By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, January 14 -- After UN envoy Karin Landgren told the UN Security Council earlier this month that the “monitoring equipment” could not be left in Nepal without an agreement, Inner City Press repeatedly asked the UN for clarification. None came.
Now it emerges that the equipment was given by India, and that India has told Nepal it can keep it. The UN has nothing to say, contrary to Landgren's speech to the Security Council, which has been widely criticized in Nepal.
Inner City Press also repeatedly asked the UN why Secretary General Ban Ki-moon jumped the gun and named Landgren as his next envoy to Burundi on December 31, while the parties in Nepal still had two weeks in which they might have made a joint request for the UN Mission in Nepal to stay.
While the UN answered that Landgren would not begin in Burundi as Charles Petrie's replacement until January 15, that did not answer the question. Why did Ban jump the gun and telegraph the UN's unwillingness to stay in Nepal, even if both parties asked?
A Security Council sources tells Inner City Press that the UN was just “sick of Nepal,” that the parties weren't negotiating and solving things. But other say this is also true to some extent in Cyprus, the Former Yuguslav Republic of Macedonia, the Middle East and elsewere from which the UN doesn't leave. The UN has been asked to leave Cote d'Ivoire, and hasn't.
So why the flight from and flubs in Nepal? Watch this site.
From the UN's January 13 transcript
Inner City Press: since there’s no noon briefing tomorrow, I just wanted to ask — one is Nepal, and the pullout of the UNMIN [United Nations Mission in Nepal] mission. There had been some discussion of leaving behind the monitoring equipment — either on a loan basis, or — what’s going to actually happen with the equipment on the 15th, given that that’s the deadline?
Spokesperson: I’ll check on both of them for you, Matthew.
But at close of business the next day January 14, no answer had been provided. Watch this site.
