On the morning of August 3, the UN team, scheduled to leave for New York in the afternoon, reached Baluwatar to bid adieu to the PM Koirala. Mistura, without any prelude, made his point somewhat brusquely with Koirala. He said “Excellency, emerging crises elsewhere in the world, including in Lebanon, have drawn the attention of the UN. In Nepal’s case, the Secretary-General has taken a keen yet personal interest, which might not be the same with the passage of time.” Mistura was hinting at the retirement of Kofi Annan towards the end of the year. He further emphasized, “If Nepal is indifferent about it, the UN will not wait, and it might go somewhere else since a number of countries currently soliciting UN’s help.” The PM must have taken Mistura’s remarks as a surprise as they were inconsiderate in nature.

Futile initial attempts

After the UN team left Baluwatar, the frail PM seemed concerned that the meeting had not been up to expectations. Mistura’s gruff but candid statement had everyone feeling the heat. Consequently, the same afternoon, a serious attempt was made to reach consensus on issue of arms management at the peace secretariat in Singha Durbar. The dialogue took place between the government’s and the rebel’s representatives, namely Home Minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula, Maoist representative Krishna Bahadur Mahara and the PM’s advisor on external affairs. Besides, peace secretary Vidyadhar Mallik, peace interlocutors such as Daman Nath Dhungana, Padma Ratna Tuladhar, and Hannes Siebert, a USAID employee, were also present to help in the peace dialogue.

During negotiations, altogether 17 drafts were made but all proved futile, as none were acceptable due to the inflexible stances of the parties involved. Mahara utilised the peace secretariat’s fax and phone facilities as channels of communication between him and his higher authorities—Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and ideologue Baburam Bhattarai—in order to get the negotiated draft approved. The UN team, which had happily changed their flight upon the concerned parties’ request so that dialogue team would have more time to arrive at consensus, eventually had to leave in dismay.

Given the exigency of the UN’s involvement, high-level talks between Prime Minister Koirala and Chairman Dahal took place in Baluwatar on August 9. The summit also comprised of Home Minister Sitaula, Bhattarai, and interlocutor Shekhar Koirala. The PM, in his brief address, said, “Time is very short; there is urgency that we both need to reach an understanding on the areas where the government and Maoists want UN cooperation. Please finish off the task as early as possible.” Then, he left for his bedroom to rest.

The Maoist Chairman started the conversation by saying, “Well Chalise ji, I think we have already agreed upon the content of the letter,” and then looked up to Home Minister Sitaula. This came as a surprise to me. Nevertheless, I replied, “I am sorry, I am unaware about understandings between and among you. I don’t think I have ever entered any agreement on the content of the letter with you?” Prachanda then said, “No, no, you are right. We have not talked to you on this matter.”

High-level agreements

That is how we got ourselves involved in the negotiation business. The first letter to the UN was there for reference (see: ‘Two frantic letters,’ November 8, Page 7). The Maoists had strong reservations about the points that implied the decommissioning of only their weapons. They did not agree to the ‘double-key’ approach as well. After tiring negotiations of about four hours, an agreement on the content of letter was finally reached, which ostensibly avoided the notion that would manifestly employ two different yardsticks for the Nepal Army and the Maoists combatants. Yet, it was worrisome that Prachanda wanted to confer with his colleagues outside Baluwatar. It made us apprehensive that the consultation could invite reservations from other Maoists leaders, which might either delay or resign the peace process to the doldrums. But we effectively dispirited the Maoist leadership from considering that course.

After that, a five-point identical letter, primarily based on the modality of our first letter to the UN, was typed and printed out. The logic behind the letters was that there must not be any confusion for the world body to extend its help to Nepal. The second letter, like that of the first one, solicited the UN’s help in five areas—monitoring of the CA election process; monitoring Maoist combatants and their weapons; monitoring Nepali Army personnel and their weapons in barracks to ensure that they were not used for or against any side; monitoring of the ceasefire phase; and finally, continuity of monitoring of the human rights situation in the country through OHCHR. Nevertheless, major differences between first and second letter to the UN were that the latter one not only ostensibly abandoned words such as ‘decommissioning’ of Maoists combatants, but also placed them on the same footing as the Nepal Army in terms of managing arms and armies. It was a concession tacitly worked-out by the government in order to provide momentum to the peace process.

When identical letters needed to be printed out on the respective parties’ letter pad, Bhattarai suddenly realised that an official Maoist letter-pad was not in their possession. He said that either one of them should go out to bring the same or ask some party men to do so. We were worried again, but Bhattarai, to our relief, said that he could download the letter pad from their website. Accordingly, he was taken to the computer room, where he printed out the Maoist letter-pad with the party’s logo in black and white.

A formal invitation

Of the two printed letters, I gave one to Prachanda for his signature and took the other to the PM in his bedroom. When I entered his room, PM Koirala was alone and lying on the bed. The moment he saw me, he instantly asked, “Is the letter prepared?” I shook my head in affirmation and gave the letter to him. He asked me to read it out. He was focussed mainly on the five-point agreement. After that, I requested that he sign it. He put on his glasses and asked me once again, “Have you gone through it carefully?” I replied again in confirmation and said, “I drafted it.” Then, Koirala signed the letter, looking somewhat stress-free. When I was carrying the signed letter back to the negotiation room, I noticed him lying on the bed, shaking his two legs and whistling in a relaxed manner. Back in the dialogue room, Prachanda signed his letter only after he had confirmed the PM’s signature.

Home Minister Sitaula and Shekhar Koirala effectively persuaded the Maoist leadership to go to the peace secretariat in Singha Durbar directly, wherein the UN representative was eagerly waiting. Consequently, the Maoist leadership entrusted Mahra to hand over their letter to the UN representative. Home Minister Sitaula, before leaving for the peace secretariat, as a gesture of quid pro quo for me for my role, asked me to carry the PM’s letter. I happily did so. Mahara and Sitaula, from their respective parties, formally handed over the letters to the UN representative.

Back in New York, according to UN News Service, Staffan de Mistura, in a press meet said, “Just today, we received two letters…both (government and Maoist rebels) have agreed on a five-point platform which means cantonment both of the combatants and of the army, and the monitoring of the ceasefire and human rights.” He also told reporters in New York, “The good news is everybody wants the UN involved, everybody wants the UN to assist the peace process, which is potentially fragile and should not be allowed to be kept fragile”. Immediately after that, the Secretary-General sent Ian Martin back to Nepal as his Personal Representative in order to develop a proposal for the UN’s support for Nepal’s peace process. The UN thus started witnessing Nepal’s peace initiatives, which started when a historic agreement was signed between the Seven-Party Alliance and the then CPN (Maoist) on November 8, 2006.

Chalise was foreign relations advisor to Girija Prasad Koirala