E-Kantipur

On Sept. 15, the mandate of the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) expires for the sixth time. At this juncture, UNMIN is under coordinated attack from Nepal’s military and a section of politicians supporting the military. The UNMIN stands accused, once again, of pro-Maoist bias.

The Chief of the Army Staff (CoAS) Chhatra Man Singh Gurung has exceeded military authority in his call for the UNMIN to leave Nepal. To push his agenda, the CoAS has reportedly held meetings with political leaders, including CPN-UML and Nepali Congress, as well as diplomatic representatives.

On Aug. 25, one of the English dailies published a report on the briefing the military is using to push for UNMIN’s departure. A central reason for military ire relates to UNMIN’s recent concern over new recruitment, first in the Army, and then in reaction, the UCPN (Maoist)’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The UNMIN has rightly expressed concern that recruitment by either side violates the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and the Agreement on Monitoring of the Management of Arms and Armies (AMMAA). Pro-Maoist bias is hard to discern in the UNMIN’s actions. The violation is clear. The UNMIN has a clear mandate from the Security Council, and authority granted by the parties to the peace agreements, to note such violations.

The issue of recruitment was taken up before the Supreme Court (SC) by INHURED, an NGO. The SC ruled that the Joint Monitoring and Coordination Committee (JMCC)—a body with representation from Army, Maoist army and UN—was the appropriate forum to resolve the dispute. In its concluding comment, the SC stated: “Therefore, with regards to the vacancy announcements of Nepal Army… the parties in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement have… prevented the judiciary from involvement in such disputes… and provisioned for remedy through the involvement of the parties and JMCC comprising the party representatives”. Party here means the two sides to the peace process, not political parties.

However, rather than complying with the SC ruling, the Army has refused to resolve the dispute in the JMCC. Instead, the Nepal Army is spinning a line to the media of the SC ruling in favour of recruitment going ahead. And, amongst others, it is this media line which has been used to accuse UNMIN of having somehow engaged in a ‘flagrant violation of the rule of law in Nepal’ and Maoist bias.

The Army briefing report goes on to list a number of similarly illogical and unsubstantiated claims that were supposed to somehow demonstrate Maoist bias. And government ministers and senior Nepali Congress figures, beholden or supportive of the military, have queued up behind this surreal black-is-in-fact-white logic.

But as noted political commentator, Prashant Jha, wrote in November 2009, “to see the UN as a ‘pro-Maoist’ institution, as the 22 parties have hinted, is to misread why UNMIN is here in the first place. It is here to assist the peace process. The Maoists are a 50 percent stakeholder in the peace process, and the key partner in the task of determining the future of former Maoist combatants. If the peace process is stuck, the UN is stuck. Talking about the peace process, and urging actors to focus on it, necessarily means leaving space for the Maoists.”

Clarity on UNMIN mandate reveals much about the military agenda. The peace process explicitly foresees real limits on military power. This includes civilian control of the military and this implies wholesale reform of the institution of the Army. The Army rejects these and hence logically opposes the peace process. The UNMIN is mandated to support the peace process. And at Army Headquarters, the UNMIN support for the peace process equals support for the Maoists.

But the Army’s advocacy is about to face two hard realities. Firstly, the UN is not in the business of taking sides. The United Nations Secretary-General and the Security Council deputed UNMIN based on a request and signatures on an agreement from two sides; one of these parties was the UCPN (Maoist). Changing UNMIN’s mandate will require similar agreement. Unilateral attempts to change UNMIN’s mandate will be a short shrift. A similar fate awaits the prime minister’s suggestion that the mission be downgraded to a technical mission monitoring only the Maoists. It will be rejected on the same grounds as above and further there is, in fact, no such thing as a technical mission at the UN.

The second reality is that the UCPN (Maoist) continues to be part owner of the CPA. It is unclear why the Maoists would agree to fresh monitoring arrangements outside the CPA. It is equally important to understand that the Maoists agreed to UNMIN storage and surveillance of their weapons. The weapons, one likes it or not, belong to the Maoists who retain the key and the right to withdraw the weapons if the arms monitoring agreement is abrogated by the government.

The Army’s tirade does not stand up. It descends into unpleasant mendacity. Their campaign to oust the UNMIN appears unlikely to succeed. But it exposes the Army opposition to the peace process. And it demonstrates the worrying extent of military control over civilian government and the peace process that the Army is hell-bent on disrupting to realise its aims. Unless the Nepali generals recognise the reality, peace could indeed remain a pipe dream, notwithstanding all the political skullduggery in Kathmandu.

(The author is director of the Asian Centre for Human Rights)

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