Kathmandu, October 28:

Human rights activist Padma Ratna Tuladhar today said the present leadership is not interested at all in recognising federal system and ethnic autonomy in the country.

“I have talked with leadership of all parties, including the Maoists. Regardless of what they say publicly, they are not at all interested in recognising federal system with ethnic autonomy. Rather they are doing whatever is possible to avoid it,” he said, addressing a workshop on possibility of ethnic autonomous regions of the Newars and the Tamangs.

Some leaders are trying to avoid or skip the issue of federal system and ethnic autonomy during the ongoing talks with Maoists while others openly oppose it, he said. He further said that the topic of ethnic autonomy has not become a issue in the on-going talks between the government and the Maoists because the activists have not raised their voice strong enough and have not organised strong programmes.

“Ethnic autonomy will not come just because UN has adopted it or it is the system of most of democratic countries. We have to fight against the old feudal system which is more than monarchy,” he said, adding that time may come when we have to prepare ourselves for another phase of armed revolution if the ruling class does not listen to the demands of the Janajatis, Madheshis and other downtrodden communities.

Tuladhar also said that the dissemination of information on election of constituent assembly is not reaching the actual public because all the information is in Nepali language, which most of the ethnic communities still do not understand.