A Peace Proposal

By Professor Dr Brian Cobb

The political landscape of Nepal looks extremely bleak these days.
The three factions, Monarch-Military, Maoists and Parties, are
seemingly inalterably wedded to incompatible demands. The Parties
and Maoists have reached an agreement of sorts, but it papers over
some very wide chasms and is totally at odds with the Monarch-
Military roadmap. But all 3 factions say they want peace and
multiparty democracy.

As Bill Clinton has said, in politics you have to take the facts as
they are, not as you wish they were. There are some hard realities
here, but some opportunities as well. No faction is going to get its
way 100 percent, but I believe there is a way that all can achieve
their major stated goals with a little compromise and creativity.
The status quo is unsustainable: killing, hatred, civil disorder,
economic decline, displaced people, and large scale human rights
violations. Too much blood has been shed, too many have suffered
anguish, grief, and injury. The rhetoric to date has been largely
polarizing, factional and intransigent. However, I believe there is
a solution if all factions will place principles and long term goals
ahead of strategy and a win/lose mentality. It is time to think
win/win and reunification.

Let's take the easy part first; to each faction I address one
question. If all three factions answer yes, there can be a
constitutional solution. If any faction answers no, the deal is off.

To the King: Will you agree to an earlier, negotiated date for a
full, free and fair parliamentary election under international
supervision under a bilateral cease fire?

To the Maoists: Will you forswear violence and intimidation, permit
the elections, and join the democratic process as candidates under
the 1990 Constitution, and disarm with UN assistance?

To the Parties: Will you participate in such an election and serve
in a democratically elected government?

If we have 3 yeses, Nepal can reestablish democratic governance and,
if desired, amend the constitution. It is clear that His Majesty is
not going to accept a constituent assembly, but amendments could be
negotiated and accomplish the same things. To the voices of
negativity and obstructionism I ask, why not? Do you have a
feasible, specific plan that is better?

Now for the hard part. To end the military stalemate and establish
an enduring peace, we are going to have to be a bit creative, but
rigorously logical. We have to put the interests and well being of
the Nepali people first. The air is full of talk about putting the
Army under the control of the elected government, and perhaps
combining the Maoist and Royal Armies into one force. This will not
solve the nation's problems. To imagine that two of the world's
worst human rights violating militaries will somehow meld into a
coherent, harmonious whole is like mixing highly corrosive alkalis
and acids to produce neutral salts. It is nonsense, a recipe for an
exothermic reaction, violent and hot. Such an army would be a
breeding ground of intrigues, power struggles, coups d'état and
waste.
Nepal's only two neighboring countries are India and China. Both
have huge militaries and nuclear arms. To imagine that the RNA could
ever repel any attack, which seems most unlikely in any case, is
pure fantasy. And, as the American President and former Army
General Dwight D Eisenhower said, "Every gun that is made, every
warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense,
a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold
and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its
scientists, the hopes of its children... This is not a way of life
at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is
humanity hanging from a cross of iron."
Instead of such an army, I propose a three step transformation.
First, the RNA commanders, who have disgraced themselves and the
nation, should be relieved of their command and the Army placed
under UN supervision to act as a peacekeeping force, charged with
overseeing the disarmament of the Maoists and the elections.
Second, the RNA itself is disarmed and all lawful arms bearing
authority reposed in the police. Third, the RNA is transformed into
the Royal Peace Corps, to remain under His Majesty's supervision
with parliamentary accountability. Instead of 150,000-some idle,
potentially dangerous soldiers, the nation could use their energies
to build roads and other infrastructure, teach school, care for the
sick and otherwise contribute to the national reconciliation and
reconstruction. This would be active monarchy at its best, in the
tradition of the great King Ashoka.

As Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, reminded us: "The ultimate weakness of
violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing
it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the
lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the
hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely
increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence
multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already
devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can
do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that"

Of course, as with any compromise, no faction is going to get its
way on all points. However, this plan is reasonable,
straightforward, and accomplishes the stated major goals of all
factions. It is in everyone's best interest to show some
flexibility, good will and integrity for the sake of the nation.
It's time to become statesmen instead of politicians, principled and
transforming leaders instead of self-serving ideologues, and humane
advocates of peace, justice and development instead of perpetrators
of conflict. Principles come before goals, goals before means, and
means before results.

Let us hope and pray that Nepal fulfills the words of Isaiah, "…and
they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into
pruning hooks, and nation shall not rise up against nation, neither
shall they learn war any more."