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In Nepal, Killing in Cantonment Site Called
Criminal by UK, Child Soldiers "Put to the Side"
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at
the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
May 22 -- Protests have shut down Kathmandu following the
killing of businessman Ram Hari Shrestha in a Maoist cantonment site in
Nepal.
These sites are monitored by the UN Mission in Nepal, but UNMIN chief
Ian
Martin on Thursday said that all the UN is monitoring is the weapons
storage
facilities, not those who wielded and may wield the weapons. When Inner
City
Press asked Security Council President John Sawers about the protests
and the
killing, he said it is not surprising that in Nepal there is
"occasional
violence, criminal violence." But abduction and killing in a military
camp
overseen by the UN is not the ordinary crime. Martin says the Maoist
are
cooperating with the investigation.
Inner
City Press asked Martin about the UN's own investigation of the deadly
crash of
its helicopter earlier this
year, and UN personnel's blocking of journalists
from filming, and seizure of their film. Martin said this was only to
stop the
photographing of remains before they were covered, and that the work of
the UN
Board of Inquiry is still ongoing. He stated that an earlier emergency
landing
which Inner City Press asked about had been "minor," and had been
reported to Nepal's Minister of Civilian Aviation. Video here,
from Minute
38:10.
UN copter in Nepal: this photo survives, investigations pend
Asked
about UN reports of continued failure to release child soldiers, Martin
acknowledged that the issue had been "put on one side during the
election" in Nepal. But now UNMIN is winding down. Who will follow up?
Inner City Press asked Amb. Sawers about child soldiers in Nepal, but
this part
of the question was no answered. Video here,
from Minute 3:45.
Martin
said that consideration of Nepal by the UN Peacebuilding Fund will have
to
await the formation of the new government. Video here,
from Minute 42:33. Click
here for Inner City Press' coverage of Burundi, and disagreements
between
Burundian officials and the Un on the need for aid. If Nepal, as
Ambassador
Sawer said, is to be a UN success story, the funds and proper
investigations
better be forthcoming. We'll see.
* * *
These reports are
usually 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
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[at] innercitypress.com
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