did go to the rural areas have been driven off by the Maoists. How do we calculate the costs undergone by the villagers in the absence of those services provide by the NGOs?
• Donors know what they are doing. They are not in dilemma. They want to create a market in Nepal by first making grants—and promote a habit of taking-- that will change to borrowing later on.
• Had donors allocated their aid according to our ethnic and geographical divisions, the conflict may not have been there. Social spending is going for security. This is dangerous for tomorrow. Spending should be directed to those sectors and areas where the conflicts exist.
• There are divergent views of donors regarding the conflict. The UK has been supporting the military strategy while the rest of Europe looks at it only with the human rights perspective. India supports both Maoists and the government. Donors need to have some form of coordination and cooperation.
• The concept of failed state is being debated. Could you define failed state?
  

The third presentation Conflict Resolution in Nepal: Traditional Approaches and the Question of Third Party Mediation was made by Bishnu Raj Upreti. He discusses some traditional approaches to conflict resolution and then goes on to discuss the need for third party mediation. Although the paper does not contain the huge resolution efforts that had to be pursued during the mammoth project of unifying Nepal, his discussion does focus on community approaches to conflict resolution. Lal Babu Yadav commented on the paper making his own additions to the traditional approaches while Aditya Man Shrestha chaired the session.

The following are points raised by the floor:

• During the 2007 conflict, the Delhi agreement helped resolution. But there were domestic attempts like during 2036 and 2046 that came out successful. So we do have the capacity to resolve conflicts. Still, I too agree that external mediation is necessary. Again, what if the UN fails?
• The contention that India is a necessary factor is a dubious territory. We need to be cautious about that. India signed the 1950 treaty with Nepal and then helped topple the Rana regime as well. At the moment, India is backing the Maoists and if we seek resolution through India then this puts both the conflicting party and the mediator in one camp.
• Regarding India, some of the Maoist demands are also anti-India.
• The roles of India and China are not clear, so involving them in resolution efforts may not be very fruitful.
• While considering external mediators, we need to assess their neutrality bias. Secondly, the problem of ownership could arise especially if complications develop in the negotiations. The last talks showed that the points in the agenda are too many and too diverse making it difficult to manage the negotiations as there are too many groups lobbying for their demands to be kept in the agenda. It will surely be a mammoth task to negotiate a successful deal. Now we are talking of involving the Indian demands as well. What if the donors too want their demands involved?
• The Peru or Guatemala conflict is not relevant to Nepal.
• The paper misses out much on the practical aspect. For example, is mediation possible in practice? In Sri Lanka, it failed. China and India will not allow mediation and even if they do allow, they will not let it be a success.
• External mediation will not be helpful as it is too slow a process. The recent talk of mediation has come about only after changes in the Indian government.
• We do need a guarantor during mediation. Hence UN mediation can be helpful. But this needs to be discussed. Let us take a poll today and start the process.
• Given the possibility for UN mediation, the UN has not been properly represented while offering facilitation to Nepal.
• Third party mediation is useful for inter-state conflict. But for internal conflict, external influence is unwelcome. Therefore, facilitation is a better role for external actors.
• Traditional approaches are useful only in local conflicts. Hindu policies are not made in Nepal, but in India by the Shankaracharya and other religious leaders. The local Lamas and Gumbas may be doing a better job in that regard.
• Religion is not a problem, but its politicization is. Nepalese religion has rather been a unifier rather than divider—for example between Hinduism and Buddhism. The Indian Hindu religion is influencing us, so we need to reduce that influence.
• While the modern approach has been dealt according to prescribed methodology, the traditional approach has not been given the same treatment.
• The pancha bhaladmi Yadav talks about is a doubtful method as it is the village leaders, who are usually the parties to the conflict, make up the bhaladmi.
• Maoists are against traditional values and will not be convinced with pancha bhaladmis as a capable resolution process. It might rather be helpful if you include the SIJA and MIJA recruitment approaches of the Maoists.
• The traditional tools are feudal in nature and the Maoists want the feudal system scrapped. The feudal lords are the first targets of the Maoists.
• We will still have conflict even after the resolution of the Maoist conflict. They may be smaller and more local but they will be there.The traditional approaches will then prove useful.
  

The last session of the seminar focused on The Role and Choice of Facilitators in Negotiating Conflict: The Nepalese Experience and the paper was presented by Shrawan Sharma. In his paper he defines the role of facilitator and attributed the ideal characters necessary for such persons. Sharma also explains why past negotiations regarding the Maoist problem failed and then goes on to describe the actual procedure of facilitation. In her comments Samira Luitel told the author to delve a little more on the Nepalese context rather than on the theoretical aspects and remove some overlapping and repetitions in the presentation. Durga Pokhrel had chaired the session.

The following points were raised by the floor:

• Legitimacy of the facilitators, bias of facilitators and ideas on how divergent points can be converged should also have been talked about.
• The facilitators in past talks were not seriously selected, they were rather there just for convenience’s sake. Both talks were not aimed at resolving the prevailing issues.
• You can talk a lot about ideals. But while selecting facilitators from the existing civil society, they will have their own personal bias, the question is whether they exhibited the bias during the talks.
• The parties having a stake in the conflict have a tendency to look at their own agenda rather than the country’s. The intentions of the conflicting parties should be sincere while holding talks.
• It is because of the dubious roles of the human rights organisations that they were not trusted as facilitators. Is the civil society itself a facilitator?
• The author seems to have given a little bit more responsibility to the facilitator than he should have. The facilitator takes the agremo from one party to the other. This is facilitation. His first task is to formulate the rule of the game. Then see to it that the rule is abided by until the very end. If facilitators start giving their opinions, their biases will be seen.
• The facilitator should be able to get the mandate of the four sides including the civil society.
  

The seminar came to a conclusion after NEFAS executive director, Ananda Srestha thanked everyone for making their contribution to the discussions.