Kathmandu, November 20, 2006

Minister for Civil Aviation, Tourism and Culture Pradip Gyawali, who is also the member of the government talks team, said today that the Comprehensive Peace Treaty would be signed tomorrow.

“The talks teams have almost finalised the draft accord and it will be submitted to the government and CPN-Maoist sides for ratification,” Gyawali said.

He said the talks teams would sit together again before the final draft was presented to Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and Maoist chairman Prachanda. Maoist talks team member Dev Gurung also said the draft treaty would be submitted to both the leaders who would further discuss before signing it.

“There are still some minor differences on the final draft which will be sorted out by the PM and Prachanda,” said Gurung.

But he declined to delve into details of the areas where they still had differences. A government source, however, told this daily the talks teams had differences on how to define the Maoists’ People’s War.

Maoists wanted to define it as a “major achievement” of the Jana Andolan-II while the government talks team representing the seven-party alliance refused to accept the Maoist version.

Both the sides were optimistic about the signing of the treaty while convener of the government talks team Krishna Prasad Sitaula and the Maoist talks team leader Krishna Bahadur Mahara said today’s talks ended very positively and the treaty would be signed by tomorrow evening.

Maoists still going ahead with recruitment

Maoist cadres have taken away more than 100 children and youths from different places in Sunsari to recruit them in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), district-based rights organisations said today.

According to Naya Sansar (Itahari) and the Inaruwabased Centre for Information of social Awareness, the Maoists last evening abducted Babita Hingmang,12, a sixth grader of the Jyoti Secondary School.

On Saturday, the Maoists abducted tenth grader Jenish Chaudhari, his brother, Bikal Chaudhari, Jitendra Ram and Anusa Rai of Janata Secondary School. They were lured with promises of an attractive salary after joining the PLA.

“I requested the Maoists to return my children, but they hectored me into silence,” said Jenish’s mother Nirmala. The Maoists abducted eight children from Inaruwa-8, the rights bodies said.

In a statement, the organisations said the abductees’ guardians have filed complaints at their offices.

The statement called for their immediate release. Representatives of the Sunsari-based 15 Child Clubs today staged a sit-in before the Inaruwa-based Maoists’ district contact office, demanding a halt to children conscription.

The participants also forwarded a memorandum to Maoist supremo Prachanda.