View Point (Spotlight Weekly)

UNseemly Debate In Nepal

By Dhruba Adhikary

KATHMANDU - Nepal's Maoist insurgency, which began in 1996, shows no signs of abating. Armed rebels continue to kill security personnel as well as civilians as their outlawed leaders issue statements - from their hideouts - saying they will return to the negotiating table only if the United Nations is invited to be involved in the peace process. To prove that their threats are not hollow, Maoists shot dead exactly 12 security personnel on the day that Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba was to host a party to celebrate King Gyanendra's 58th birthday last week. One of those killed was a senior police officer based in the capital, who was shot in broad daylight, making people more frightened than ever before. (Royal birthday celebrations continued nevertheless.)

"The Maoists are a bigger problem than the king," Deuba said in an interview in the Nepali Times weekly (July 2-8). But he has yet to show how he will respond to the Maoist issue.

The first formal talks with the Maoists - who are fighting to establish a republic in place of the constitutional monarchy - started in August 2001, about a month after Deuba became prime minister for the first time; he was later sacked by the king for "incompetence". But they broke down, giving the Maoists an opportunity to reorganize. The second attempt to bring the Maoists to the negotiating table produced a ceasefire agreement in January 2003, three months after King Gyanendra staged a constitutional coup and appointed a new prime minister to head the royal government.

The ceasefire lasted for seven months, but broke down amid reports that soldiers of the Royal Nepal Army (RNA) shot dead 19 detainees, suspected Maoist rebels, in the eastern hill district of Ramechhap. On the basis of a probe conducted on the demand of human-rights groups, the RNA subsequently admitted that some soldiers had gone beyond their mandate.

The existing sense of mutual mistrust in the country is both deep and pervasive. Besides, the Maoists' trust in Deuba is not what it used to be, because he is now seen as the king's appointee (since June 2). Hence the need to have a third party as a witness to the peace process. Deuba wants to begin this process as early as possible as the king has publicly directed him to end the ongoing conflict and create a stable environment so that parliamentary elections can take place by the end of this Nepali year 2061 (mid-April 2005).

The Nepali intelligentsia, together with most of the mainstream political parties, do not see any harm in involving a third party, preferably the United Nations, in the mediation process as local efforts have been fruitless to date. Even Padma Ratna Tuladhar, a prominent left-leaning politician who has worked as a facilitator, has accepted that cooperation with external parties and individuals has become essential.

Editors Society Nepal, in a recent resolution, urged the government to seek UN assistance "in mediation and peace-building". In its view, the present state of helplessness must be ended forthwith if further losses of lives are to be avoided. More than 10,000 people have died in the struggle, and tens of thousands have been injured. The insurgency affects all 75 districts within Nepal, three of which are in the bowl-shaped Kathmandu Valley, and the future for the poverty-stricken country's 24.8 million people cannot be bright as long as the insurgency rages.

President Girija Prasad Koirala of the Nepali Congress, the largest democratic party, with centrist credentials, told an audience in the eastern town of Biratnagar on the weekend that the political alliance of four parties he currently heads will initiate "open dialogue" with the Maoists if the UN agrees to become a partner by ensuring security. "We are seeking guarantees for security since the rebels do not trust the government's security arrangements and it is not possible for us to go to Maoist strongholds" without UN security guarantees in place.

Even Deuba's main partner in the ruling coalition, the United Marxist Leninist party (UML) - Nepal's largest left-wing party - is not opposed to UN participation in efforts aimed at resolving the drawn-out conflict. The Rashtriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) is an exception: it is known for its pro-palace stance. Although Deuba has been non-committal, his colleagues in the Nepali Congress (Democratic), a breakaway faction of the main Congress party, do not see any reason to resist the plan to seek UN assistance as long as the government takes care of the security concerns of Nepal's two immediate neighbors.

"The UN is at the service of the member states," said Matthew Kahane, UN resident coordinator to Nepal. He has dismissed speculation that the UN is trying to impose itself on any mediation, but expresses the world body's concerns from time to time in the context of Secretary General Kofi Annan's apprehensions about the deteriorating situation in Nepal.

In his report to the Security Council in early June on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, Annan listed Nepal as one of four countries providing "the worst examples where civilians have been suffering". Annan has offered his good offices to find a peaceful way out.

