DASHARATHPUR, Nepal – Young men and women sit around learning how to shoot and clean guns at a muddy camp set up by communist rebels on the edge of this Himalayan village.
Those are basic soldiering skills that the young people presumably would know if they were longtime insurgents, as their rebel commanders claim.
Government officials, diplomats and aid workers say that despite a peace deal signed by the Maoist rebels last month to end Nepal's decade-old conflict, the guerrillas are still recruiting – and sometimes pressing – villagers into service.
The rebels are also reportedly taxing peasant farmers and businessmen as they jockey to bolster their position in the new unity government being formed under the peace accord.
“The Maoists are behaving like they are still free to take what they want,” said Man Bahadur Budhamagar, who runs a small guesthouse in the nearby town of Chhinchu. Last month, he said, he was forced to give the rebels a “donation” of 1,500 Nepal rupees, about $20.
Maoist commanders deny they are still adding to their ranks.
Yet, here in western Nepal, the accusations appear borne out by purported fighters who don't seem to know how to fight and by villagers who tell of youths being forced to join up or being lured away by promises of an eventual job – and paycheck – when the rebels are merged into Nepal's army.
Exact figures are hard to come by, although recruitment and taxation are believed to have dropped as talks led to the accord to end a rebellion that killed 13,000 people in a nation that is both a wonderland of majestic mountains and a near-feudal land of peasant farmers.
A U.N. official, who agreed to discuss the matter only if not quoted by name, said there were regular reports of the rebels taking in new recruits. “Most of it appears to be willing, but some of it is forced,” the official said.
The reason is simple: The bigger the force the rebels can prove, the more slots they will get in the national army and the more political clout they will wield.
The Maoists claim to have 35,000 fighters, or about 25,000 more than nearly everyone else thinks they have.
Under the peace accord, rebel fighters have begun gathering in 28 camps and are to start locking up their weapons in seven of them under U.N. supervision. U.N. monitors will try to screen out the new recruits and send them home.
On the edge of Dasharathpur, young men and women at the rebel camp, nothing more than vegetable fields with a few run-down buildings and tents, complained about a steady diet of rice and lentils.
“There's no goat,” said Pradeep Chhetri, 24. But apart from his complaint about the lack of goat meat, he only managed to say “we are always learning new things,” before his instructor, Kalpana Mahura, a stern-faced 24-year-old, walked over.
She insisted all the people in the camp had fought with the Maoists for years.
Villagers in the surrounding area told different stories.
Lila Ghargiri, a teacher in Dhachaur, said about 50 Maoists came to the village Nov. 19 and took 12 people away at gunpoint. “So far not one has come back,” he said. “We hear they have been taken to a camp far away so they cannot find their way home.”
