Thoughts on the UN Secretary General’s Envoy, Ian Martin’s Proposition

UN Envoy, Ian Martin’s inability to decipher issues that pertain to the peace process and issues of a fundamental political nature is apalling! The UN’s promise to help Nepalese must be maintained in good faith and the UN must deliver on terms that do not compromise its fundamental charters.

Ian Martin’s suggestion that the UN may consider employing ex-Indian and British Gurkha servicemen in some unofficial capacity, borders dangerously on the edge of insanity. Martin's job in Nepal is as much to listen to the parties making peace as it is to give them sane advice.

Nepalis have endured 11 years of relentless violence, instigated by the Maoists. The country and the people of Nepal deserve better than a false hope of peace from the UN.

Before the peace process started, the UN was positive it could do so much and now that the process is in full swing, it can’t find the resources to do what needs to be done. This is the what the fundamental issue for Ian Martin is. The idea of employing ex-Gurkhas as a stop-gap measure is a "cheap," second-hand alternative, to Martin's lack of resources.

Hiring Nepalese (irrespective of whether it’s under the UN umbrella or not) is a raw deal that the UN is offering Nepal. It is not one that Nepalese should even consider.

While the idea of using ex-servicemen may be attractive to the GAESO (for post-retirement employment purposes) and to Ian Martin (owing to budgetary and resource constraints), it is not attractive to the overall level of impartiality and independence that a professionally conducted conflict resolution exercise, demands.

The level of technical expertise that ex-servicemen may have is not the issue of this debate. It is the fact that although these men served governments other than their own, their whole lives, they are Nepali by birth and thus are fundamentally a part of Nepal’s conflict.

Instead of acting in the capacity of a responsible diplomat, Ian Martin’s consideration of using local bodies in Nepal’s peace process (because his organization can’t foot the bill of a full, effective deployment) is robbery in broad daylight – robbery of the Nepalese peoples’ right to a professionally conducted peace process.

This is simply unacceptable. The UN’s presence in Nepal is not to generate jobs for ex-servicemen; it’s to ensure that Nepalese people get the best of what the international community can offer, to ensure that peace prevails in Nepal.

Rather than getting involved in semantic, politically motivated debates like these, Ian Martin and his team would do much better to start planning out exactly how they plan to hold the Maoists accountable for continued hostilities (even after the peace accords were signed). Martin’s team should be focusing on getting the Maoists and the government to agree upon a mutually acceptable enforcement mechanism that the UN can then carry out.

This “dog and pony show” on how capable the UN is at peace keeping is over. Now it’s time for Ian Martin and his team to deliver and it’s the responsibility of ever Nepali citizen (who has expressed undying adulation for the UN’s capabilities) to hold Ian Martin’s “feet to the fire.”

It is equally the moral responsibility of the international community to provide whatever resources are necessary to make peace prevail in Nepal. “Talk is cheap” as the saying goes and now it’s time for Nepal’s well-wishers to put money where their mouths are.

This is the bare minimum that Nepalese people deserve.