KATHMANDU: After failing to name his cabinet even after four days of winning the prime ministerial election due to protracted disagreements with allies and his own party leaders, Nepal's new premier Dr Baburam Bhattarai ran into a fresh obstacle on Friday when even a symbolic gesture about his party's guerrilla army triggered a storm from a party peer and rival.
This week, as part of his 45-day peace plan, Bhattarai had said the People's Liberation Army, that has nearly 20,000 fighters living in 28 cantonments across the country where they have been confined since the end of the civil war in 2006, would hand over the keys to the containers holding their weapons.
A verification by the UN in 2007 recorded the PLA had laid down a little over 3,000 firearms, which are stored in metal containers gifted by India that are kept inside the cantonments. When the UN Mission in Nepal was part of the peace process in Nepal, its monitoring teams kept the cantonments under survey to ensure that the fighters were not using the locked-up arms. However, after the exit of UNMIN, a special committee including government and army officials as well as Maoist representatives has been entrusted with the surveillance as well as the discharge of the PLA, a tough task that three earlier PMs failed to accomplish.
Though the handing over of the keys to the special committee was in reality a purely symbolical gesture and nowhere even close to disbanding the PLA, it yet unleashed angry protests from another deputy chief of the Maoist party, Mohan Baidya, who leads the hawks supporting the continuation of the PLA.
To show their anger at the move, Baidya's followers created a traffic disruption in Kathmandu for sometime on Friday, followed by a public condemnation that called it a "suicidal bid".
Calling the handover of the keys a sudden and surprising move, Baidya said in a press statement that it was tantamount to demobilising the PLA. The fiery leader, who advocates a new revolution, also said that the two decision-making units of the party had decided that regrouping of the PLA - into those who want to join the national army, those who want to be discharged and those seeking rehabilitation - would start only after an agreement had been reached among the major parties on the modality of the integration and the rehabilitation package.
"We are asking for the rollback of this suicidal bid," Baidya said in the statement.
Bhattarai, whose election was hailed by both Nepalis and the international community, faces even more enemies than his predecessor, communist chief Jhala Nath Khanal, who was forced to resign on Aug 14 due to his inability to start discharging the PLA. Two factions within the Maoists themselves, led by Maoist chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda and Baidya, have been at loggerheads with him over ideology and his own allies, the five parties from the Terai plains who helped him win the election, are now mounting pressure for key ministries as rewards.
In addition, two of the three largest parties whose support is essential to take the peace process forward - the Nepali Congress and communists - have vowed to sit in opposition and judge him on his 45-day peace plan.
This week, as part of his 45-day peace plan, Bhattarai had said the People's Liberation Army, that has nearly 20,000 fighters living in 28 cantonments across the country where they have been confined since the end of the civil war in 2006, would hand over the keys to the containers holding their weapons.
A verification by the UN in 2007 recorded the PLA had laid down a little over 3,000 firearms, which are stored in metal containers gifted by India that are kept inside the cantonments. When the UN Mission in Nepal was part of the peace process in Nepal, its monitoring teams kept the cantonments under survey to ensure that the fighters were not using the locked-up arms. However, after the exit of UNMIN, a special committee including government and army officials as well as Maoist representatives has been entrusted with the surveillance as well as the discharge of the PLA, a tough task that three earlier PMs failed to accomplish.
Though the handing over of the keys to the special committee was in reality a purely symbolical gesture and nowhere even close to disbanding the PLA, it yet unleashed angry protests from another deputy chief of the Maoist party, Mohan Baidya, who leads the hawks supporting the continuation of the PLA.
To show their anger at the move, Baidya's followers created a traffic disruption in Kathmandu for sometime on Friday, followed by a public condemnation that called it a "suicidal bid".
Calling the handover of the keys a sudden and surprising move, Baidya said in a press statement that it was tantamount to demobilising the PLA. The fiery leader, who advocates a new revolution, also said that the two decision-making units of the party had decided that regrouping of the PLA - into those who want to join the national army, those who want to be discharged and those seeking rehabilitation - would start only after an agreement had been reached among the major parties on the modality of the integration and the rehabilitation package.
"We are asking for the rollback of this suicidal bid," Baidya said in the statement.
Bhattarai, whose election was hailed by both Nepalis and the international community, faces even more enemies than his predecessor, communist chief Jhala Nath Khanal, who was forced to resign on Aug 14 due to his inability to start discharging the PLA. Two factions within the Maoists themselves, led by Maoist chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda and Baidya, have been at loggerheads with him over ideology and his own allies, the five parties from the Terai plains who helped him win the election, are now mounting pressure for key ministries as rewards.
In addition, two of the three largest parties whose support is essential to take the peace process forward - the Nepali Congress and communists - have vowed to sit in opposition and judge him on his 45-day peace plan.
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