UN's Nepal Envoy Dismissive of Protests, Says Child Soldiers Never Fought

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, January 23 -- The UN's envoy to Nepal Ian Martin again painted a positive picture Wednesday to the press, saying that this week's protests against the government's fuel price hike should have no bearing on holding elections in April unless communications are disrupted, and saying that even those child soldiers the UN has found were, in fact, never combatants, but were "late recruited" after the fighting was over. So has the UN taken any steps to hold those who recruited these under-aged soldiers accountable? Apparently not. Video here, from Minute 41:03.

      As is his job, Martin also underplayed the UN's stand-off with Nepal and India about UN humanitarian staffers meeting with Nepalese rebel in India, using visa that even the UN's humanitarian chief acknowledged were improperly obtained. Martin said that both governments understand, and that the incident has had no impact on UNMIN's mandate or the government's view of it. "It is not unusual to have a certain amount of negotiation around the fine print of a resolution," he said. But compare the draft (Page 1 and Pages 2 & 3) to the final resolution, with for example the statement on UNMIN's police-training role clipped out.  Inner City Press' coverage was picked up thrice in Nepal.

Ian Martin, in his element

     The draft also urged the Secretary-General to pay heed to the views of "all parties," which was switched to only listening to the Government of Nepal. The obvious explanation is many Council members' view that the UN should listen to governments, not their opponents or competitors. The unique current twist is the UN's insistence that a request to investigate the murder of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan is only a legitimate request if it comes from the executive branch of the government, that is, Pervez Musharraf, as opposed to the PPP political party. The UN, it seems, is moving away from the term "all parties," with its double meaning of political parties.  We'll see.

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These reports are also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

  Because a number of Inner City Press' UN sources go out of their way to express commitment to serving the poor, and while it should be unnecessary, Inner City Press is compelled to conclude this installment in a necessarily-ongoing series by saluting the stated goals of the UN agencies and many of their staff. Keep those cards, letters and emails coming, and phone calls too, we apologize for any phone tag, but please continue trying, and keep the information flowing.

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Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

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