Samuel Tamrat, Annan's special envoy, has visited Nepal four times since the breakdown of talks at the end of August 2003. The UN's assessment of Nepal's situation is perhaps based on the challenges the UN's office in Kathmandu and field units in far-flung districts have faced in recent years. "Continued attempts to force the UN agencies to pay contributions put the future of our development programs [in Nepal] at risk," a joint statement by UN agencies said on March 12. The situation remains unchanged.

There have been other offers of mediation. Switzerland said on June 6 that it was prepared to step into the ring as a mediator. Finland is equally keen to be of help to Nepal. "Finland is interested in assisting Nepal," said Pauli Mustonen, head of the Finnish Embassy in Kathmandu, adding that "it is for the government of Nepal to take a decision". Another Nordic country, Norway, has been deeply involved in the peace process between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

India, Nepal's southern neighbor sharing a porous 1,800-kilometer-plus land border, is also open to play some sort of role. Ambassador Shyam Saran, who will become India's next foreign secretary on August 1, has said New Delhi is prepared to listen, should Kathmandu make an overture.

Unlike India, China considers the insurgency Nepal's internal problem, and there have not been any reports of rebels taking shelter in Tibet or in mainland China. "Although there are some difficulties now being faced by Nepal, we believe that Nepal has the capability and great wisdom to handle well its domestic affairs and appreciate all efforts conducive to the restoration of peace and stability in Nepal," said Sun Heping, the Chinese ambassador in Kathmandu, on May 14. China has reportedly assured Nepali authorities that it will provide all "legitimate assistance" on request.

The question remains, though, whether Nepal should get any one of its immediate neighbors involved. This is a delicate question and has become an issue of debate in public forums. "When both parties think about third-party mediation, Nepal should not think of bringing India or China between the two warring factions as they might be motivated by personal benefits," British Ambassador Keith Bloomfield told a Kathmandu audience recently.

Separately, in a newspaper article published on July 2, the British envoy supported the idea of taking external expertise to work out a viable peace plan. He has cited Norway's role in Sri Lanka. The only caveat he has is as follows: "Third parties support the process, but they don't control it." There is no harm in taking lessons from elsewhere, he suggested. The United Kingdom, the United States and India are the three main countries to have been in close consultations on Nepal in the past few years.

Bloomfield's suggestion to exclude both of Nepal's neighbors, particularly India, from a possible list of mediators needs to be examined in the context of what happened in Sri Lanka after India militarily intervened in that island nation's affairs in the late 1980s. It eventually proved counter-productive and the cost of intervention was high - a Tamil suicide bomber killed premier Rajiv Gandhi on Indian soil. J N Dixit, India's envoy in Colombo at that time, has written in his memoirs that his country's intelligence agencies compounded the problem leading to the final debacle. Dixit now occupies the high-profile post of national security adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

New Delhi's policy on Nepal is a confused mix of preferences and prejudices. It supplies weapons to the RNA, enhancing its ability to take on the rebels, yet it does not deny shelter to rebel leaders in Indian territory; its law-enforcement authorities detain some of those who are arrested within India, and hands over others to their Nepali counterparts without completing extradition procedures, as stipulated in a 1953 pact between the countries.

Delhi talks about cross-border terrorism, but is opposed to propositions to regulate the movement of people across the border. George Fernandes, India's defense minister in the previous government, said last September that his ministry had found evidence that Maoists from Nepal were receiving arms training in India's Bihar and Jharkhand states. Likewise, India billed Nepal's Maoists as terrorists even before the Nepal government put that tag on members of the banned Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). Yet India thinks
Maoists should be brought into the "political mainstream", as Ambassador Shyam Saran said last Friday.

Diplomatically, New Delhi is not opposed to Nepal's bid to restore peace through the UN, which is preferred to other alternatives, such as the European Union, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation members, a Nordic country or a neutral European nation such as Switzerland. "Nepal itself should decide whether it wants the United Nations or any other country to mediate to solve the Maoist problem," the Indian envoy said during his valedictory interaction with Kathmandu-based journalists.

