Panel for integration by 2013

Ngawang Tenji Sherpa, KATHMANDU, DEC 20 - The Secretariat of the Special Committee for the Integration and Rehabilitation of Maoist Combatants has proposed a five-phase action plan that aims to conclude the process by 2013.

Representatives of the UCPN (Maoist), however, registered their note of dissent over the proposal submitted to the Special Committee on Sunday. The Maoists stressed the need for a “political decision” on the modality of integration and the rehabilitation package before the enforcement of the plan. The action plan aims to enforce the government’s command-control over the combatants before the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) leaves in mid-January.

The main opposition has sought clarification from the political leadership on the status of Agreement on Monitoring of the Management of the Arms and Armies (AMMA) and the provision of monitoring over both Nepal Army and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) before finalising the new command-control mechanism.  “There was no agreement among us, so we wrote a note of dissent and forwarded the proposal calling for decision at the highest political level,” said PLA Spokesperson Chandra Prakash Khanal, the Maoist representative in the 12-member body.

In the first phase, the action plan has proposed that the secretariat establish its chain of command over the Maoist combatants within the next four weeks. It has suggested that the retired security personnel or the serving one could be mixed with the Maoist Army personnel to form the arms monitoring mechanism that will be established at the 28 cantonment sites after the departure of UNMIN.

In the second phase, which will commence in the second week of January, the combatants will be categorised into integration (I), rehabilitation (R) and voluntary retirement (V) groups. The Special Committee will bid farewell to the ‘V’ group, send the ‘R’ group to decided locations  and send the ‘I’ group for integration. In the third phase, starting the first week of March, the combatants will report to the integration centres concerned, the qualifying combatants will report to the security forces training centres and the disqualified will report to the rehabilitation camps. In the fourth phase, which will begin from June 2011-June 2013, combatants selected for integration will be trained at the training centre of the security forces and combatants opting for rehabilitation will be enrolled in various skill development centres established by the Peace Ministry.

In the fifth and the final phase, those who complete trainings will be integrated into the security agencies and others in the rehabilitation process will get the assigned seed money from the government.