By Sudeshna Sarkar
Kathmandu, Dec 19 (IANS) Nepal’s former Maoist guerrillas, who are now the largest party in the former kingdom, Saturday said they would go ahead with their decision to enforce a three-day general strike nationwide from Sunday after talks between their leaders and the ruling parties failed.

The two dominant parties in the country’s coalition government - Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal’s Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) and the Nepali Congress (NC), the biggest party after the Maoists - asked Maoist chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda to withdraw the protests in view of the hardship it would impose on the people and the negative message it would send out about the peace process.

The former rebels, however, refused to call off the closure, saying negotiations would not proceed until the government agreed to correct the step taken earlier this year by the President Ram Baran Yadav, which, according to them, has freshly raised the spectre of military rule in Nepal.

The new unrest by the Maoists was triggered by their failed attempt to sack the army chief General Rookmangud Katawal as the president reinstated the general.

“When a constitutional head of state reinstates a recalcitrant army chief, who had consistently refused to obey the orders of an elected government, and who was fired by the elected government, it creates the bad precedent of putting the army before the people and is sure to have an adverse effect on the new constitution,” said Baburam Bhattarai, the Maoist deputy chief and co-ordinator of protests.

The government said if the Maoists went ahead with the strike, it would be a gross violation of the peace pact they signed three years ago pledging not to call further strikes.

The deepening rift between the former guerrillas and the ruling parties has cast a shadow over Nepal’s peace process, that is expected to end with the promulgation of a new constitution in May followed by general elections within six months.

While the Maoists are under fire for violating the peace agreement, the ruling parties have failed to meet their commitments as well, especially shying away from taking any steps against the army, that four years ago supported the then king Gyanendra’s bid to grab power.

The parties failed to take action against the then chief of the army, Pyar Jung Thapa, and have been consistently promoting army officers with dark human right violation records.

This month, for the first time in Nepal’s 50-year-old association with the UN Peacekeeping Force, the world body expelled a Nepali army officer for being charged with the killing of a 15-year-old schoolgirl. But the government has still failed to arrest the officer.