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India-Pakistan
Maoists to get party status only if they lay down arms
2006-08-20
KATHMANDU - Nepal’s prime minister said Maoist rebels couldn’t be accepted as a political party unless they lay down their arms, state media said on Saturday. The Maoists “cannot be given the status of a political party ... until they give up weapons,” Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala said in the eastern city of Biratnagar, the Rising Nepal newspaper reported.

The rebels and an alliance of seven parties led mass protests in April that forced King Gyanendra to hand back power seized from lawmakers in February 2005. He has since been obliged to give up most of his powers.

“The Maoists must lay down their arms and we are trying our best to create the right kind of environment for that,” Koirala said. “Only after that they will be treated as the eighth party and only then will it be possible to move ahead jointly with them,” he said.
And if you can't trust a Maoist, who can you trust?
Koirala said the government was awaiting the arrival of a UN team to speed up the drive to establish lasting peace in the kingdom where the rebels began their deadly insurgency to install a communist republic in 1996. “The UN team will arrive shortly to address the issue of arms management,” said Koirala.
Oh that'll work well. Maybe the French can supervise.
Maoist rebels and the government earlier this month settled a row over monitoring each otherÂ’s fighters and weapons, a move which revives their peace process and power-sharing plans. Under the agreement, the rebels would confine their soldiers and weapons to camps in the countryside and the army would stay in barracks, while UN civilians would monitor both sides.
Posted by:Steve White

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