This section first provides a brief explanation on Nepal’s DDR process and later gives detailed explanations on how Maoist ‘verified’ women combatants experienced reintegration programming and how it affected their everyday realities after their return.
5.4.1 Disarmament
The DDR process was a key agenda of the comprehensive peace accord (CPA) and as per the CPA, the Maoist Party of Nepal and the Seven-Party Alliance members consented to invite the UN to assist and monitor the peace process (NIPS 2013). On January 23, 2007, the UN Security Council passed resolution 1740 to mandate the United Nation Mission in Nepal (UNMIN). The fundamental task of UNMIN was to monitor and manage arms and armies (ibid). Initially, the DDR process started with an agreement signed on December 8, 2006 between the Government of Nepal and the Maoist party to monitor the management of arms and armies (AMMAA), this agreement formed another sub-committee, the Joint Monitoring Coordination Committee, who set-out criteria for registration and verification of Maoist armies (News 2007).
Disarmament started with a voluntary and collective weapon submission under the support of the UNMIN and was unlike the conventional ‘one gun, one combatant’ disarmament method (Subedi 2014), in which even combatants who did not have weapons were considered Maoist combatants, based on their interview process. Altogether 3,475 weapons from the Maoist ‘side’ were registered and stored in the containers inside the Maoist cantonments. Similarly, from the Nepal Army side, a total of 2,855 weapons registered and placed in the containers inside army barracks. All these registered weapons were closely supervised by an authorised body (Subedi 2014).
The registration of Maoist combatants then began in January 2007 with the UN teams collecting personal military information and examining identity cards. The possession of a weapon was not a criterion for registration, but presentation of a Maoist army identity card was required to demonstrate service (Subedi 2014). Two conditions of eligibility for verification were set: candidates were only eligible if they joined the Maoist army before May 25, 2006 and were born before May 25, 1988 (NIPS 2013). With the completion of the registration and
113
verification process, Maoist ex-combatants were categorised as either ‘verified’ (yogya) or ‘disqualified’ (ayogya). The verification process was controversial because disqualified combatants claimed that the set criteria for verification from their own leadership abandoned them and disregarded their service in the Maoist war (NIPS 2013, Subedi 2014).
At first, a total of 32,250 combatants were registered to be verified, however, not all registered combatants qualified (Subedi 2014). In the second phase, only 19,602 combatants of the original group (15,756 men and 3846 women) were declared ‘verified’, meaning they qualified for entitlements of Maoist ex-combatants. Over 4,000 candidates were considered ‘disqualified’ and 8640 ex-combatants did not return for the second-round verification interviews so were automatically discharged (Bhandari 2015).
5.4.2 Demobilization
As part of the demobilisation agreement, cantonment sites or camps were established to temporarily settle Maoist combatants. Verified combatants were stationed in 7 main cantonments and 21 satellite cantonments across the country; the weapons were also stored in the cantonments under supervision of authorised personnel (Martin 2012). The disqualified combatant group was immediately demobilised after the conclusion of the verification process and later called to participate in the rehabilitation training offered by the United Nation Interagency Rehabilitation Programme (Subedi 2014c), whereas the verified combatants remained in the cantonments until the reintegration programming was finalised in 2012 (Subedi 2014c).
5.4.3 Reintegration
According to the CPA agreement, the Government of Nepal formed a special committee in October 2008 chaired by the Prime Minister and represented by the major political parties, the UN and Maoist leaders. The committee remained the highest authority to design reintegration modalities, including supervision, integration and rehabilitation of the Maoist ex-combatants (NIPS 2013; Bhandari 2015). Reintegration turned out to be very controversial because at that time various political parties were involved in reintegration programming decision making and had their own interests in mind. Thus, consensus building among different political parties about reintegration program options remained a major challenge, which prolonged the
114
reintegration process. The six-month timeframe for completing the DDR process took nearly five years. Finally, in November 2012, all the major political parties signed an agreement that offered three reintegration options for ex-combatants: i) integration into the Nepal army, ii) voluntary retirement with a cash compensation or iii) a rehabilitation package that included educational support and vocational training opportunities (NIPS 2013; Bhandari 2015).
However, despite the options given, the reintegration programming was designed to be largely cash-based (Subedi 2014). The delivery mechanism was coded in such a way that the majority of women ex-combatants ended-up choosing cash compensation. For instance, the army option was not realistic for many women because of competitive entrance criteria (age, education levels, etc.) and did not allow for women who already had child-caring duties. By the same token, the rehabilitation option required some knowledge of math, English, reading and writing, which many women lacked. Thus, even if women showed interest in the first two options, they were likely to be excluded from these and ‘forced’ to choose the cash compensation. Compensation was delivered on the basis of rank, meaning ex-combatants of the highest rank received between NPR 500,000–800,000 (USD 5,000–8,000) depending on rank (Subedi 2014a; Bhandari 2015). Among 19,602 verified combatants: 15,624 opted for voluntary cash-retirement, 1,422 integrated in the Nepal army and only six chose the rehabilitation package (ibid).
5.5 Zooming in on the Reintegration Process: What did it Offer Verified Women Ex-