U.S. To Talk With Formerly Shunned Nepalese Maoists

WASHINGTON — America has revised its policy and met with former Maoist rebels who have been elected to top positions in Nepal’s new government.But a senior American official has a message for the former communist insurgents that now constitute Nepal’s dominant political force: The degree to which America will work with them depends on how successfully they stay away from violence.The Maoists are on American terrorism blacklists, and American policy previously was to shun the group that waged a 10-year insurgency in which more than 13,000 people died.The deputy assistant secretary of state, Evan Feigenbaum, just returned from a three-day trip to Nepal, told reporters today at the State Department that America has decided to work with the Maoists to try to encourage a stable, democratic, and peaceful country.He would not speculate about the group’s possible removal from the terror lists. America, he said, would be watching very closely how the Maoists deal with their new role.The United States’ “basic message,” he said, “is the degree to which we can work with anyone in Nepal will depend, very directly, on the degree to which they continue to embrace the political process and abandon violence.”In the Middle East, America will not have any formal contact with Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and Hezbollah, which is a powerful opposition force in Lebanon. America considers them both terrorist organizations.The Maoists, Mr. Feigenbaum said, have tempered their views since entering the political process, spurring the revision in American policy. The group gave up its insurgency in 2006, joined mainstream politics last year and is now playing a major role in Nepal’s new government.Mr. Feigenbaum and the American ambassador in Nepal have met with the group’s top leaders. America, he said, is discussing how it can help the poor country wedged between growing powers India and China.Nepal’s newly elected Constituent Assembly is the culmination of a two-year peace process that saw the Maoists transformed from feared insurgents into the country’s leading politicians. The assembly voted yesterday to abolish the 239-year-old monarchy.Mr. Feigenbaum said that “an overwhelming proportion” of the new assembly has had no government experience — he estimated about 80%.Still, he said, he was struck that the first day of the assembly “actually came off not so chaotically,” despite about an eight-hour delay before the assembly convened.“It all came off rather well, but, of course, the challenge now is really to define a role for the Constituent Assembly,” he said. The new politicians, he said, face the chore of making a budget in coming weeks and dealing with rising fuel prices.He said the Nepalese people will be watching their new government closely“Expectations are really very high in Nepal,” he said. “A lot of people voted for some kind of change. They voted for something different.”

U.S. To Talk With Formerly Shunned Nepalese Maoists

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