Don’t Rush UN Team, Please (Special to Nepalnews)

August 2, 2006
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While bold and prompt decisions by the leaderships on both sides are essential to move the peace process to conclusion, rushed agreements that can’t be implemented are more hazardous than a bit slower and surer process

By Dr Som P Pudasaini

Promoting global peace, justice and development is at the heart of the United Nation’s mandate and the UN Charter. It has succeeded in building peace in some hotspots and failed in others. But the reality of the world is that there is no other global organization as widely represented, broadly accepted and largely neutral to help manage conflicts and build peace. Additionally, it continues to pursue its mandate regardless of the successes or failures on demand from the parties in conflict and within the constraints imposed by resources, politics and bureaucracy to ensure a peaceful and safe world for its 6.5 billion inhabitants. UN Secretary General, the Chief Executive Officer of such a complex organization with almost 200 member states of various sizes and politico-economic strengths represented at the General Assembly with “one vote” each and the five biggies as the permanent veto wielding super-members, has a highly visible but quite a challenging task to help build peace across the continents.

It is welcome news that the Secretary General Kofi Annan has dispatched a team to Nepal led by Staffan de Mistura to assess the prevailing politico-conflict situation with focus on figuring out the prospects for successful arms management necessary to carry forward the peace process jointly initiated by the Maoist insurgents and the seven party alliance (SPA) in the aftermath of the successful Jana Andolan-II. Doubtlessly, the peace negotiations are at a critical, fragile and hopeful stage now. Fair, magnanimous and committed arms management agreement between the Maoists and the state is, thus, a must to lead the nation to a lasting peace. The difficulty of reaching an agreement lies on balancing the need and desire of the insurgents not to be fully separated from the arms too early and that of the state to ensure that their arms do not become a big problem after the rebels join the interim government and during the constituent assembly elections.

Rushed agreements that one or both of the parties in conflict are unlikely to implement must not be persuaded even by the UN Team in the name of completing their task in the stipulated period and submitting a report to the Secretary General for implementation soon after.
The Maoists and the SPA have taken momentous decisions to achieve peaceful resolution of the conflict through negotiated settlement as reflected in the 12-point and the 8-point agreements on the realization that a military solution was impossible in view of internal and external realities confronting the nation. There may be no denying that external prodding was instrumental in leading to the agreements. Some provisions under them were accepted in a rush without adequate homework, particularly within the constituents of the SPA. The provisions to place the Maoist and the state armies in the same footing under UN supervision and the dissolution of the reinstated parliament are now sources of serious disagreement. While bold and prompt decisions by the leaderships on both sides are essential to move the peace process to conclusion, rushed agreements that can’t be implemented are more hazardous than a bit slower and surer process. A breach of an agreement creates unwanted additional mistrust and misunderstanding while the peace building is to build confidence with every new step.

The role of a neutral, experienced and internationally recognized third party such as the UN is to help bridge the “confidence gap” first and then guide them to adjust their positions to a pragmatic and internationally accepted common denominator to lead the arms management process to a logical conclusion. Rushed agreements that one or both of the parties in conflict are unlikely to implement must not be persuaded even by the UN Team in the name of completing their task in the stipulated period and submitting a report to the Secretary General for implementation soon after.

UN had already received separate letters fired by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and Maoist supremo Prachanda concerning differing views on arms management prior to the departure of the UN Team to Kathmandu in spite of clear provision in the 8-point agreement. The problem was the SPA and the Government of Nepal had rushed to the agreement without adequate consultations and homework and had to write a letter not fully conistent with the agreement resulting in a rebuttal note from Prachanda.

Staffan de Mistura was reported as saying “The UN Mission has got three days and eight hours to do its work and I have been urging everyone to come to a common point within this timeframe (THT, 31 July 2006)”. One can understand the difficulty of the mission and its urge to know the agreed details concerning UN role from the Maoists and the government before it leaves on August 3 to recommend a “doable” proposal to the Secretary General. Not to do so would be an occasion “missed” as he has rightly stressed. The Maoists and the government have a great moral responsibility to furnish necessary details and agreements to the visiting Mission as they had agreed to receive it despite their disagreement. However, having known of the contentious ground reality from the letters, the UN had two options.

First, the mission could have been postponed until key, if not all, issues concerning arms management were agreed by the parties concerned and were communicated to the UN. Second, visit Nepal as has been done already. Then, assess the overall situation, prepare a list of questions that needs to be answered and find out from the Maoists and the government the timeframe by which they would be able to provide definitive understanding on them. Extend your mission by some days if the answers are likely to come soon. Otherwise, plan a follow-up mission when the time is right or someone else in the UN update the report later on. Isn’t that what UN has learnt from Guatemala, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and other assessment missions? Half-hearted and rushed agreement based actions will land UN, the Maoists and the Government in trouble later. Don’t unduly rush UN Team, please.

(Dr. Pudasaini has served as the Representative of United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Sri Lanka and Yemen and as country director of UNFPA for Maldives. He can be reached at [email protected])

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