Most of Nepal's diplomats and foreign-policy experts agree that it would be prudent for a small country sharing borders with two big countries, China and India, to welcome mediation from a neutral organization such as the UN or a neutral country such as Switzerland. "The UN is the most credible organization with no strategic interest in Nepal," said seasoned diplomat Yadav Kanta Silwal. He also referred to Nepal's constitution (1990), which says the country's foreign policy "shall be guided by the principles of the United Nations Charter".

If the UN became engaged, both China and India – and other UN countries - would be kept in touch with developments. Besides, China is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, which regularly receives situation reports from the secretary general.

Silwal agrees with those who believe that China and India stand to gain by the UN's presence in Nepal as it would remove their current concerns derived from the perception that the US is unnecessarily expanding its role in the landlocked Himalayan kingdom.

Experts who support the UN's involvement say work should begin with the presence of a few representatives as witnesses in preliminary talks. Subsequently, the UN could act as facilitator to monitor agreements and raise funds to execute concrete action. Afterward, it could be asked to act as mediator, but only in the event of the talks stalling.

"Of course we should accept UN mediation if it prevents Nepal from being declared a failed state," said Hiranya Lal Shrestha, a former member of parliament who worked in its Foreign Relations Committee. The UN could be told to take back its soldiers once its mission was completed, argued Shrestha, but it would be difficult to do so if India or China were allowed to send troops into Nepal. (A UN force might be required as the Maoists have indicated they would only deposit their weapons with such a force.)

Opponents of UN mediation say the organization is too bureaucratic to be of real help. Professor Nicholas Haysom, who once worked as a legal adviser to Nelson Mandela when he was president of South Africa, is one of them. He was in Kathmandu last month and expressed a preference for a neutral or a group of neutral countries.

Foreign Secretary Madhu Raman Acharya Nepal sees election-monitoring (when they are held), humanitarian relief, human-rights monitoring and continuation of development works in conflict-affected areas as some of the jobs that the UN could efficiently handle. But the question of political mediation, he says, is something to be decided by the political leadership. Some of Acharya's colleagues in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are aware that cases of conflict where the UN has been involved have tended to be protracted affairs.

Outside officialdom, Professor Lokraj Baral of the Center for Contemporary Studies does not think there is a role for the UN in Nepal as it does not have the authority to fulfill the Maoists' demands, or stop the government from pushing its own substantive agenda.

To some analysts and scholars, addressing India's sensitivities is more crucial than anything else, including Nepal's independent status. They allude to Delhi's dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir and say that since the issue remains unresolved - despite more than 50 years of UN involvement - India is averse to the world body coming again to South Asia.

"It is in the self-interest of Nepal that we do not displease India," the Kathmandu Post quoted Minendra Rijal, a prominent member of the political party Premier Deuba heads, as saying. To him, the situation in Nepal is "not bad enough to warrant UN intervention". Critics also cite the examples of Rwanda and Srebrenica where the UN failed, deliberately putting aside examples where the UN has succeeded: Namibia, Cambodia, Mozambique and East Timor. Former foreign minister Ram Sharan Mahat is reluctant to support the idea of bringing in the UN because it validates the theory that Nepal is almost a failed state, with the existence of two regimes and two armies - a claim the Maoists have been making all along.

However, human-rights activists appear to support the proposition to make the UN a key player in efforts to resolve the Maoist insurgency. "It is absurd to reject the very concept [about the UN] simply because it has come from the other [Maoist] side," said Krishna Pahadi, a human-rights activist. But it remains unclear, he added, whether the Maoists have knocked on the UN door with honesty and sincerity, or just as a ploy to get their comrades released from Indian jails. If the UN comes in, said Pahadi, the Maoists will have to stop forced conscription of under-age children, abductions, violence and extortion. In his view, the UN presence would also put pressure on the government on complaints relating to disappearances, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and impunity. Even by opening an office in Kathmandu, the UN Commission for Human Rights could make a good start, he observed.

Some analysts say there is no point in retaining Nepal's UN membership - acquired in 1955 - if the government does not have faith in the world body. Nepal should also stop contributing troops to UN peacekeeping missions worldwide if this is indeed the case.

It should be noted that not even the world's lone superpower, the United States, has been able to write off the UN completely with regard to Iraq. Perhaps there is a lesson here for tiny Nepal.

(This article had appeared in www.atimes.com on July 15, 2004)