Prachanda ready to disband guerrilla army, give back property

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

As Nepal’s political parties struggled to reach a compromise on Thursday, the Maoist chief said he was ready to dissolve the party’s paramilitary organisation and facilitate the integration of its combatants in a bid to end the standoff between the government and the former rebels.
Prachanda, who is also the supreme commander of the Maoists’ People’s Liberation Army, said his party was ready to dissolve the paramilitary structure of the Young Communist League (YCL), the youth wing of the party, within 4-5 days and integrate and rehabilitate the Maoist combatants within four months.
“We’ll dismantle the barracks of the Young Communist League within four-five days. We are ready to break the relation of the party with the cantonments,” he underlined.
Unified CPN-Maoist is also ready to return the land and property seized during the decade-long insurgency as per the demands of the other political parties at the earliest, Mr. Prachanda said during an interaction with members of the civil society in the capital on Wednesday.
Mr. Prachanda said the party was ready to categorise the Maoist combatants by mid-June in a bid to speed up the integration of the former rebels.
While the former rebels want an en masse induction of some 19,500 former guerrillas, the ruling parties say the Maoists inflated the size of the PLA and are entitled to have only 3,500-4,000 combatants accommodated in the military.
Major political parties have asked the Maoists to disband their paramilitary groups and turn their organisation into a civilian party and return properties seized before they could consider supporting a government led by the Maoists.
Mr. Prachanda also asked for the setting up of a reconciliation commission to establish the whereabouts of nearly 1,000 people who went missing during the “People’s War” and are feared to have been killed by security forces or the former rebels themselves.
Nepali Congress, the second largest party in the 601-member Constituent Assembly, has asked the Maoists to implement its commitments so as to end the political deadlock.
Sher Bahadur Deuba, the former Prime Minister of the Nepali Congress, said though the Maoists commitments were positive, they should put these commitments into practice.



http://beta.thehindu.com/news/international/article429129.ece

[chegitz guevara]

I think we should wait and see if this is true.

[maskerade]

I really hope this isn't true. I would see it as a surrender of their entire struggle

[The Vegan Marxist]

Great...now I'm going to feel like shit for the rest of the day.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Following the antics of Prachanda, I can't help but think, "What good is this guy?" Does "Prachanda" mean "Ron Gettlefinger" in Nepali?

No wonder Nepali communists are interested in exploring other approaches.

[bailey_187]

No wonder Nepali communists are interested in exploring other approaches.

by this do you mean the one quote from Bhattari?



But yeah, this seems pretty shit news and doesnt look good. i am starting to grow doubtful over the UCPN (M) now. i hope i am wrong.

[The Vegan Marxist]

What the fuck happened to May 28th? I thought they were going to keep the protests 'til then & then strike if nothing was to come by then? If this is true, then Prachanda should be left with the rest of the revisionists of the CPN-ML, & let the Maoists topple the state themselves.

[Dimentio]

Even Francisco Rodríguez is more realistic than this :blink:

[The Vegan Marxist]

Even Francisco Rodríguez is more realistic than this :blink:

what's that suppose to mean?

[Ravachol]

While the former rebels want an en masse induction of some 19,500 former guerrillas, the ruling parties say the Maoists inflated the size of the PLA and are entitled to have only 3,500-4,000 combatants accommodated in the military.
Major political parties have asked the Maoists to disband their paramilitary groups and turn their organisation into a civilian party and return properties seized before they could consider supporting a government led by the Maoists.


Those are the key words really. This is why I remain a firm opponent of such a politics of compromise, honestly it only strengthens my belief that any compromise with a faction of the bourgoisie is eventually going to bring a revolutionary movement to it's knees. Since when is revolution about being 'entitled' to do things by the 'ruling parties' or 'returning siezed property' in order to have the bourgoisie support your 'governement'...:confused:

[RED DAVE]

Waiting to hear from Comrade Alastair, red cat, etc., about this.

RED DAVE

[The Vegan Marxist]

Waiting to hear from Comrade Alastair, red cat, etc., about this.

RED DAVE

Red Cat's left for a while. Just asked Comrade Alastair & yet to receive anything. So still waiting.

[The Vegan Marxist]

This is actually not as bad as it sounds. They will have to compromise a little to win.

How is that any better to reforming? Also, they'll win if the other side keeps their word on the bargain.

[the last donut of the night]

Fuck.

[Saorsa]

So what?

I have spent two years telling you guys not to live from media report to media report. The leaders of the UCPN (M) have made all kinds of compromises and promised all kinds of things to the ruling class since 2006, and the party has grown in size, strength and power throughout that entire time. They promised to return the seized properties almost five years ago and never did. What makes you think they're going to do it now?

Army integration is nothing new. This has been a demand for years, and it's part of the UCPN (M)'s strategy to split the army and neutralize the one barrier that stands between them and state power. The soldiers of the PLA will remain loyal to the party and will follow the orders of the party whether they are officially under the control of the party or not. Why get shocked and upset at Prachanda agreeing to 'disband the guerrilla army' when the guerrilla army has been fighting to be integrated into a new national army for years now.

