However, it surprises me that you are concerned about the monitoring of Maoist combatants after your departure. I understood from the statements of Mr Ian Martin, your predecessor, that UNMIN was never involved in monitoring. I would like to quote his statement of May 27, 2008 in which he stated "(UNMIN) does not in any way control or even observe access to and from the cantonments, nor can it monitor the conduct of 20,000 odd personnel at Maoist cantonment site and the 96,000 army personnel…".
What surprises me even more is when you raise the issue of the supervision of the Nepal Army (NA). In Nepal, as in all democratic countries of the world, we have an elected government that is in control of the NA. If the politicians, who are the elected representatives of the people of Nepal, feel the need to change how they go about it, they have legal mechanisms to do so. Should they need ideas, there are sufficient literature and examples available around the world. A book by Bruneau and Tollefson titled Who Guards the Guardians and How is illustrative of how democratic governments control the military and can be recommended for this purpose.
Another issue close to your heart seems to be integration of the Maoist combatants. I am sure that in your interactions with the said combatants you have realized that they are a politically indoctrinated lot. This is clear from the fact that the Maoists have voiced their plan to include these combatants as participants in their political plenum which is scheduled to be held from today in Gorkha. You have already gauged the implication of this action and issued a statement against it. Further, Dr Baburam Bhattarai has recently stated this obvious fact. It is an irony that an organization such as yours, tasked to play an unbiased role in helping the peace process in Nepal, sees it worthy to issue statements asking the Government of Nepal to integrate armed political cadres of one particular political party into the national security and defense bodies.
How would politicizing of these security and defense bodies help the peace process in Nepal? Besides, these political cadres are already receiving pay, allowances, housing, medical benefits, rations, etc from the taxpayers´ money. Can you think of any democratic country in the world that does this for only one political party? If the Maoists are receiving all these benefits, why shouldn´t all the other political parties demand the same? And if they do, would you advocate on their behalf too?
Last but not least, I would like to remind you of the achievements of UNMIN. One of your mandates, the only one that you pat yourselves over having succeeded, was to assist the government in conducting free and fair elections to the CA. Given the lack of security in Nepal, the fact that one of the political parties went into elections brandishing its armed wing and the fact that questions have been raised on the role of reputed international agencies, would you be comfortable when you say that UNMIN has achieved this mandate?
With all these glaring failures, how do you rate UNMIN? Would you say that it has been able to maintain the high respect that the UN enjoyed in Nepal before the arrival of UNMIN? Would you be able to justify the millions of dollars UNMIN has spent?
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