UN's welcome mat in Nepal frays

By Dhruba Adhikary
http://www.nepalnews.com/archive/2007/others/guestcolumn/dec/guest_columns_08.php

Eyebrows are being raised in Nepal's immediate neighborhood about the implications of a protracted United Nations presence in the country.

Concerns from both New Delhi and Beijing have became pronounced in recent weeks as Kathmandu prepares to submit a formal request to the UN Security Council for a six-month extension of the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN). Its initial 12-month stint expires on January 22, 2008.

"They want to treat Nepal as a UN protectorate, they are going to mess it up," the Nepali Times newspaper quoted an unnamed senior Indian official in New Delhi as saying. The jitters are ostensibly based on intelligence reports that the UNMIN's contacts with Nepal's political class have gone down to the grassroots level, including in districts bordering India.

China, too, is uncomfortable seeing hordes of foreigners, even if under the UN umbrella, becoming longtime residents in Nepal, a country sharing a border with Tibet. But unlike New Delhi, Beijing's expression of anxiety comes in a more discreet manner. A senior official of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), for instance, told his Nepali hosts last week his country would not interfere in Nepal's affairs, and that Nepal could resolve its problems through its own efforts.

However, last week the visitor, Wang Jiarui, head of the CCP's international department, also conveyed his country's readiness to offer needed assistance to interim Prime Minister Girija Prasad. Such expressions, whenever they are made, are perceived as a message that China is alert about whatever India - and the United States - are trying to do regarding Nepal. In the early 1970s, Khampa exiles from Tibet were found carrying out attacks on their own homeland from bases inside Nepal with guns they received from the US Central Intelligence Agency.

Both New Delhi and Beijing know that the UNMIN was set up in the wake of a peace pact concluded between former Maoist rebels and a coalition of seven political parties who earlier had put up a joint political movement, ending King Gyanendra's rule, in April 2006. Request for the UN mission was jointly made to acquire assistance in handling the unfolding events and challenges.

The Security Council resolution (Number 1740) authorizing the establishment of the mission took note of the request for UN assistance in implementing key aspects of the peace agreement "in particular monitoring of arrangements relating to the management of arms and armed personnel of both sides and election monitoring". The election for a constituent assembly, scheduled for November 22, has been postponed indefinitely and initiatives to resolve the issue of arms and armies have yet to produce any amicable solution. This has required the UNMIN to prolong its presence.

According to Ian Martin, special representative of the UN secretary general, India and China were "very supportive" of the original arrangement for the UNMIN. Martin told the media last month that he has held periodic discussions with the Indian and Chinese ambassadors with "no major complaints" being reported. While China is a permanent Security Council member, India is a country to which members of the Security Council pay attention.

That means China can directly express its views when Nepal's case comes up at the Security Council for a possible extension of tenure, while India's concerns are likely to be communicated through the United States, with which India has a strategic partnership. Also to be considered is the United Kingdom, which was given the lead role to draft the original mandate for the UNMIN. The European Union indicated, through a statement this month, that the EU would support the Nepali request for an extension of the UNMIN's mandate.

But observers doubt that a six-month extension will be enough time for the UNMIN to complete its mission and the criticisms it faces are varied and stinging and have come from from all conceivable quarters - the political parties, security forces, the intelligentsia, the bureaucracy and the public. While the consensus developed by the leaders of the main political parties for UNMIN's extension is generally positive, their critical remarks reflect a more general public opinion that progress has been neither swift nor satisfactory.

The public frustration becomes more pronounced at the sight of a large fleet of UN-marked vehicles, including some aircraft, with no noticeable improvement in the situation. Peace and order are as elusive as ever. The economy, which is mainly kept afloat by remittances from Nepali laborers send from the Gulf countries, has ceased to be based either on agriculture or on manufacturing industries.

UNMIN officials have often been censured for not doing the jobs they are expected to do and for entering areas where they are not supposed to intervene. Maoist combatants living in cantonments, for example, cannot leave their areas, as is stipulated in the peace agreements. But UNMIN monitors have not bothered to prevent their unauthorized exits. Another particular case surfaced last month when UNMIN's senior military adviser, Jan Erik Wilhelmsen, was seen attending a parade the Maoists had organized to mark the seventh anniversary of the Maoist's army.