The only potentially worrying part of this is Prachanda apparently promising to dissolve the YCL, or at least it's 'paramilitary structures'. I shouldn't need to tell people not to trust the bourgeois media, so we have no idea exactly what he said and why. If this did happen, it would be a major step backward, but I'm not convinced. The YCL is a massive organisation with branches in every village and every working class neighbourhood in Nepal, and I don't think the grassroots cadres would even accept its dissolution. Let's wait and see exactly what is going on here.

Keep in mind that Prachanda made these comments at a meeting organised for him to address professionals and intellectuals and reassure them about a speech he made a few days previous, where he said that the party had noted down those who insulted the poor peasants who came to the cities for the May Day rallies and that these 'neat and clean intellectuals' would get what's coming to them. This caused a bit of a stir, so the UCPN (M) organised a public meeting for Prachanda to reassure the intellectuals that most of them were alright and weren't going to get butchered any time too soon.

The party leaders speak differently when talking to the bourgeoisie to what they'd say when talking to their supporters amongst the masses. A revolution is always a confusing and unclear situation when looking at it from outside and overseas. There is no straight line to capturing state power - why does every zig zag cause people to worry about things so much?

[Saorsa]

Finally, we need to keep in mind that the party is in the midst of two line struggle. They are drawing near to the point where a successful insurrection could be possible, and there is obviously a fierce debate over whether to seize power or whether to wait. The party is not just a bunch of puppets with Prachanda holding the strings - it is a democratic centralist organisation and the path forward is being debated amongst hundreds of thousands of people as I write this.

[Homo Songun]

Lets wait and see. The UCPN(M) has surprised everybody before, they'll do it again no doubt.

Regarding the YCL, don't get hung up on it. The YCL rose to prominence after the PLA was cantoned. You connect the dots.

BTW, I am not justifying Prachanda, but didn't the Chinese Communist Party give up seized land during the period they were allied with the KMT?

[chegitz guevara]

Man, I can't believe all the people so ready to believe this is true, without even waiting for confirmation, let alone without considering the history of the UCPN saying one thing and doing another.

[Saorsa]

Madhav Kumar Nepal has commented on the issue:


Talking to media persons, the PM blamed the Maoists for resorting to violence. He said that the Maoists perform just reverse of their promises.

The PM said, it is impossible to negotiate with the Maoists to forge consensus to restore lasting peace until they correct their behaviors.

He said that such incident reflects that the Maoists have not changed their behaviors despite their commitments.

Can we all try to be a little bit more like MKN? We need to be applying dialectics here, and it seems like a lot of people don't know how to do that. Dialectical materialists see the world as a constantly evolving process, where everything is always in motion and can only be understood on this basis. If you isolate anything - say, a particular statement made to the media by a revolution leader - you cannot understand it, as you are seeing it in a metaphysical way. You can only ever understand anything if you see it as being in motion.

Look at the Maoist movement in motion. In 2006, they controlled the countryside and had built the PLA into a strong army. But they didn't control the cities, where the bourgeois parties had some support.

Now, in 2010, the bourgeois parties have no support. They've been swept off the streets, and only emerge now to launch vigilante attacks on Maoist demonstrators. The Maoists have 200,000 union members in Kathmandu alone, and the YCL is a massive and disciplined presence.

You all need to understand what this means. In 2006, the CPN (M) controlled the fields of Rolpa but it didn't control the streets of Kathmandu. Now, in 2010, the UCPN (M) controls both the countryside and the streets of Kathmandu!

The strategies of the UCPN (M) have enabled it to move between the situation of 2006 into the situation we have now. The revolution has never been at a more advanced stage, and it is still moving forward. Let's try and view it like that, rather than getting incredibly excited or disappointed when each media report about the negotiations comes out.

[Saorsa]

Nepal Maoists return to hard line on troop integration
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Change of stance by opposition Maoists regarding integration and rehabilitation of former People’s Liberation Army rebels continues to affect the fragile peace process in Nepal.
Two days after UCPN (Maoist) chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ announced possibility of solving the vexed issue within four months, the party did a flip-flop on Friday.

Maoist members of the special committee on integration and rehabilitation of the nearly 19,000 former PLA rebels abstained from a meeting to resolve the key issue that has brought the peace process to a standstill.

The Maoists who orchestrated a six-day strike earlier this month are demanding removal of the government and formation of a national unity government led by them before holding any talks on peace.

Worried at developments, the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) has termed the need to arrive at a consensus among the parties as “extremely urgent”.

Entrusted with the task of monitoring arms and personnel of PLA as well as Nepal Army, UNMIN’s tenure has been extended six times till date. The last extension for a period of four months till September 15, 2010 came on Wednesday.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Nepal-Maoists-return-to-hard-line-on-troop-integration/Article1-543793.aspx