The accord is the result of months of negotiations following an explosion of mass demonstrations last April that forced King Gyanendra to give up absolute rule and return governmental authority to a parliament he dissolved four years ago.

The draft constitution would maintain the crown but strip the king of all executive powers and vest them in the prime minister. The interim government would remain until a constituent assembly is elected sometime in 2007. The assembly would then approve a constitution and decide whether to continue, curtail, or abolish the monarchy. Gyanendra has become deeply unpopular since he seized all governmental power last year, proceeding to rule as a dictator for 15 months.

As part of the November 21 accord, the CPN (M) agreed to confine its guerrillas to United Nations—supervised camps and lock up their weapons. The army is likewise supposed to be confined to its barracks and have an equal number of its weapons stored. Thousands of guerrillas are already stationed in seven main designated areas under UN patrol.

“Once the [UN] monitoring of arms is complete, the Maoists will join the government,” said Minendra Rijal, a leader of the ruling coalition. The earliest that could happen is January, after a UN monitoring group issues a report.

The peace accord establishes a “truth and reconciliation commission,” according to the New York Times. The commission is supposed to investigate human rights violations by the government army and the Maoist People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Baburam Bhattarai, second in command of the CPN (M), said that while he favored punishing army officials responsible for the worst offenses, “We have to go for reconciliation, for the sake of peace.”

In April Nepal was shaken by mass demonstrations and a general strike. Tens of thousands poured into the streets of Kathmandu, the capital, and other cities, with chants such as “Hang Gyanendra” and “We want a republic, we don’t want the king anymore.” Faced with the prospect of being toppled, Gyanendra reinstated parliament. The opposition immediately called off the demonstrations and chose Girija Prasad Koirala of the Nepali Congress Party as prime minister.

Nepal, sandwiched between China and India, is an agricultural nation of 28 million inhabitants in the mountainous Himalayan region. One of least developed capitalist countries in the world, Nepal is marked by semifeudal relations in the countryside and a Hindu-based caste system, with millions subject to institutionalized discrimination as dalits (“untouchables”).

Popular struggles against the monarchy have wrested concessions from the regime. Mass protests in 1990 led King Birendra to accept a new constitution and parliamentary elections. The main parties in parliament have included the Nepali Congress Party and Stalinist groups such as the Communist Party of Nepal and what is now the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

The CPN (M), which politically looks to the former Chinese regime headed by Mao Zedong, has pursued a course of becoming part of a bourgeois government in alliance with a “progressive” wing of the capitalist class. To further this goal, in the mid-1990s it went underground and launched a rural guerrilla campaign.

The People’s Liberation Army, with up to 15,000 fighters and thousands of militia members, now controls large parts of the countryside. The Nepalese army and police have waged a bloody counterinsurgency campaign, with more than 13,000 people killed, mostly in the countryside.

“This ends the 11 years of civil war in our country,” declared CPN (M) chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal—commonly known as Prachanda—at the November 21 signing of the peace agreement. Speaking at a gathering of diplomats and politicians, he stated, “This moment marks the end of the 238-year-old feudal system.”

Under the accord, the Maoists are to have ministers in the cabinet and 73 representatives in a 209-deputy parliament, a few less than the Congress Party and the same number as the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist), another Stalinist faction.

Interviewed by the Italian magazine L’espresso in November, Prachanda said his party’s goals were to abolish the monarchy, form a coalition government, and “radically democratize the state structure.”

“We will apply mixed economics to this country… and we will welcome foreign investors, using capital from abroad for the well-being of Nepal,” he said. “In 20 years we could be similar to Switzerland. This is my goal for Nepal.”

In a June interview that appeared in the online Nepalese news publication eKantipur.com, Prachanda stated, “We are clear that there will be no development in Nepal unless the capitalists can make some profit.” He said his party asked only that they invest their profits in Nepal and not take them out of the country.

The Nepalese Maoists’ decision to end their guerrilla campaign and join the government has embarrassed some of their international supporters, who portrayed the course of their co-thinkers in Nepal as an example of an advancing revolution. Expressing puzzlement, an article in the December 10 issue of Revolution, the newspaper of the U.S. Revolutionary Communist Party, said, “We need to understand this current agreement more fully.”  
 
 
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