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.
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.
And see, www.innercitypress.com/un7nepal052208.html
