Opinion The foreign hands in Nepal

Last month,Ian Martin,who was assigned a mediator’s job in Nepal’s peace process as Special Representative of the UN Secretary General and first head of the United Nations Mission to Nepal (UNMIN) made some confessions almost a year after he left the country: “As the cantonments were being established in late 2006,they (Maoists) swelled the numbers there by bringing in young people,many of them minors,attracted by promises of salary payments and future recruitment into the security forces”. UNMIN under Martin was in charge of registration and verification of Maoist combatants. His mission declared that out of the 31,000 plus registered,19,000 plus were genuine combatants,another four thousand child soldiers and others disqualified on various grounds while the remaining eight thousand did not did not show up at the time of verification.

Martin kept mum all through,when questions were raised about the disappearance of these eight thousand plus ‘combatants’— much against Maoist Chief Prachanda’s assurance to the then Prime Minister G.P. Koirala — that Maoist combatants were not more than 7,000 in number. A video of Prachanda addressing his combatants way back in November 2007,boasting how the party has been able to inflate the number of combatants from around 7,000 to 30,000 and have it certified by the UNMIN,found its way to the media. Martin,who was still in Nepal when it came out,stayed silent. There is also speculation — some of it based on hard evidence — that most combatants are actually in the Young Communist League (YCL),the party’s para-military youth wing,who never went to the specially-built cantonments still under UNMIN supervision.

No one knows whether it was a revelation of fact or confession of guilt and incompetence on Ian Martin’s part,but it will have a bearing on the UNMIN’s future in Nepal,after its term expires in June. Was Martin,often described as pro-Maoist by the Nepal army,trying to silence the Nepal army by inflating the strength of Maoist combatants?

All these verified combatants,including the child soldiers are being looked after at government expense. An army loyal to a political party being raised at state expense may not be unusual in a conflict-hit country,but it certainly poses a threat to the future peace and also legitimises the role of arms in politics. Martin,in fact also admitted that the election to the constituent assembly was not all that free and fair,a fact that the donors and international communities had chosen to ignore altogether.

The UNMIN did not even wait for polling to end before certifying that Nepal’s elections were free and fair. President Carter,the leading figure of the international observers team,whose visit had been funded by DFID,breached the agreement that such a statement should come after the polls are over.

The Election Commission,especially its chief,had taken the public stand that election to the constituent assembly was part of the peace process. So the message that he was trying to deliver was ‘let us not take irregularities seriously’. In fact,he did not. Violence,obstruction of campaign and assault on candidates by various rival groups —mainly the Maoists — in more than 70 places were not at all taken seriously.

“The Maoists created their Young Communist League,not solely as a movement of law-abiding youth activists based in their own communities,but as a paramilitary formation in quasi-barracks under former commanders from the People’s Liberation Army. They used it in the contest for the Constituent Assembly election to deny other parties the space in some localities for free and fair campaigning”,Martin said in New York.

Unfortunately,all this has come at a time when Maoists’ proposed declaration of the provinces — most of them based on caste and ethnic lines — is being seen as a way of calling off the peace process. Martin’s revelations only show that the peace process — even in the best of times,when international observers were highly enthusiastic —was full of deceit,concealment and conspiracies.

araj.ghimire@expressindia.com