Right to self-rule for all stressed

Kathmandu, July 5:

Addressing the issue of political self-determination, a group of speakers today said the right to self-determination should be granted to all.

Speaking at an interaction on ‘Federal Structure and Issues of Guaranteeing the Rights of Indigenous People’, Maoist leader Barsha Man Pun said, “The right to self-determination should be granted to every individual.”

He claimed that the government should take time to elicit the participation of indigenous people in all political processes and that federal autonomous states should be carved on linguistic, regional and economic lines to solve controversies regarding class, gender, culture and property rights. “Grassroots administration should be made powerful to make the central government powerful,” he added.

Dr Krishna Bahadur Bhattachan said everyone should respect each other’s right to self-determination. He stressed that the government should give protection to indigenous people so that they could freely adopt their political, economic, social and cultural values.

“In a true sense,” he said, “there is a need of a federal democratic republic to abolish discrimination based on caste, language, region, gender and class. The parties have failed to address the issues of indigenous people even in their election manifestos.”

“The Nepali Congress and CPN-UML do not have a clear vision on resolving the issues concerning the indigenous people,” he said.