Kathmandu, September 9 :

Standing committee member of the CPN-UML and president of the All Nepal Peasants’ Association (ANPA) Bamdev Gautam said today that the King should either abdicate or face the people’s decision to go for a democratic republican order.

“Since the mandate of the peaceful Jana Andolan-II was to set up a democratic republican order, the King may either abdicate the throne and remain as a respected civilian or the people will decide his fate during an election to a constituent assembly,” Gautam said.

Gautam was addressing the first-ever three-day South Asian regional meeting of La Via Campesina (International Peasant Movement).

Gautam said that the 19-day April agitation that culminated into a peaceful revolution reinstated the dissolved House of Representatives and kept the King inside the four walls of the Royal Palace and the people would decide the monarchy’s fate during the constituent assembly polls, the date of which could be announced within a year or so.

He called for a separate act, a court of law, a commission and revolutionary land reforms to secure “food sovereignty” in the country and stressed the need to launch an international drive for keeping aside agricultural issues from the WTO regime that has, he said, seized small farmers’ opportunities.

“ANPA and six other like-minded peasants’ and farmers’ organisations have recently handed over a memorandum to PM Girija Prasad Koirala asking him to introduce a separate act, a court and a commission to deal with problems in the agricultural sector,” Gautam said, adding that those provisions would safeguard the farmers’ interests in the long run. He said that issue of food sovereignty must be included in the new constitution and that it must be recognised as people’s fundamental rights.

All those goals, he said, would never be achieved unless the new constitution abolished the feudal and centralised system of governance. He said peasants and farmers should have the rights to have control over four Jas – Jamin, Jungle, Jal and Jadibuti – (land, forest, water and herbs). “To ensure the peasants’ and the farmers’ rights on those natural resources, there should be a provision of revolutionary land reforms in the new constitution,” he said.

Peasant leaders from Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Indonesia will delve into problems faced by the farmers in the region.