MAOISTS WRITE TO UN

Kathmandu, 9 Sept.: Main opposition Maoists Thursday wrote a separate letter to the UN demanding a six-month extension of UNMIN’s tenure without a mandate change opposing a government letter to the world body suggestion Nepal army should be taken off the UN watch.
The letter was sent through UNMIN
Chairman Prachanda Thursday held discussions with ambassadors of US, Britain and France-three permanent members of the security council, and discussed UNMIN future; its tenure ends 15 September.
The security council began discussions in New York on UNMIN’s future and Nepal.
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HUMAN REMAINS DUG

Kathmandu, 9 Sept. Human remains was dug out by a team of Nepali and foreign forensic experts from Kamala river bank at Gorad-2 in Dhanusha Wednesday, according to Gauri Pradhan of the National Human Rights Commission.
Nepal Army allegedly killed and buried five Maoists during the insurgency in 2008.
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KRISHNA SHRESTHA GORKHAPATRA ACTING CHIEF EDITOR

Kathmandu, 9 Sept. Krishna Shrestha has been appointed acting chief editor of Gorkhapatra, the country’s oldest newspaper.
He assumed responsibility from Thursday.
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20 INJURED IN BUS ACCIDENT

Kathmandu, 9 Sept.: Twenty passengers were injured, six seriously, in a bus accident at Dhading Wednesday.
The bus was heading for Salyan from the capital.
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PUBLIC HOLIDAY DECLARED FOR ID

Kathmandu, 9 Sept.: Government declared Friday a public holiday coinciding with Id.
Home ministry announced the public holiday.
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FORMER KING’S MORANG TRIP OFF

Kathmandu, 9 Sept.: Under Maoist pressure, organizers of the Ganapati festival in Morang Wednesday said former King Gyanendra and Queen Komal won’t participate in the festivity 12 September.
The programme was cancelled following protests from other parties and civil society.
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57,513 APPLY FOR ARMY RECRUITMENT

Kathmandu, 9 Sept.: Altogether 57, 513 persons applied for Nepal Army recruitment in the infantry.
The deadline for applications for 3,464 openings ended Tuesday, according to Directorate of Public Relations.
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FORESTER SHOT IN BARDIYA

Kathmandu, 9 Sept.: Ranger Khim Bahadur Rawal was shot and seriously injured Wednesday in Gulariya, Bardiya.
Tawal claimed he was shot by three persons.
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MEDIA GOOGLE

“It’s the limit, your role isn’t impartial at all; .. You’ve turned our completely pro-Maoist; There’s no point in your remaining here; That’s why your term’s been extended again.”

(PM Nepal in a four cartoon collage in Republica, 9 Sept.)
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“ Failure to elect a prime minister is seven rounds is a regressive plan to make parliament and constituent assembly worthless. Regressive conspiracy ongoing to keep a cultural king.”

(Baburam Bhattarai, Nagarik, 9 Sept.)
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PADAM NARAYAN TRESURER FROM SUSHIL KOIRALA PANEL

Kathmandu, 9 Sept.: Padma Narayan Chaudhary will be treasure in Sushil Koirala’s panel in elections at the the 12th general convention, Annapurna Post reports.
According to a source, Discussions were held Wednesday whether to appoint Dr Ram Sharan Mahat or Chaudhary.
There was agreement to appoint treasurer from the Madeshi community.
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KHAGENDRA THAPA MAGAR ENTHRALLED WITH NEW YORK BLONDES

Kathmandu, 9 Sept.: A Nepali teenager set to be declared the planet’s smallest person got gala treatment on Tuesday while on a tour of New York, AFP reports from the city.
Crowds at Times Square jostled for a glimpse of Khagendra Thapa Magar, who at 17 is the size of a baby and has stopped growing. Magar was on his maiden visit to New York as part of a publicity trip organized by the freak-show museum Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.
In a white shirt and doll-sized pin-striped gray jacket, Magar smiled shyly, blinking at rows of cameras and vast neon billboards lining Times Square. Ripley’s declared Magar—at 22 inches tall and four kilograms—the world’s smallest person.
Edward Meyer, vice-president for exhibits at Rupley’s, said that during an evening out on the town on Monday, Magar developed particular interest in New York blondes.
“He’s fascinated with blondes because there are virtually no blondes in Nepal.”
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UN PROBE OF LIKELY NEPAL INVOLVEMENT IN DEATH OF HAITIAN

