Battle over Nepal's peace process
By Dhruba Adhikary
KATHMANDU - Hopes that a United Nations special mission would ensure that
Nepal's peace process went smoothly are fading due to growing mistrust between
the interim government and officials attached to the world body. The dispute
mainly revolves around former combatants associated with Maoist rebels who
agreed to renounce a decade-long armed insurgency in 2006.
While murmurs of government discontent were already audible, the row between UN
and government officials became a matter of intense controversy last week when
a senior visiting UN official publicly criticized Nepal's political party
leaders for accusing the mission of inaction.
"We are dismayed that some commentators try to hold the
mission [United Nations Mission in Nepal, or UNMIN] responsible for situations
and shortcomings that by very insistence of the parties themselves, the mission
has no capacity to control," B Lynn Pascoe, under secretary general for
political affairs, told a Kathmandu audience on March 11. "This is absurd and
should come to an end."
Using expressions such as "boring arguments" and "cheap shots", his remarks
infuriated several members of the governing coalition, who took up the issue at
a subsequent cabinet meeting. Some of the ministers ostensibly raised the
question of diplomatic norms.
Pascoe, before taking up his present UN post in early 2007, was a career
American diplomat with ambassadorial stints in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Kathmandu's chattering classes have found fault with the extreme positions
taken by both sides. "It was unnecessary for the cabinet to issue a statement
... a simple demarche by the foreign secretary, not even minister, would have
sufficed," Sridhar K Khatri, head of the South Asia Center for Policy Studies,
told local media.
Pascoe's speech on Thursday alluded to two notable aspects of the UNMIN's
limited mandate since it started in January 2007: its duty to assist in
organizing elections for the constituent assembly and to monitor the flow of
arms.
The election was held in April 2008, and the elected assembly is at present
working to draw up a new constitution for a republican Nepal, replacing the
monarchy. The deadline for the promulgation of new statute is May 28.
The second issue, monitoring the arms and troops of the Nepalese Army and the
Maoists, is thornier than the first. Ideally, the anomaly of keeping two armies
in one country would end before the promulgation of a new constitution. The
committees formed to organize the former rebels' integration and rehabilitation
have been working for months without substantive progress.
Meanwhile, the men and women in rebel uniform, cantoned in UN-monitored camps,
are kept waiting as their political masters continuously engage in negotiations
over their possible integration into Nepal's national army and other security
agencies. The ex-guerrillas number at around 19,600, according to registrations
lists, after 4,000 were "discharged" last month for being minors.
Authorities in the interim government say that the number of combatants in
camps has noticeably decreased over time, yet they continue to draw daily
allowances and use these resources to conduct communist propaganda. It was on
this basis that Peace and Reconstruction Minister Rakom Chemjong sought UNMIN's
help to determine the actual number of combatants. However, the UNMIN declined
saying that the relevant peace accords require it to maintain a degree of
confidentiality.
"UNMIN, contrary to popular misconception, has been given no mandate or
capacity to police the cantonments," the UN envoy said. "Its access to
information about the status of the two armies or their numbers depends
entirely on their voluntary cooperation."
Minister for Information and Communications Shanker Pokharel insisted that
authorities were not seeking any classified information; rather they were
trying to obtain UNMIN's cooperation in ascertaining the number of combatants
in the camps.
The dispute escalated as Defense Minister Bidhya Bhandari referred to the UNMIN
as "the Maoist party's tail". UNMIN chief Karin Landgren wrote to the prime
minister asking for Bhandari's remarks to be retracted. "This statement is
untrue and defames the United Nations and its founding principles," Republica
newspaper quoted her as saying in the letter.
Interim Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal and his colleagues continue to cite
the UN's position on combatant numbers as an obstacle to the peace process. But
observers are perplexed at the government's inability to obtain the information
directly from the Maoists, who are now a duly registered political party that
commands nearly 40% of the 601 seats in the constituent assembly. The
government also has a police force and intelligence agencies at its disposal.
Geopolitical plank
Some observers say that in its attempts to marginalize the UNMIN, the
government is pandering to neighboring nations that would rather see the UN
withdraw from strategically placed Nepal.
Nepal has traditionally served as a buffer zone between India and China, and
neither Delhi nor Beijing seems willing to see that position shaken by Western
powers. Even the presence of the UN, which deploys staff across the world, is a
sensitive matter for them.
When it comes to the question of influence over Nepal, for once the rivals'
interests may converge. China can help India, and itself, by moving against an
extension of the UNMIN's mandate at the Security Council - which renews the
UNMIN's tenure - where China has a permanent seat.
The influential Kantipur newspaper has editorially censured the "childish
reaction" of the government, saying that attempts to sideline the UN and rest
of the international community are motivated by a desire to appease India and
could damage Nepal's credibility.
Analysts in Kathmandu also say the government's attempt to marginalize the
UNMIN is undemocratic as the UN mission was formed at the request of a
seven-party alliance and the Maoists.
"The government is acting all righteous and pretending it is an affront to
sovereignty that UNMIN is not providing the information it has requested. What
is forgotten is that the government is only one part of the peace process,"
wrote a Nepali Times columnist.
With the current UN mission's mandate scheduled to end in less than two months,
and the chances of Nepal producing a new constitution by the May 28 deadline
growing ever slimmer due to differences on fundamental issues such as forms of
governance and federalism, the peace process is likely to stutter.
To avert a crisis, options now being discussed include an extension of the
deadlines by another six months. The other proposal is to issue a shortened
constitution, leaving contentious matters in the care of a commission of
experts who would later report their recommendations to a newly elected
parliament. But no consensus has yet emerged, and one is unlikely in the
foreseeable future.
Dhruba Adhikary is a Kathmandu-based journalist.
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