Kathmandu: After weeks of a psychological war with the government, in which the verification of rebel soldiers by the UN was held hostage, Nepal’s Maoist guerrillas finally tasted victory on Monday with prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala and his cabinet agreeing to pay rebel soldiers an allowance of NRS 3,000 each per month.
   At the end of the cabinet meeting, information and communications minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara, who was promoted to government spokesman from being the Maoist spokesman last month, said the ruling alliance had agreed to pay the monthly allowance as well as build fortified shelters in the makeshift camps currently housing combatants of the People’s Liberation Army.
   With the decision, the stalled UN verification process will resume soon, Nand Kishore Pun aka Pasang, senior PLA leader, said.
   The government capitulation comes after Maoist supremo Prachanda threatened to start an indefinite strike from Monday if the government did not better the conditions in the 28 makeshift cantonments where about 31,000 PLA soldiers have been staying since the signing of a peace pact last year. In recent times, storms have blown off the plastic roofs of some camps, while others were said to be infested with snakes and stalked by diseases.
   The management of the camps has been a serious bone of contention between the Maoists and the government, which has already given the rebels over NRS 1 billion. To pressure the ruling alliance into doling out more, the combatants have stalled the UN efforts to verify the number of genuine soldiers since last month. Finally, the cabinet decided to wash its hands of a nonwin situation and hand over the management of the camps to the physical planning and infrastructure ministry headed by a Maoist leader, Hisila Yami.
   The government gesture however is being deeply resented by a group of people living in worse conditions than the Maoist guerrillas in the capital’s roads for nearly three months.
   These are members of the Nepal Maoist Victims’ Organisation, people who have had a husband, father or brother killed by the Maoists during their decade-old People’s War and their land and house captured by the rebels. Though the Maoists pledged to return all confiscated public property when they signed the peace pact, they have not done so.
   I was imprisoned by the Maoists five years ago, says Pampa Budathoki, 49, who comes from distant Ramechhap district, a Maoist stronghold. They accused me of spying, beat me up and gave me 24 hours to leave my village. Now they are getting NRS 4800 a month, inclusive of food allowances, while I don’t have 48 paise to my name.
   I have been trying to meet Prachanda. If I meet him, I am going to ask him, who deserves the allowances? The people who were maimed for life and left unable to fend for themselves or the people who caused their woes?
   Three years ago, the chief of the organisation, Ganesh Chiluwal, was shot dead in broad daylight by the Maoists while coming out of his office in one of the busiest areas of Kathmandu. His killers are yet to be brought to justice.
   At first, we were hopeful we would get justice, says Nur Prasad Adhikari, one of the spokesmen of the group. But now with the Maoists in the government, our hope has evaporated.
   While the government is building 105 fortified shelters for Maoist combatants in Morang and Ilam districts in eastern Nepal, on Thursday, baton-wielding policemen demolished the camp in the capital where the victims had been huddling for three months and forcibly took away their meagre possessions.

Via Times of India