Kathmandu, 9 Sept.: The UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) has begun investigation into the alleged involvement of Nepali members of the UN Formed Police Unit based in Cap-Haltien in the death of a Haitian youth Gerard Gilles some three weeks ago, Republica reports.
The 16-year old youth, who did odd jobs for the Nepal at the base in exchange for food and money, has hanged himself to death on August 17, prompting mass demonstration by hundreds of locals outside the base camp four days later. The protestors alleged that Nepali members of the Formed Police Unit were responsible for the death of the boy.
Altogether 140 Nepal Police personnel are currently deployed in the UN Formed Police Base Camp.
Nepal Spokesperson Deputy Inspector General Bigyan Raj Sharma claimed that there was no involvement of Nepal Police personnel in the death of the youth.
Meanwhile Armed Police Force (APF) is all set to be a part of the United Nations Formed Police Unit in Haiti.
Senior APF officials said preparations are underway to send a contingent of a total of 140 APF personnel to the conflict-hit Latin American nation. It will take some two and-a-half months for the APF to land there.
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CHOLERA SURFACES IN THE CAPITAL

Kathmandu, 9 Sept.: Cholera has been detected in three persons admitted to Sukraraj and tropical Infectious Disease Hospital for th e first time in the Valley this year, Kantipur reports.
The three aged from 14 to 15 are Patan residents.
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UN BONE IN GOVT. GULLET

Kathmandu, 9 Sept.: The government has expressed strong reservations over the report of United Nations’ Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arguing that it failed to incorporate the ground realities and positive efforts made by the government of Nepal, including its commitment to democratize the Nepal Army, The Kathmandu Post reports from New York.
The government has also taken exception to the report questioning the regular functioning of the government. The official response comes as part of discussions on the Secretary-General’s report at the Security Council (SC).

In his statement in Tuesday’s SC briefing Permanent Representative of Nepal to the UN Gyan Chandra Acharya said the government of Nepal did not agree on a number of assessments that UN has made in its report. “We would have liked to see the report more balanced, nuanced and reflective of the correct assessment of the situation on the ground in its entirety,” said Acharya arguing that an appropriate reflection of the government’s “hard” work to push forward the peace process might have provided a balanced view of the situation.

The government feels that the report made a serious mistake by equating the Nepal Army with Maoist combatants. “With the election to the Constituent Assembly and formation of a Special Committee, the concept of two armies is no more there,” said Acharya. “Therefore, the Maoist combatants should not be referred to as such consistently throughout the report. A national army cannot be equated with the combatants.”

The statement made in the SC is in line with the government and Nepal Army’s desire to reduce UNMIN’s mandate of supervising the Nepal Army.

The government has also shown serious concern over UNMIN’s ‘non paper’ that presented a 60-week hypothetical plan for integration and rehabilitation of the Maoist combatants. “The non-paper created a lot of confusion in Nepal as it suggested an action plan that went well over the constitution drafting time and created unnecessary political complications,” Acharya said.

The government has expressed its dissatisfaction on the non-reporting of Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal’s 16-week action plan on integration and rehabilitation of Maoist combatants, which “shows the utmost commitment to accelerate the task”. Nepal’s representative also pointed out that the government has prepared a “detailed action plan” headed by Defense Minister Bidhya Bhandari to democratize the national army. He also took exception to the questions raised about the caretaker government.

Acharya said that he has forwarded the government’s letter.





In an unusually strongly worded comment, UNMIN chief Karin Landgren has said criticism of UNMIN was the result of deepening mistrust among Nepal’s political parties and their failure to carry the peace process forward.

“Ascribing blame to the UN for their own failure to move forward politically is not a new phenomenon, and it has grown incrementally and in intensity,” said Landgren while briefing the UN Security Council at New York on Tuesday. “Hard political decisions needed to take Nepal’s peace process forward are beyond UNMIN’s mandate and capacity, and lie firmly in the hands of Nepal’s political leaders.” Stating that “the United Nations has no interest or desire to prolong the life of the mission even a day more than necessary”, Landgren said that Secretary General Ban-Ki-moon desires to see the mission complete its task and withdraw, in a manner “that doesn’t jeopardize Nepal’s peace process.”

She said Nepal’s relatively successful “arms monitoring regime” has been subject to unfounded claims of UNMIN’s bias and distortions. She told the 15-member Security Council “a flood of criticism” was levelled against the UNMIN by the Government of Nepal and the Nepal Army last month to exert pressure for ending UN’s monitoring of Nepal Army.

“UNMIN has protested the Army’s impugning of the integrity of the United Nations. The caretaker government has yet to repudiate the actions or remarks of its Army and its ministers,” the Representative of the Secretary General told the council.
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CONVENTION WILL UNITE NC
Kathmandu, 9 Sept.: Senior leaders of the Nepali Congress on Tuesday expressed their belief that the party’s 12th General Convention slated for September 17-21 will prove to be the convention of unity.

