Maoist centre

Nepal's Maoist parties, except for the Netra Bikram Chanda-led faction, announced their unification on Thursday.

In the past decade after the end of the war in 2006, the Maoists had split into more than 10 factions. On Thursday, they declared their unified party: CPN (Maoist Centre). Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal is the Chair of the unified party as well.

The Dahal-led CPN (Maoist) fought a decade-long war against the state, killing around 17,000 people from 1996-2006. After the war, the CPN (Maoist) became UCPN (Maoist) following its unification with CPN (Unity Centre).

But top leaders like Mohan Baidya, Ram Bahadur Thapa, Dev Gurung and Netra Bikram Chanda split from the UCPN (M) to form CPN-Maoist. Later, Chanda split even from Baidya's group and formed a new Maoist party.

Other Maoist leaders like Matrika Yadav and Mani Thapa had already formed their own parties. Last year, Dahal's long-time colleague Baburam Bhattarai also left the party.

While Bhattarai's New Force is not a Maoist party, the Chanda-led faction is threatening another war. Baidya and a few others refused to join the unified party. But all fringe Maoist parties unified themselves under Dahal's leadership.

At an event held in Kathmandu on Thursday to announce their unification, Dahal said: "The day of our defeat is over. A new day has begun, and we will win once again."

Political analysts believe that Maoist parties felt the need for unification to avoid punishment for war crimes.