US embassy cable - 03KATHMANDU692

C O N F I D E N T I A L KATHMANDU 000692 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SA/INS 
LONDON FOR POL - GURNEY 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/15/2013 
TAGS: PGOV, PTER, NP, Government of Nepal (GON) 
SUBJECT: NEPAL:  GOVERNMENT NAMES MEMBERS OF NEGOTIATING 
TEAM 
 
REF: A. (A) KATHMANDU 0656 
     B. (B) KATHMANDU 0468 
 
Classified By: DCM ROBERT K. BOGGS.  REASON:  1.5 (B,D). 
 
1.  (SBU)  On April 16 the Government of Nepal (GON) 
announced the members of the team it appointed to negotiate 
with Maoist insurgents.  As expected, the appointees are all 
members of the Cabinet.  The six-person team, headed by 
Deputy Prime Minister Badri Prasad Mandal, includes: 
Physical Works Minister Narayan Singh Pun, GON-appointed 
coordinator for the talks; Information Minister Ramesh Nath 
Pandey; Labor Minister Kamal Prasad Chaulagain; Health 
Minister Upendra Devkota; and Assistant Minister for Women, 
Children and Social Welfare Anuradha Koirala.  No date for 
the beginning of proposed peace talks with the Maoists has 
yet been set. 
 
2.  (C)  Comment:  The composition of the team offers an 
interesting mix of backgrounds.  Deputy PM Mandal and 
Information Minister Pandey were former ministers in the 
partyless Panchayat regime.  A former member of the National 
Assembly, Pandey has close links to the Palace.  Like Maoist 
negotiator Matrika Yadav, Mandal comes from the southern 
Terai plains along the border with India.  Labor Minister 
Chaulagain (a former member of the Communist Party of Nepal - 
United Marxist Leninist) and Health Minister Devkota, on the 
other hand, are generally perceived as the "leftists" in the 
Cabinet.  (Devkota also knows Baburam Bhattarai, the Maoists' 
lead negotiator, from their school days together in Gorkha, 
where Bhattarai habitually topped the class and Devkota 
ranked second.)  Physical Works Minister Pun, who has been 
the GON's point man for dealing with the Maoists since the 
declaration of the ceasefire on January 29, is a former Army 
Colonel and, like Maoist negotiator and military strategist 
Ram Bahadur Thapa, a member of the Magar ethnic group. 
Assistant Minister for Women, Children and Social Welfare 
Anuradha Koirala, the only woman in the Cabinet, was most 
likely chosen in order to represent the concerns of women. 
(The Maoists, who laud equal rights for women in their 
rhetoric, have been criticized in some quarters for not 
having included a woman on their five-man negotiating team.) 
 
3.  (C)  Comment continued:  Maoist complaints that the GON 
was stalling by not announcing the members of its team had 
grown increasingly strident over the past few weeks, with the 
insurgents citing the delay as "evidence" that the GON is not 
serious about dialogue (Ref A).  The GON's move is likely an 
effort to defuse such criticism.  At the same time, a spate 
of rumors--reportedly fueled by intra-Cabinet rivalries--over 
the past week had been hinting that Minister Pun would be 
replaced as lead negotiator for the GON.  Chief among Pun's 
detractors, apparently, were Mandal and Pandey.  The 
appointment of panchayati apologist Mandal, who outstrips Pun 
in Cabinet rank, if not in negotiating skill or intellect, 
may have been intended to mitigate these jealousies.  Whether 
these rivalries will undermine the performance or 
cohesiveness of the GON team remains to be seen.  Leaders of 
the main parliamentary parties can be expected to complain at 
their exclusion from the team (Nepali Congress President G.P. 
Koirala is said to be already urging the Maoists not to 
negotiate with the interim government).  The parties 
themselves, however, all but ensured their own exclusion 
through their consistent refusal to cooperate with the GON 
(Ref B). 
MALINOWSKI