Information
Headlines
PEACE PROCESS
end
Hope
Peace Process
Grafik
Nepal's Civil War
PEACE PROCESS SUPPORT
Nepal Supporting Peace Processes Through a Systemic Approach
September 2005
Study prepared for the Berghof Foundation for Peace Support
by Dev Raj Dahal

Analysis of the Current Situation Latent, manifest and violent conflicts have now integrated with the ongoing evolutionary development of the Nepalese societal system thus drastically changing the framework condition of the polity. The utter inability by political parties to reconcile to the necessary social change, and assimilate it with the polity and the state, allowed the creation of a tension between the "critical mass� formed within sub-systems of the society struggling for power, resource and identity and the hegemony of the political class claiming to represent democracy, nationalism and the state. It was this tension that the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) quickly learned to capitalize on and began calling the shots in the Nepalese political life- not just changing the head of government at their will but even governments. The main actors in the macro-political conflict in Nepal are: Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M), an alliance of seven political parties1 and the government which is now headed by the King. The armed insurgency started by the CPN (Maoist) since February 13, 1996 and the counter-insurgency operations by the state have caused serious human rights violations, led to the death of more than 15,500 people-many of them noncombatants, displaced over 200,000 and crippled public life to such an extent that multiparty politics has been pushed to margins. Conflict-affected women and men suffer from trauma, rape, harassment, torture and arbitrary detention. The government remains preoccupied with national security and law and order because of the widespread violence undermining the very base of policy reforms so essential for poverty alleviation. Apart from the disruption in the fabric of social life even the delivery of the supply of food and essential relief materials to victims in remote areas has been negatively affected. Nepal's primitive development infrastructure remains a primary target of the insurgency. This has resulted in the breakdown of education, business and the farm based subsistence economy. It has caused the exodus of rural people to urban areas and abroad, embroiled discontented groups into even more protracted conflict and eroded whatever political trust there was in peace efforts.