VICTORY IN NEPAL

"Nobody has lost, this is the people’s victory and nobody should be upset with this development."
~ Nepalese Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, The Himalayan Times.

Wow! The Maoist rebels in Nepal are in final negotiations with the government over a peace agreement that will end the conflict in that country, from the Christian Science Monitor:

It took five months of peace initiatives, several piecemeal agreements, and 17 hours of marathon talks for Nepal's government to finally hammer out a comprehensive agreement with Maoist rebels in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. The deal brought an end to this country's armed insurgency, which began in 1996 and left more than 13,000 dead.

[ . . . ]

Even amid the protracted peace dialogue, rebels extended a cease-fire three times, and top rebel leaders began speaking in public with increasing regularity. The Maoists' sense of security and confidence in the final weeks leading up to the agreement, analysts say, leaves little doubt of their commitment to promoting multiparty democracy.

"The well-drafted document has addressed all quarters and put a final seal on peace," says Narayan Wagle, editor of Kantipur, Nepal's largest daily. "With the agreements, Nepal is on a definite course to lasting peace. There is absolutely no doubt about that. The people will feel this the day the weapons of the rebels are locked up."

What really floors me, though, are the political arrangements:

The agreement also provides for one of the more contentious elements of the negotiations: the eventual formation of an interim government.

By Nov. 26, an interim parliament will add 73 seats for Maoist rebels. The parliament will be dissolved by mid-2007, replaced by a popularly elected 425-member constituent assembly that will draft a new constitution to determine the future of the monarchy.

The two sides have also agreed to sign a comprehensive peace accord by Nov. 16, which will include provisions to compensate the families of those killed or maimed during the conflict, rehabilitate displaced civilians, and form a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to deal with cases of serious human rights violations.

Geez. . . paradise is coming to Nepal, and with a truth and reconciliation commission, no less.

In Nepal, there has been fighting for ten years and there are more than 13,000 dead; In Turkey, there has been fighting for 22 years and there are 40,000 dead. In Nepal, the government finally wanted peace badly enough to avoid throwing themselves on the War on Terror® bandwagon, and begin a negotiated, peaceful settlement instead. On the other hand, Turkey, a fascist state and aspiring EU member, is so fearful of it's own citizens that it still enforces a constitution written by generals to protect the state from the people. Turkey is a nation of cowards, most unlike Nepal.

Now let me ask you this: Why isn't the US over there bombing the negotiations, because, after all, the Maoists are "terrorists," right? I'm really disappointed in the American defense industry, especially Lockheed Martin, for not finding a way to extend the global War on Terror® to Nepal, and turn a few dozen billion bucks on the deal at the same time.

They need to send Joseph Ralston over there immediately, if not sooner, and I'm sure he'll be able to set those Nepalese on the straight and narrow for the noble sake of world peace and to make the world safe for democracy.

In the meantime, what's the rundown in Kurdistan? The Lockheed Martin/US government entity--I have to put it that way because I don't know where one ends and the other begins--has rejected the fifth unilateral PKK ceasefire, has closed a $2.9 billion deal for Turkey's stop-gap F-16s until they can finalize their $10 billion deal on Turkey's new F-35s. The Lockheed Martin/US government entity has removed all possibility of negotiations with PKK, refuses an IRA model for peace, and would most certainly reject any model based on the Nepal model. . . especially since it's actually allowing for the formation of an interim parliament that will make room for 73 Maoist rebels.

I mean, can you imagine the Ankara regime making room in the TBMM for Abdullah Ocalan, Murat Karayilan, Duran Kalkan, and Cemil Bayik, among others? I can't even imagine them making room for DTP mayors and provincial chairmen, much less for PKK leadership.

So who are the losers here? Well, there are no losers in Nepal that I can see at the moment. Both the government and the rebels have worked with each other to arrive at their joint historic moment. There are no losers in the mountains of Kurdistan, or in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan, because those are the places where everyone is willing to negotiate something like the Nepal model.

In the Kurdistan model, the losers are in Ankara and Washington.


For more on the victory in Nepal, see these links:

The Himalayan Times
The Independent
ReliefWeb Backgrounder
BBC