By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS
Kathmandu : With only over two months left for the UN’s role in Nepal’s peace process to end and the world body showing a desire for greater involvement, Maoist guerrillas have ruled out extending the scope of the UN Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), saying Nepal’s people, parties and the government were capable of taking the process further.
“The UNMIN was mandated to oversee the unification of the Maoist army with the Nepal army,” former Maoist minister and legislator Dev Gurung told IANS.
“We are against the widening of the mandate. Restoring peace and stability is a political issue that has to be resolved through dialogue between Nepalis, Nepal’s parties and the government.
“If we fail to achieve it ourselves in future, then we may call for a mediator or facilitator. But such a situation has not arisen yet,” Gurung said.
In January, Nepal’s government, which was earlier opposed to involving the UN in the peace process, agreed to do so on the Maoists’ insistence.
The UNMIN, headed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s special representative Ian Martin, was asked to manage the arms and armies of the Maoists’ People’s Liberation Army (PLA) as well as the Nepali Army and observe the constituent assembly election.
However, though UNMIN’s tenure ends on Jan 22, three of the seven camps in which the PLA have been staying since the signing of a peace pact last year are yet to be verified and no work at all has been done to verify the Nepali Army, let alone begin the process of merging both armies, said Gurung.
“The UNMIN work pace had been slow,” he said. “It couldn’t complete its work in a year. Now it is trying to persuade the government and parties to have its mandate extended.
“While we are ready to approve a further extension of four to six months, we are however opposed to giving it further responsibilities.”
According to UNMIN chief Ian Martin, some of the political parties as well as international donors want it to have a role in improving the security situation in Nepal.
The Maoists feel that is a ploy to deploy UN peacekeeping forces in Nepal though Martin denies it.
“Though Martin says he doesn’t mean bringing in peace-keeping forces, what else can the extension of the UNMIN role in security mean?” Gurung said. “We feel the current employment of UN civilian personnel to oversee the arms and armies management is sufficient.”
Martin says UNMIN doesn’t have an exit strategy till a long-lasting solution is found for the Maoist combatants.
However, the proposal of merging the PLA with the Nepali Army, to which the Girija Prasad Koirala government agreed to get the Maoists sign a truce, is one of the biggest obstacles to the peace process.
The army has reservations about such a merger and the government too has not been sincere in finding a quick solution.
“We urged the cabinet repeatedly to begin the merger,” Gurung said. “The government delayed it, the prime minister delayed it and the UN delayed it.”
The Maoists are also aware of the reports that said UN officials had met the leaders of an armed group of former Maoists secretly in the Indian state of Bihar.
“If the reports are true, it constitutes an uncalled for intervention in Nepal’s internal matters,” Gurung said. “They have assumed a political manadate that was not given to them.”