NEPAL: GOVERNMENT NAMES MEMBERS OF NEGOTIATING

C O N F I D E N T I A L KATHMANDU 000692

SIPDIS

STATE FOR SA/INS
LONDON FOR POL - GURNEY

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/15/2013
TAGS: PGOV PTER NP GON
SUBJECT: NEPAL: GOVERNMENT NAMES MEMBERS OF NEGOTIATING
TEAM

REF: A. (A) KATHMANDU 0656

B. (B) KATHMANDU 0468

Classified By: DCM ROBERT K. BOGGS. REASON: 1.5 (B,D).


1. (SBU) On April 16 the Government of Nepal (GON)
announced the members of the team it appointed to negotiate
with Maoist insurgents. As expected, the appointees are all
members of the Cabinet. The six-person team, headed by
Deputy Prime Minister Badri Prasad Mandal, includes:
Physical Works Minister Narayan Singh Pun, GON-appointed
coordinator for the talks; Information Minister Ramesh Nath
Pandey; Labor Minister Kamal Prasad Chaulagain; Health
Minister Upendra Devkota; and Assistant Minister for Women,
Children and Social Welfare Anuradha Koirala. No date for
the beginning of proposed peace talks with the Maoists has
yet been set.


2. (C) Comment: The composition of the team offers an
interesting mix of backgrounds. Deputy PM Mandal and
Information Minister Pandey were former ministers in the
partyless Panchayat regime. A former member of the National
Assembly, Pandey has close links to the Palace. Like Maoist
negotiator Matrika Yadav, Mandal comes from the southern
Terai plains along the border with India. Labor Minister
Chaulagain (a former member of the Communist Party of Nepal -
United Marxist Leninist) and Health Minister Devkota, on the
other hand, are generally perceived as the "leftists" in the
Cabinet. (Devkota also knows Baburam Bhattarai, the Maoists'
lead negotiator, from their school days together in Gorkha,
where Bhattarai habitually topped the class and Devkota
ranked second.) Physical Works Minister Pun, who has been
the GON's point man for dealing with the Maoists since the
declaration of the ceasefire on January 29, is a former Army
Colonel and, like Maoist negotiator and military strategist
Ram Bahadur Thapa, a member of the Magar ethnic group.
Assistant Minister for Women, Children and Social Welfare
Anuradha Koirala, the only woman in the Cabinet, was most
likely chosen in order to represent the concerns of women.
(The Maoists, who laud equal rights for women in their
rhetoric, have been criticized in some quarters for not
having included a woman on their five-man negotiating team.)


3. (C) Comment continued: Maoist complaints that the GON
was stalling by not announcing the members of its team had
grown increasingly strident over the past few weeks, with the
insurgents citing the delay as "evidence" that the GON is not
serious about dialogue (Ref A). The GON's move is likely an
effort to defuse such criticism. At the same time, a spate
of rumors--reportedly fueled by intra-Cabinet rivalries--over
the past week had been hinting that Minister Pun would be
replaced as lead negotiator for the GON. Chief among Pun's
detractors, apparently, were Mandal and Pandey. The
appointment of panchayati apologist Mandal, who outstrips Pun
in Cabinet rank, if not in negotiating skill or intellect,
may have been intended to mitigate these jealousies. Whether
these rivalries will undermine the performance or
cohesiveness of the GON team remains to be seen. Leaders of
the main parliamentary parties can be expected to complain at
their exclusion from the team (Nepali Congress President G.P.
Koirala is said to be already urging the Maoists not to
negotiate with the interim government). The parties
themselves, however, all but ensured their own exclusion
through their consistent refusal to cooperate with the GON
(Ref B).
MALINOWSKI