Peace Negotiation in Nepal <Review>

The Maoist movement (insurgency) started in 1996 by a radical group of communists after the then government couldn't contain their 40 point demand regarding the democratic political process, good governance and socio-economic development. Later, it turned violent and not only undermined the peace in the country but also affected the South Asian geopolitics, in general and drew the attention of the international actors, in particular. Observing the political deterioration king Gyanendra, a younger brother of Birendra, who was killed in the royal massacre, June 2001, mustered strength to rule the country directly under his monarchy. He scraped the democratic system in Nepal thereby antagonizing the political parties. As a result, the interest of the Maoists and the political parties became identical, i.e., get rid of king's autocratic rule and restore democratic process. This provided a ground for making an alliance between all the political parties represented in the parliament known as Seven Parties Alliance (SPA) for the movement against the king in 2005. The interests of the Maoists and the SPA converged in April 2006 "Peoples' Movement-II", understood here as "People's Democracy Movement 2006" to reconstruct a new Nepal. However, there were still some important differences among them. The main focus of SPA was just to restore the democratic process while the Maoists' focus was on the democratic process as well as the inclusion of indigenous (ethnic) and marginalized people in the mainstream political process. Because of the different nature of interests of these parties the negotiation process required an inclusive policy. Therefore, in order to understand the ongoing peace negotiating process in Nepal, efforts were made in this paper to understand the root causes and the background of the Maoist movement as a conflict vis-à-vis behavior and intention of other parties as a political. Accordingly, the objectives of the People's Democracy Movement 2006 can be achieved by internalization of democratic culture w