Editorial»
A constructive UN role
DEC 12 - When Kofi Annan’s recent viewpoint on the UN’s future appeared in the Kathmandu Post (6 December 2003) arguing why the UN was at a decisive moment in history, I felt immediately, whatever one’s opinion may be of the success or otherwise of UN operations, its refusal to acknowledge itself more as a debating society than peace broker can hardly be re-evaluated by historians.
The UN needs to practice system reforms at a more rapid pace if it is to become an effective catalyst in fulfilling the challenges of clinching the victory of decisive diplomacy after all. Having worked in the UN for some years at an international level, and also supported and interacted with Annan and some of his top advisers directly during his recent visit to Southern Africa, I know that many American system reform efforts to bring the honesty, professionalism and dedication desired in the UN have seldom come forth in practice. This is particularly true in countries such as Nepal. Many scribes share the view in Nepal, for instance that the UN is good in rhetoric but failing in action. Some even clamour that the Maoist frustrations have directly arisen out of the failed impact of some of the past UN launched projects where no results were noticed except slight improvement in human development commitment.
Yet countries like Nepal are selected by the UN as role model countries for Human Development Reports such as on Poverty Alleviation, or Botswana for its Human Development Report on HIV/AIDS. The irony is both countries have the lowest indicators in truth in their relevant ability to fight the challenge! No one likes frankness in the UN, but it is a quality worth appreciating in UN corridors these days, according to Annan himself, whom I have seen making the point in most UN staff addresses. Honesty is a virtue hard to get by the kind Annan himself propagates.
But, for all that Nepalese policy makers seem to care, with the mixed results of UN development practice in Nepal in the past four decades, peacekeeping is all that blazes a glory path of whatever remains. The Royal Nepalese Army much to the appreciation of the UN has participated in almost every single major episode in modern history. The UN’s peacekeeping operations tell a different story after all. Until the turn of the century ie, Year 2000, there were 53 such operations since the UN’s inception, 40 of which were created by the Security Council between 1988 and 2000. Then, fourteen UN missions alone were underway with about 35,000 peacekeepers having served in that one single year. Supposedly, we were hailing the new century of peace enforced by the global presence of Blue Hemets!
Well, there are considerable ongoing efforts too in areas such as refugees, human rights, poverty, preventing conflicts and children’s rights in the SAARC region, figures best represented in individual country and regional reports that at best propagate the view of individual UN specialised agencies. But let’s not have our flight of fancy get in the way of what really is happening at the United Nations at the central level. It seems these days there are a lot of recognisable former HQ personalities in places such as Kathmandu or Bangkok, hurled around by some crazy course of history that sees slimming down on excess administrative fat a criteria for change. Some of these poor souls I know as friends are actually good and constructive people. To meet the others, the less promising variety holding the more important posts, it seems you have to wait a month or more. Yes they are non-recognisable faces in the global cv marketplace. Some don’t even feel a daily obligation to duty or even keep a daily diary. Corruption is also a big buzzword in the UN system in Nepal, as elsewhere, and the less spoken the better. Could anyone be more conscientious of development practice then?
Also when Annan talks on terrorism, the world does have a common enemy in terrorism, but defining terrorism is much more difficult. The problem is that one person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. Take Nepal’s Maoists for instance, where even leftist Nepalese political parties seems to be confused on whether ill development promoted terrorism or the other way round! Many even fail to understand that it is Nepalese fighting Nepalese. So where is the talk of development then?
If indeed peace were to come to Nepal through the UN, its many organs would be an asset, not a hindrance. So say many distinguishable UN sympathetic media voices in Nepal! The UN’s disadvantage, fairly, is that it allows for many views to be aired, giving international norms a national legitimacy. If the UN fails it is because of its rules and regulations. If it fails more, it is because of the personal interpretation by some vested individuals who see no future for the world order, nor feel the responsibility of national contribution. These are the ones pulling the image of the UN since they see legitimacy of their daily function (ie, to bend the rules to their tastes) given by their job’s free wheeling mandate. Yet the UN moves on with these bad guys on board. After all we don’t want the UN merely being a roadshow, do we? they say.
When the obligatory journey to define the UN after Annan’s term has ended begins, made by various journalists and international relations state actors, one may wonder how many people will conveniently forget that their preferred option for preserving the status quo was not democracy, but more genocidal oppression. If people think the Americans are being too slow to step aside such as in Iraq, perhaps they should consider that Kosovo (also liberated by US warplanes) is still being run by the UN.
As Nepalese, terrorism has made us fearful not only of terrorist bombs but fear of losing pride in our country of birth runs much deeper than that. Could the UN work to restore peace and order in Nepal then, taking into account sentiment of national order, sustainable multi-party democracy and the positive role of monarchy? For that, the UN needs to employ more dedicated Nepalese experts who truly understand the situation at the grassroots level, not beauty over brains as some in TU’s academic community complain.
We need to consider whether the United Nations itself is well suited to the challenges ahead and positively defining its role in countries such as Nepal where peace has fallen many times over in the past seven years in its active presence. Perhaps, this is why many of us have put faith in Mathew Kahane and his core UN team in Nepal now, so that the mistakes of the past UN resident coordinators in failing to act can be rectified.Posted on: 2003-12-12 03:06
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