UN dept asked to send Major Basnet back

KATHMANDU, Nov 27: Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) on Friday demanded that the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) repatriate Major Niranjan Basnet, who faces a court suspension order, from the UN peacekeeping mission in the central African country of Chad. [break]

Maina murder-accused in UN mission

UN takes up Basnet case

"This raises serious questions regarding the process of nomination of officers to the UN peacekeeping missions and the candidate verification procedure of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) based in New York," AHRC said in a statement on Friday.

The statement of the regional human rights commission comes two days after myrepublica.com broke the news about Basnet serving in the UN mission in Chad despite his suspension by Kavre District Court for his alleged role in the torture and subsequent killing of 15-year-old Maina Sunar. The case dating back to February 2004 is one of the major human rights violations of the conflict period, and it raised national and international concern. Basnet´s status as a blue helmet was not known till myrepublica.com ran the story. The UN´s DPKO based in New York has already taken up the Basnet issue.

"The appointment of officers to the UN peacekeeping mission requires the candidates to be nominated by their government. The nomination of Basnet for a UN mission raises serious concerns regarding the internal procedures followed by the government of Nepal in nominating candidates for external missions. It also shed doubts regarding the professional integrity of the military as well as government officers in Nepal, involved in the process," AHRC said in its statement.

It has also questioned DPKO´s faulty vetting process. "While the government is responsible to guarantee that the nominees are of high moral and professional integrity, it is equally the responsibility of the DPKO, the UN agency that processes the nominations, to make sure that the candidates posted in the UN missions are not fugitives trying to avoid convictions in their jurisdictions," the rights body further said.

DPKO cannot be absolved of responsibility for having erred in accepting Basnet as an officer for serving in an important UN mission. It cannot wash its hands of the matter by merely blaming the government of Nepal for nominating a suspected criminal and asking the government to recall the officer, it further said.

"The DPKO has the responsibility to immediately withdraw the suspected officer from active duty in Chad," AHRC also said.