A sign of how much has changed in Nepal

The agreement came last month, but I did want to mention it here. The Maoists rebels in Nepal have been invited to participate in the government. After years of bloody rebellion, the rebels will now have a role in the government. What will come if it? Who can tell. From the Baltimore Sun:

For 10 years, Nepal's Maoist rebels were beyond the pale - hunted, shunned and feared as they waged a brutal war against the government. Now they have been welcomed into the establishment.

A quiet euphoria swept the nation when the government signed a deal with the rebels to give them a share of power for the first time and end the conflict.

But as the elation ebbs, stark questions arise: What is the rebels' agenda? Can they adapt to mainstream politics? Will they disarm?

"It is not clear which direction they want to take," said Yubaraj Ghimire, editor of the Nepalese weekly Samay. "They are sending conflicting messages."

For a decade, that message was straightforward. The rebels took up arms in 1996 demanding a "people's republic" to replace the monarchy and championing Nepal's poor. They plunged the Himalayan kingdom into a conflict that killed 13,000 people and devastated the tourism-based economy.

All that ended June 16 with an agreement to establish an interim government to replace the current national parliament as well as the "people's government" that rules territory under rebel control.

The Maoists say they will abide by the decisions of a yet-to-be-formed constituent assembly, which will decide what type of government Nepal will have.

But after so many years of living as guerrillas, fighting the government and demanding goals steeped in a Marxist ideology that much of the world has long forgotten, the big question is what their leader, known to all as Prachanda, wants for the nation.

There are factions with the Maoists. Yesterday there was some violence.

Two Maoist cadres were shot and killed in southeast Nepal by gunmen believed to be from a rebel faction, police said.

"An armed group of people shot dead two Maoist activists while they were returning from a feast at one of the local resident's houses in Saptari district on Wednesday night," a police officer said on Friday.

"The Maoists believe that their cadres were killed by the Janatantric Terai Mukti Morcha, a breakaway faction the Maoists formed two years ago, but we are investigating the incident," the officer said from the district 400 kilometres (250 miles) southeast of Kathmandu.

And what is taking place in Nepal is separate from India, which has its own serious problem with Maoists. Today seven Maoist rebels were killed in Chhattisgarh, a state with an active Maoist presence.