Word: prachanda
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...threat of union, however, has now led to a parliamentary crisis in the young Himalayan republic. On Monday, in a dramatic climax to a televised address to the nation, Nepal's Maoist Prime Minister Prachanda resigned after the President thwarted his move to sack the country's army chief. The army chief, Gen. Rukmangad Katawal, who had close ties to the fallen monarchy, was against taking in "politically indoctrinated" soldiers - a clear reference to Prachanda's Maoist brethren-in-arms. Since the peace accord, the Army has opposed full integration, fearful that the Maoists would then insinuate themselves into...
...overarching fear was for the hard-won peace. Pushpa Kamal Dahal, more popularly known by his nom de guerre Prachanda, had been Prime Minister for just eight months and, while popular, has had to weather several political and economic crises. The concern over a break with the military was whether the Maoist rebels would then return to armed conflict - or that the military would stage a coup to avoid having to absorb them. Supervised by the United Nations, the guerrillas are increasingly restive, residing in military bases for two-and-a-half years now while awaiting integration. (See pictures...
...army, as well as the opposition parties, suspected the Maoists were trying to inject their cadres into the military to bring it under control. At the same time, the guerrillas were growing impatient, annoyed that their role in the new Nepal had yet to be defined. Prachanda then precipitated the crisis by trying to replace Katawal with the more pliable Lieut. Gen. Kul Bahadur Khadka. However, the Maoists' leftist allies in the legislature disagreed with the decision and, on Sunday, the Communist Party of Nepal and the Sadbhavana Party withdrew support from the government. Prachanda had two choices then...
...Even after Prachanda did just that, however, the end of this dramatic series of events has left the Maoist leader facing the ire of his own ranks, who are getting edgy after being corralled into U.N.-monitored encampments around the country since they began their surrender over 2½ years ago. Nearly 20,000 PLA fighters have been verified by the U.N. and are ready to be inducted into the army if they meet the eligibility criteria. But that process has yet to begin, a stall that some have attributed to the opposition of the army chief and the Nepali...
...will have to be assimilated into other security forces or given other jobs per the terms of the accord. "Some 5,000 have left - they just got tired of waiting," says Kosmos Biswokarma, spokesman for the U.N. mission in Nepal. "The rest are getting impatient. They want decisive action." Prachanda's biggest problem now will be containing this unrest and finding a solution. Until then, "the first great world experiment of the 21st century" - as Prachanda described the Maoists' political ascension in Nepal in November 2006 - may only yield more instability for the people of this tiny Himalayan nation...