The event, boycotted by government leaders and officials, attracted a good amount of controversy. UNMIN officials defended the Norwegian general's presence because the interim constitution and related peace agreements recognize that the Maoists, too, have an army. And the UN needs to maintain a working relationship with them as long as they are in existence. The counter argument is equally strong and is reflected in an editorial written by Yubaraj Ghimire, editor of News Front, in which he said: "UNMIN's role ... is not to highlight militarization, but to work towards demilitarization."

UNMIN officials maintain they are not afraid of comments and reactions as long as they are based on facts. But, as UN special representative Martin himself put it at a recent press conference, a number of things reported have been "simply incorrect".

But balanced analysts do not find reasons to blame the UNMIN for things which Nepali politicians have not been able to resolve. The plan to hold elections has been postponed twice, due to the inability of the political players to agree on a voting system. Accordingly, the UNMIN arrangements to assist the polls have had to be canceled and officials withdrawn.

Similarly, the issue of the Nepal army and the Maoist army is also something to be decided by the Nepalis themselves. The Maoists cannot be confined to cantonments forever; and members of Nepal army also cannot be asked to stay in their barracks indefinitely. And what happens when army units have to be deployed across the country to help police maintain law and order? UNMIN officials say the lack of a mechanism to manage, monitor and implement the peace process is the root cause of the confusion and delays and say they can't be held responsible for things they can't control.

The UNMIN is in a delicate situation. Coalition partners often tend to read some of the UNMIN's observations as being pro-Maoist. Leaders in the Maoist camp, on the other hand, perceive that some of the UNMIN activities are biased against them. "They [UNMIN] are behaving like activists and journalists, which is against their mandate," Ram Bahadur Thapa "Badal", a senior Maoist leader, told The Rising Nepal newspaper.

In a report submitted to the Security Council in October, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the UN could expand its role in Nepal if concerned parties wanted it. But there appears to be no consensus on the subject, primarily because of apprehensions that UNMIN is already overstepping its original mandate, unwittingly or otherwise.

The original mandate, for example, refers to special attention needed for women, children and "traditionally marginalized groups". But how precisely can such groups be defined and to what extent can UNMIN go to be able to address their grievances in a short period of time?

These are some of the issues, contend government leaders and officials, which require long-term vision to resolve. By suddenly raising the expectations of certain ethnic - or regional - groups in a country known for its ethnic diversity, the UNMIN may unwittingly be laying the grounds for avoidable conflicts and tensions.

The UNMIN thus has to avoid issues that need to be sorted out by politicians and voters. Since Nepal is a member of the UN and has served as a non-permanent member of the Security Council twice, it can register reservations and objections, if any, on its own. And since the UNMIN was established at Nepal's request to facilitate the peace process, its mandated activities cannot be construed as external intervention.

Has UNMIN been a white elephant in the first year of its existence? Anyone engaged in a dispassionate analysis would agree that its presence has not been entirely in vain. For instance, no major conflict or clashes have taken place between belligerent forces in this period, effectively preventing deaths and injuries that could have affected thousands of families.

Soldiers from the Nepal Army and combatants from Maoist cantonments have not violated the ceasefire agreement in any serious way. And despite differences, the political parties are making efforts to take the country to the polls as soon as possible. They realize that without elections, they will have no legitimacy to be in Parliament and the next government. Thus, their latest public pledge to organize the polls by next April needs to be taken in this context.

"The UN has many weaknesses, but it has some strengths ..." said Staffan de Mistura in a recent interview. A recognized troubleshooter in 19 conflicts worldwide, he now heads the UN's revived mission in Iraq. He elaborated his view on the UN, "We are perceived as a neutral and impartial and technical, not political [organization]." The number of incidents per day has come down to 90 from 300 in that war-torn country. But 90 is still a lot, he said. Anyhow, if the situation can improve in Iraq, why can't a similar UN mission make a difference in Nepal? (De Mistura was one of the senior UN officials to visit Nepal this year.)

The challenges Nepal faces are formidable, and they may not be solved even if the UNMIN receives a renewed mandate. What is emerging, though, is that a visible UN presence can work as an effective bulwark against potential adventures from India in the south.

"If the options indeed run out and Nepal is destined to survive only as a protectorate, it will be far better to be a UN protectorate than an Indian one," said Madhab P Khanal, a diplomatic analyst who is a retired senior officer of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Adhikary is a senior journalist and political commentator based in Kathmandu. This article has been reproduced here courtesy www.atimes.com -- Ed.