Words for the Wise on the Management of Insurgent Arms

Since the word on the street is that arms management is only a few days ahead, the time to outline the elements of efficient modalities is upon us.

1. What is a “weapon?”

A clear cut and unambiguous definition of what constitutes a “weapon” must be outlined. The obvious candidates are automatic and semi-automatic, offensive weapons such as:

Handguns: .45 Smith & Wesson revolvers, 9mm Browning, 7.62mm Chinese pistols, .38 Colt revolvers,
Rifles: .303 Lee Enfield rifles, AK-56 Type-II Chinese Assault rifles, 7.62mm SLRs (of British and Indian origin), 7.62mm Bren Guns, 9mm Sterling sub-machine carbines, 7.62mm Chinese sniper rifles, 7.62mm General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMG – of Belgian origin), 7.62mm MAG (Indian origin), 7.62mm Galil rifles (Israeli make), 5.56mm M-16 (American origin), 5.56mm Mini-mi squad machines guns (Belgian origin) and 5.56mm G-36 Heckler & Koch rifles (German make).
Infantry Support Weapons: 40mm Chinese rocket launchers, 2-inch mortars (with high explosive, smoke and illumination munitions), 81mm medium mortars (with smoke and high explosive bombs), grenades.

In addition to the obvious candidates listed above, the definition of weapons should also be extended to include muzzle loaders, hunting rifles and other home-made weapons, previously commandeered by the Maoists to preemptively stifle armed opposition against them.
Also included under the definition of weapons should be all varieties of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) such as socket bombs, pressure cooker bombs and raw materials used in the production of IEDs.

2. How does one account for the proportion of declared vs. undeclared weapons?

One can never be too careful these days, especially when it comes to playing the numbers game.

Offensive (and defensive) weapons listed under the classifications above are catalogued, inventoried and accounted for at every level of command within the state’s security forces. Such lists should be provided to those in charge of managing arms.
Lists of stolen weapons should be collected from CDO offices, the NID and the Department of Forestry and added to the catalog of stolen weapons, provided by the army, the APF and the CPF.

Official inventories of weapons should also be collected from the Maoists. Not to suggest that there was ever a trust issue where the Maoists are concerned, but a good starting point for arms monitors to account for Maoist arms would be to start with the list of weapons that have been stolen from the state.

In addition to the list of stolen weapons provided by the state, and good faith estimate of weapons (purchased by the Maoists) from the Indian and Chinese underground markets should also be developed.

It is against this combined list of weapons that the list declared by the Maoists should be reconciled. Significant variances (+/- 10%) of the know number of stolen weapons should be highlighted and such exceptions distributed openly for public consumption.

Provisions should also be made up front to account for weapons along several dimensions, the most important of which should be, functional vs. dysfunctional weapons.

3. How should weapons be stored?

The weapons that are declared should be disassembled and stored in a manner such that the constituent parts of any given weapon are not all stored in the same location. This provision requires the creation of multiple storage sites, separated by closely regulated distances and mechanisms to monitor traffic to and from each of these sites.

The suggestion of cameras to monitor such storage sites is a required but insufficient condition for effective arms management. Instruments must be put in place to ensure that a breach of contract does not happen.

Such instruments may include UN-hired Private Military Firms (PMFs) with defined mandates and rules of engagement. They may also include specially fortified, mobile storage locations, created by UN-employed contractors.

4. What are the “carrots” and “sticks”, the “rewards” and “consequences” associated with effective arms management?

For a combined fighter/militia group (including two generations that have grown up with only skills that lend to killing, extorting and blind-faith conviction to an ideology that has repeatedly failed everywhere it has been tired), the rewards as well as the consequences for deception (on arms declarations) have to be crystal clear.

As for the rewards, the Maoist leadership and their political class will have the opportunity to attain some legitimacy in the eyes of the international community. However, for the fighting class, the rewards may be difficult to envision (and ever harder to realize) once the militia (and Maoist fighters) discover the “joys” of having to labor for a day’s wages.
As for the consequences, punishments for those who intentionally deal with bad faith should be made clear according to the following scenarios:

• The mode of punishment for those who are discovered with weapons, after arms management has gone into effect;
• The mode of punishment for those who use weapons after the arms management has gone into effect;
• The mode of punishment for those who break the arms management treaty by attempting to steal arms under UN management;
• The mode of punishment for those who procure or smuggle weapons after the arms management treaty has gone into effect.

The specific details behind the consequences that individuals and their leaders will face (and the mechanism to be used to dole out punishments) must be defined in detail, up front.

This could mean additional jobs for certain international organizations on undisclosed, international payrolls. It could also mean opportunities for the same individuals to float from one “impartial” international organization to another, all the while advocating peace in Nepal.
Should matters sour beyond the realm of control for free-of-cost-to-Nepal services related to the peace process, the prospect of Nepalis from the South “heeding the call of their countrymen” is equally likely.

Whatever the case may be, discrete rules, regulations and the consequences of non-compliance (along with truly independent monitoring and enforcement mechanisms) are non-negotiable pre-requisites to any process even remotely characterized by effective “arms management.”

5. What about the enforcement of law and order?

Should the near complete detachment of weapons from Maoist milita and fighters occur (and the army and APF remain confined to their barracks with their weapons locked in their armories, with keys provided to the “arms managers”), what mechanism will uphold the provision of law and order?

The CPF seem like the most likely candidates. However, their effectiveness when forced to rely on bamboo batons and sticks comes under question. Additionally, the idea of a joint CPF-Maoist milita team to monitor peace is even more absurd when the distinction between Maoist milita and their hardened fighters (their equivalent of army special forces) is undefined.
Moreover, any idea (prior to CA elections) that leans toward giving Maoist forces parity with the state security forces (whether they be CPF, APF or the Military), would invalidate the necessity of polls to legitimize political actors in the first place.

6. What special provisions need be made to deal with splinter groups and the open border?

Where this point is concerns, very little need be explained. Without the assistance, commitment and guarantee of Indian security forces and the acquiescence of splinter Maoist groups, arms management will forever remain incomplete and inadequate. Even more vigilant border management by the Chinese should be sought through negotiations with the UN.

Very few people seemed to be under the illusion that making peace would be easy – with or without UN involvement (and as history has shown, in the absence of regional power intervention).

More astute observers tend to get straight to the heart of the “difficulty” by pointing out the core impediment to making effective peace – the lack of available funding to make things happen. For a country like Nepal (neither rich in strategic resources nor a magnet for foreign direct investment), the equilibrium price of peace will be determined at the intersection of a perfectly inelastic demand (for peace) and a relatively elastic supply of funds.

It is here that all the lip service in support of peace must quickly transform into practice; it is here that the forces that converged to subdue one extreme must once again re-align to ensure the subjugation of another.