UN organizes mission to help peace pact in Nepal

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 11: UN officials seek Security Council authorization today for a new mission in Nepal that includes 186 military monitors to help enforce a peace pact between the government and Maoist rebels.

The council last month approved an advance group of 35 monitors in response to formal requests from both sides that the United Nations intervene immediately to monitor disarmament of the rebels and make sure the army stays in their barracks.

The Maoists and a seven-party government in November signed a peace accord declaring a formal end to a decade-old conflict in which more than 13,000 people died, up to 5,000 civilians disappeared, children were recruited in the war effort and sexual violence was common, UN reports say.

The Nepalese clamored for United Nations intervention, according to Ian Martin, the special UN representative for Nepal. ''Seventy percent of the population wanted a UN role in the peace process and it gives us real leverage with both sides,'' he said.

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has fielded an operation in Nepal since May 2005 and has some 60 employees on the ground. UNICEF intends to beef up its operation to protect children damaged in the war. The United Nations also is sending election officials to help with a poll later this year for a constituent assembly.

The new UN operation, which the Security Council is being asked to approve, is called the UN Mission in Nepal and is to be established for a year at the outset.

One task of the human rights monitors is to promote a criminal justice system that is accessible to all, including the Dalits, considered untouchable on te Hindu caste ladder, women, survivors of sexual violence and the rural poor, according to a report from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon prepared for the council. But unclear is how perpetrators of the war crimes would be brought to justice.

During the conflict, most government functions ceased in many parts of the country wedged between India and China.

''Close to 70 per cent of village-level administrators were displaced,'' the report said. ''To date, the Nepal police have only re-established some 300 out of roughly 1,300 pre-conflict stations and posts.'' Nepal's Maoists and the government have a power-sharing pact and agreed on an interim constitution.

REUTERS