In a press conference organised at the party central office in Sanepa, acting president Sushil Koirala said the new leadership that the GC will elect will be capable of facing the new challenges. Saying the party will then take to the collective leadership on institutional basis, Koirala who is vying for the presidency claimed that the division in the party will be overcome.

The party had witnessed a split in September, 2002 due to differences between the then party president Girija Prasad Koirala and leader Sher Bahadur Deuba, who was leading the government, over the extension of the state of emergency to fight the Maoist insurgency.

The NC and NC-Democratic, however, merged after five years in September 2007.

Koirala recalled that the party’s 11th GC decided to resort to the federal democratic republic as the monarchy betrayed the democracy. He, however, expressed sadness over the political crisis in the wake of standoff in the prime ministerial election, and no progress in the peace and constitution-drafting processes.

He claimed that the processes cannot be completed without the NC’s leadership.

He held the UCPN-Maoist responsible for the crisis. “Maoist chairman Prachanda had said that they (Maoists) will be able to form new government within five days of the prime minister’s resignation.”

Deuba also said that the upcoming Convention will be historic as it was being held after the party’s unification and the country became federal democratic republic. He was the president of NC-D before the merger.

Speaking at the conference, NC vice president Ram Chandra Paudel said the party has great responsibility on its shoulders to institutionalise the achievements of the federal democratic republic.

“The indecisive and extremist forces cannot safeguard the hard-earned achievements and democracy,” said he, hinting at the CPN-UML that has maintained neutrality in the prime ministerial and the Maoists.

Paudel is the NC candidate for the premiership along with Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
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UNMIN EXTENSION;LANDGREN REPORT


The present report of the Secretary-General presents a discouraging picture of the state of Nepal’s peace process, and of the failure of the political parties to invest in its revival.

The disagreement between the government and the opposition over the continued role of UNMIN in the peace process is also reported.

As the Three-Point Agreement of late May makes explicit, the issues of power-sharing, completion of the new constitution, and solutions for the former Maoist army personnel are now interlinked. The current void in the peace process illustrates a long-standing reluctance to invest in the kind of sustained and structured negotiations that might drive progress; the proper architecture for this was never put in place, and the once-promising High-Level Political Mechanism was abandoned not long after the death of G.P. Koirala in March. It is not too late to establish a clear and dependable discussion mechanism, with which the parties can also firmly put to rest any fears that they will abandon the path of the constitution, and democracy, and demonstrate a new seriousness towards resolving outstanding issues.

The commitments that were made in the CPA, the Interim Constitution and other auxiliary agreements formed the negotiated basis for ending Nepal’s 10-year war, and for responding to Nepal’s historically-marginalised groups, including Madheshi, indigenous and Dalit populations. These commitments include the integration into the security forces, or the social rehabilitation, of the Maoist army personnel, who were to be supervised by a Special Committee, and the democratisation of the Nepal Army, defined as the determination of its appropriate size, development of its democratic structure and national and inclusive character, and training imparted in accordance with the norms and values of democracy and human rights.

Pending the implementation of these forward-looking commitments, the Nepal Army and the Maoist army were made

subject to restrictions in order (quoting Article 4 of the CPA), “to hold the election to [the] constituent assembly in [a] free and fair manner and for the democratic restructuring of the army to proceed.”

The parties negotiated the specifics of these mutual restrictions, under which the Maoist army is cantoned in 28 sites across Nepal and the Nepal Army is confined to barracks other than for a number of routine functions.

In recent months the caretaker government, sections of the Nepali Congress and the UML, and the Nepal Army, argue that the Nepal Army should no longer be monitored by UNMIN, citing a provision of the CPA according to which “the concept of two sides shall cease to exist”, upon the establishment of the Interim Legislature-Parliament, a development that took place in January 2007.

Whether or not “two sides” still exist, there are manifestly still two armies. The restrictions on the armies were to be transitional and the Secretary-General has repeatedly argued against the prolonged confinement of the two armies without a long-term solution, calling for early decisions to be addressed in the context of the longer-term reform of the security sector. The changes foreseen to the armies under the CPA have not taken place. It is cause for concern that the Nepal Army now seeks unilaterally to withdraw from and to alter the scope of the Agreement on the Monitoring of the Management of Arms and Armies (AMMAA). The arms monitoring agreement contains provisions whereby the parties can review or modify it. The government and the Army have not sought to use this modality. Any unilateral decision in this regard may have the effect of abrogating the treaty. These developments have direct and immediate bearing on the work of UNMIN. UNMIN’s monitoring of arms and armies, and chairmanship of the Joint Monitoring Coordination Committee, are set out in the arms monitoring agreement itself. UNMIN monitors strictly at the invitation of the parties, and with their agreement. Absent a fresh agreement between the parties, UNMIN cannot continue to monitor one side at the request of the other; neither does it have the authority to introduce fundamental changes to the monitoring regime.

