Internal struggle of Maoist getting knottier

Tika R Pradhan

Kathmandu, July 10

With both the establishment of the party and the alliance of the two factions led by the vice-chairman duo-- Mohan Baidhya and Baburam Bhattarai -- stuck on their stances, the ongoing internal struggle within the Unified CPN Maoists is getting knottier than ever.

As the top leaders failed to find any solution to the problems facing the party and the country, today's brief standing committee meeting decided to take all the disputes in the central committee itself. The central committee meeting was stalled on June 24 with an objective to resolve the knotty issues through dialogues among the top leaderships. After 17 days of vigorous exercises the standing committee has come to a conclusion today that they were not in a position to resolve the conflicting issues and thus the central committee should take them up again.

Today's meeting decided to hold the stalled meeting of the central committee of the party on July 13.

According to secretary C P Gajurel, chairman Dahal has presented three conditions to the coalition of two factions for the work division in the party. Chairman Dahal has proposed agreement on his political proposal of peace and constitution, establishing the leadership and commitment from vice-chairman duo Mohan Baidhya and Baburam Bhattarai to end activities promoting factionalism.

"Chairman Dahal has proposed us to end the practice of factionalism as if we were the only leaders promoting such activities," he commented.

Secretary Gajurel claimed that both Baidhya and Bhattarai were one on implementing the work division unconditionally. "We won't accept any condition for appropriate work division so as to strengthen the party through collective leadership," he said.

"If the wishes so, the central committee will have to go for voting. If the central committee members were to vote for and against the work division that would be detrimental to the party's image and the leadership ultimately," he said.

While pro-Dahal standing committee member Barshaman Pun 'Ananta' claimed that work division was impossible without forging consensus on the proposal of chairman Dahal on peace and constitution.

"As soon as we finalize the issues of peace and constitution, we can go for appropriate work division for all the leaders of the party including the responsibility of party's army, which would help strengthen the party," Pun said adding that the central committee meeting will finalize the bottom line of the party on number of combatants to be integrated, modality and norms for integration besides the party's stance on forms of governance, election system and restructuring of the state so as to ensure the first draft of the constitution by August 31.

Crux of the disputes

Establishment

• Conditions to go for the work division--

a. Political issues must be sorted out first,

b. end of factionalism,

c. establishing leadership

• Coalition of two different poles-- intended to weaken leadership

Coalition

• Serious differences in political issues cannot be solved now-- should be kept on hold

• Not much differences in immediate work plan

• So the issue of work division is crucial

• No condition acceptable for appropriate work division to strengthen the party

• Collective leadership ending unilateral decisions