KATHMANDU, July 24: The Security Council on Thursday extended the term of UN´s special mission in Nepal for an additional six months, according to UN News Center. The UNSC that met at its headquarters in New York unanimously agreed for yet another extension but said it wanted to withdraw after the current term expires early next year.
The expected extension comes amidst concerns by the UN officials over the slow progress of the peace process that was set in motion after the formal end of decade-long Maoist insurgency and overthrow of 240-year old monarchy. This is the fourth extension for the special mission which was established on January 23, 2007. With this, the mandate of UNMIN has been extended until January 23, 2010. [break]
UNMIN´s existing mandate is to monitor of the management of arms and armed personnel of the Nepal Army and Maoist army.
In its resolution, the Security Council called upon all parties to "take full advantage of the expertise and readiness of UNMIN, within its mandate, to support the peace process to facilitate the completion of outstanding aspects of UNMIN’s mandate by 23 January 2010" in order to facilitate UNMIN’s withdrawal from Nepal.
It also pointed out that the current monitoring arrangements were conceived as temporary measures, rather than long-term solutions, and cannot be maintained indefinitely, and underlined the need for the government of Nepal to consider necessary measures to end the present monitoring arrangements.
It urged the secretary general to report to the Security Council by 30 October 2009 on the implementation of this resolution, and progress in creating the conditions conducive to completion of UNMIN’s activities by the end of the current mandate.
Karin Landgren, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative and head of UNMIN, voiced hope that Thursday´s resolution sends a signal to the Government and parties “to take the peace process forward.”
“The peace process has had significant successes since its inception,” Landgren told reporters in New York. But she added that several issues could derails the peace process such as polarization among the parties and the controversy over the roles of the army and the president.
Landgren said that all sides shared equal blame for the stagnation of the peace process and expressed her hope that party leaders would rise above their differences and work together pragmatically, through consensus and dialogue to advance the process, as they had done in the past.
She added the Security Council’s action had come at a time when the peace process had stagnated to a degree. She called on the government and all parties to take the peace process forward so that UNMIN could conclude its mandated tasks.
UNMIN´s own role in the peace process and its verification of Maoist army combatants has become controversial. Some contents of Landgren´s briefing to the Security Council on May 5 were not based on facts.
That briefing came after the infamous videotape of January 2008 in which Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal boasts how he fooled everyone by successfully inflating the number of Maoist combatants. An embarrassed UNMIN defended its "rigorous" process of verifying the Maoist combatants. The Maoists had claimed they had 35,000 Maoist army combatants. In the video Dahal admits the actual number of combatants was between seven and eight thousand. A verification by UN agencies, including arms experts of UNMIN, put the verified combatants at 19,602.
In his most recent report to the Security Council on Nepal government´s request for UNMIN´s extension for a further six months, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that progress on the peace process has slowed since the onset of the crisis sparked by the resignation of Maoist prime minister Dahal in early May, which occurred one day after the Chief of Army Staff – who he had fired – was reinstated.
The resolution passed by the 15-member Council today called on “all parties to take full advantage of the expertise and readiness of UNMIN, within its mandate, to support the peace process.”
It urged all sides to “work together in a spirit of co-operation, consensus and compromise in order to continue the transition to a durable long-term solution.”
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