The government’s pressure for an end to the international monitoring of the Nepal Army has been accompanied by a flood of criticism directed at UNMIN. A Nepal Army internal document, entitled The Basis for UNMIN’s Exit, which has been leaked to the press, asserts that UNMIN is siding with the Maoists, is not impartial, and is obstructing the government and the Nepal Army in fulfilling their national duty. The Chief of Army Staff has been visible and vocal in lobbying the political leadership and diplomatic representatives for UNMIN’s departure. This activism by the Army on issues within the political sphere seems however to have been encouraged by some senior political leaders, with the Defence Minister publicly accusing UNMIN of being the mouthpiece of the Maoists. UNMIN has protested the Army’s impugning of the integrity of the United Nations. The caretaker government has yet to repudiate the actions or remarks of its Army and its ministers.

As has been reported to the Council in the past, the Nepal Army has since 2007 continued to recruit personnel in defiance of the arms monitoring agreement and bypassing the JMCC. Reports of recruitment by the Nepal Army and by

the Maoist army have been brought to the JMCC for discussion and review, as is appropriate. The Nepal Army has now refused to accept any future discussion of its recruitment in the JMCC, and has

said it will not take part in JMCC meetings if this issue is on the agenda. Seeking to restrict discussion in the designated forum, the JMCC, undermines the agreed arms monitoring regime.

The recent direct challenge to the arms monitoring agreement takes the peace process in a sharply wrong direction. Risks to the peace process, and to democratic governance in Nepal, are real. The risks include an unresolved leadership battle which may keep critical decisions in limbo and, at this point, appears unlikely to deliver the consensus government that would form a stronger basis for concluding the peace process.

They include the risk that the CA, even after a 12-month extension, will expire without a new constitution having been drafted. They also include a climate in the country of deteriorating security: in late July, the Government decided to give special protection to Village Development Committee (VDC) secretaries across the country, after more than 1,200 secretaries in 31 districts tendered a collective resignation, citing insecurity. The risks include threats to journalistic independence, with killings of media personnel earlier in the year followed by death threats to senior editors and other acute constraints on their operations and reporting. They include a contested end to the monitoring of arms and armies, with unpredictable consequences.

The biggest risk of all may be that the peace process and parliamentary processes appear discredited, sending a discouraging signal to existing and emerging groups about taking the democratic route to push for change.

UNMIN’s tasks can only succeed if there is overall political progress in Nepal. Its role is supportive. Ascribing to the UN the blame for the parties’ failure to move forward politically is not a new phenomenon, but it has grown incrementally and in intensity. The hard political decisions needed to take Nepal’s peace process forward are beyond UNMIN’s mandate and capacity, and lie firmly in the hands of Nepal’s political leaders.

Some things need to change if the peace process is to be brought to a successful end. With respect to UNMIN, it is proposed that in the first instance the mandate be discussed with a new duly-formed government, in the context of the parties’ fulfillment of their commitments and the phasing out of the Mission. The Secretary-General would then report back to the Council and in the event of there being neither clarity nor consensus in this regard, would propose alternative measures, including the possible termination of the mandate. I would like once again to make clear that the desire of the

Secretary-General is to see the mission complete its tasks and withdraw, in a manner that does not jeopardise the peace process and maintains continued international support for peace consolidation. The United Nations has no interest or desire to prolong the life of the Mission by a day more than necessary.

Nepal’s peace process has not failed, even though it has moved far more slowly and unevenly than anticipated by either the parties or the Council. The original ambitious timelines have not been maintained on any count and this is likely to be a protracted endeavour.

For well over a year now the process has essentially stalled and the level of mistrust has risen. The process can be brought back on track if the political leadership is ready to reassess priorities and place this process at the front and centre of their political activity, recognising that only through continued and persistent negotiation can it move forward. At a time when political moderation is in short supply, the parties have a great deal of work to do in order to make the case that they intend Nepal’s peace to be permanent and irreversible.

(Excerpts from Sept. 7 briefing by Karin Landgren, Representative of the Secretary-General in Nepal, to the Security Council on the request of Nepal for UN assistance in support of the peace process published in The Kathmandu Post.)
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