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The five-point agreement was a victory of progressive forces over regression who wanted to dissolve the CA and push the peace process to the brink. However, only one point of the agreement, extension of the CA tenure, has been implemented so far. The peace process and constitution writing have not progressed and there is a fear that the farce of May 28 will be repeated again.
The PLA integration and constitution writing is an end, and a national unity government, the means to achieve it. The debates about whether integration comes first or constitution, whether national government should precede the peace process are irrelevant. Peace process, integration, constitution writing and national government are all
inter-related. They should all go simultaneously.
The integration of Maoist combatants has been unnecessarily complicated. We have accepted the old army as our national army, but some political parties tend to overlook the contribution of the Maoist army to historical changes. Let me be clear: the peace process will never complete until the Maoist combatants are integrated in a respectable manner.
We know the army follows certain standards in recruitment, which we have accepted. But Maoist soldiers are also trained like any other army and their battle experience should also be taken into account in the integration process. This shouldn't be so complicated. We are close to agreement in numbers, we have proposed 8-10,000. We have to finalise the golden handshake package, the rules for ranks and organisational structure after integration. If the political parties are honest and accountable to the state, we are close to an agreement on political and constitutional issues.
