Nepal's communist rebel chief issued a roadmap yesterday for peace that seeks the release of political prisoners, the dissolution of parliament and the Constitution and the restructuring of the national army.
Nepal's new government, meanwhile, said it has launched a crackdown on anti-democracy conspirators, arresting several ministers from King Gyanendra's ousted regime, and suspending police and intelligence chiefs.
Rebel chief Prachanda said in a statement that he would participate in direct talks with the government after his team of three negotiators carried out a preliminary dialogue with the government.
An associate of Prachanda had announced his participation on Friday, hours after Deputy Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli said that negotiations would be ineffective without him.
Prachanda's roadmap reiterates several of the points already agreed upon between the Maoists and the seven political parties that led a national movement to end Gyanendra's authoritarian rule last month.
The roadmap lists 10 points, of which several -- including a cease-fire and the naming of peace negotiators -- have already been accomplished.
The others include dissolving Parliament and the Constitution; creating an interim constitution and government, determining voting areas, holding constituent assembly elections under international supervision, and "restructuring of the state" to include both the rebels and the royal army.
The new government has promised to try to bring Maoist rebels into the political mainstream after a bloody decade-long insurgency
Some of that has already been promised by the government. Oli said on Friday that he believed Nepal would have a constituent assembly within 12 months and a new constitution by November next year.
The UN has offered to help in planning and conducting constituent assembly elections, and in writing the constitution.
The arrests of five ministers who served under Gyanendra were announced on state radio on Friday, and came as the new government raised the specter of royalist elements trying to thwart the gains made after weeks of nationwide protests last month that forced the king to relinquish direct rule.
"We are keeping a close watch on the people who are conspiring against [the] democracy system and the recent changes," said Home Minister Krishna Sitaula. "We will go after these people and not spare them."
The action against the former ministers and the officers were recommended by a judicial commission that is investigating them and other people in the former regime for allegedly ordering or supporting human rights abuses during the demonstrations.
The new government has matched the rebels' unilateral three-month cease-fire and dropped terrorism charges against the rebels.
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
‘HUMAN NEGLIGENCE’: The fire is believed to have been caused by someone who was visiting an ancestral grave and accidentally started the blaze, the acting president said Deadly wildfires in South Korea worsened overnight, officials said yesterday, as dry, windy weather hampered efforts to contain one of the nation’s worst-ever fire outbreaks. More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend, with Acting South Korean Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong reporting thousands of hectares burned and four people killed. “The wildfires have so far affected about 14,694 hectares, with damage continuing to grow,” Ko said. The extent of damage would make the fires collectively the third-largest in South Korea’s history. The largest was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast. More than 3,000
RSS