English - Support to Participatory Constitution Building in Nepal ...

The Remake of a Statehas to update the Treaty for the time being. There are certain provisionslike treating each others’ citizens equal, with open borders. Even withinMaoists and obviously with other political forces, duality exists whendealing with such sensitive issues. What they say for public consumptionis not what they intend to do in reality.There are contradictions in receiving and managing foreign aid in Nepal.Foreign aid is tied to its foreign policy objectives and it may contradictnational strengths and priorities. While foreign aid can assist in managingcontradictions for positive change, it can also be used by foreign powersas a political tool to play with contradictions. It may be used to advancepolitical influence and values, collect security intelligence, expand marketand ‘divide and rule’ politics in the country.4.5 Ethnic and identity crisisEthnic and identity politics have become a major force in Nepali politics.Strong sense of identity with respect to ethnicity has emerged withcontradictions among major political players. Principal political partieshave vague and differing ideological perspectives in terms of dealing withethnicity and identity issues. Some parties are playing with ethnic andidentity sentiments to capture and maintain their vote banks. The Maoistswere on the forefront raising ethnic and identity issues, but were unableto deal in practical terms when they came to power.There are interesting and widely varied discussions within parties andCA members on how to deal with ethnic and identity issues in the newconstitution. Interest-based political forces and groups are playing withexisting contradiction and duality of political parties. They are blowingit out of proportions to arouse psychological insecurities to reshape theframework of the public discourse on number of issues. There is also thetendency of political forces to come to terms once it becomes a publicdiscourse and much talked issues without giving much thought to it butlater regret about it.4.6 Security sector reform under party politicsThere have been disagreements between the Maoists and the Nepal Armyfrom the very beginning about implementing SSR or DDR. The Maoistshave maintained that there is a need to restructure the whole stateapparatus, including the Army, and the national army should be developedby integrating Maoists ex-combatants into Nepal Army. Further, theyargue that Nepal needs to reduce the size of the army in the long-term299