Goodbye UNMIN

REPUBLICA

The United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) is leaving the country four years after it came here at the invitation of the government and the then rebel force, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). Though UNMIN’s term was initially for six months—how naively we hoped then that the peace process would be concluded within that timeframe —the parties extended its term seven times altogether. If the Maoist party had its way, UNMIN would have stayed on longer but the government refused to extend its tenure again and stuck to the agreement reached with the Maoists on September 13, 2010 to extend the term then for just one more time.

UNMIN’s coming here in early 2007 was a huge boost to the peace process and to the confidence of the public and politicians alike. On one hand, it was a symbol of the international community’s commitment to helping Nepal steer through the delicate peace process and transition period, and on the other it was a sort of moral guarantor that both the government and the rebels would behave. For the public, UNMIN’s presence was as an assurance, insurance if you will, of the success of the peace process. Once UNMIN was on the ground, nothing could go wrong—or so we thought—because the UN had tons of experience and it was a competent and neutral body with necessary authority to get things done, to get things right. But UNMIN had come to Nepal with a weak mandate, something that UNMIN officials routinely point out in defense of their perceived and real weaknesses.

It would be wrong to gloss over UNMIN’s weaknesses on the pretext that it didn’t have a strong enough mandate. UNMIN did a sloppy job even in areas where its mandate was clear-cut, and where it was the only entrusted authority. Take for instance the verification of Maoist combatants, which was solely UNMIN´s responsibility. There were suspicions since the beginning that the Maoists had artificially inflated the numbers of their combatants, but the belief prevailed that UNMIN would identify and disqualify any bogus combatants through its “stringent” verification process. The Shaktikhor videotape made it amply clear that that didn’t happened. UNMIN had been duped. Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal disclosed in the videotape that combatant numbers were artificially raised from 7,000 to 34,000. UNMIN disqualified only 4,000 combatants and as some 8,000 of them didn’t show up for verification after their initial registration, there are still 19,000 of them in the cantonments. This has become the major bone of contention in the peace process.

Just imagine how easy the peace process would have been if there were only 7,000 combatants in the cantonments. But UNMIN never had the guts to tell the Maoists—in the wake of Shaktikhor —that it would review the combatant numbers, nor did it have the sagacity to admit shortcomings in the verification process. Instead, it made—and continues to make—the lousy argument that no question was ever raised at the Joint Monitoring Coordination Committee (JMCC) about combatant numbers, and the political parties also accepted the figure once the verification was over with. There was no way the government or the political parties could challenge the number because no one but UNMIN was on the ground for the verification and the parties had trust its competence. UNMIN cannot absolve itself of this blunder simply because no one pointed it out when it happened.

As UNMIN prepares to wrap up, Nepal will remember both its contributions and its weaknesses, but this country will continue to have faith in the larger world body. Nepal has always been a staunch supporter of the UN and its role in stabilizing conflict-ridden and war-torn countries. That’s one reason we continue to send our men and women in uniform to UN peacekeeping operations. So, on Nepal´s part, the goodwill and good wishes will remain and we hope the UN will also learn lessons from its achievements and failings in Nepal.