United National Under Secretary General for Political Affairs B Lynn Pascoe said UNMIN is being blamed for the failure of political parties and cannot take responsibility for their inability to adhere to the peace agreement. Nepalnews reports:
He claimed the remarks [made by government ministers and top politicians] over the performance of UNMIN in the ongoing peace process and that allegations that UNMIN was to blame for the complications seen in the peace process were “false” and that the political parties are putting all sorts of blame on the Maoists to cover their mistakes and failure to fulfill their responsibilities.
“UNMIN is here to help…but it can’t take the blame for those who can’t shoulder the responsibility of successfully concluding the process a success,” Pascoe said.
The government had accused UNMIN of being uncooperative for withholding information about Maoists combatants. About the controversy, Pascoe said:
Referring to Nepal government’s request to UNMIN to provide information on Maoist combatants in the cantonments, Pascoe bluntly said that the actual number of Maoist combatants can’t be shared and it will remain a secret.
He said the information on the combatants should be kept secret as per the understanding reached between the government and the Maoists and that UNMIN will honestly abide by it (the understanding).
Pascoe said UNMIN does not have the responsibility or capability to do any police work in Nepal. If it is constantly dragged into controversies, the Security Council would be forced to think about whether its mandate should be extended, he added.
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In a world where everyone talks about openness, transparency, full information and so forth how come information about combatants are supposed to remain a secret? It’s understandable that personal information cannot be made public. But it should be in “classified section” of government’s information system. However, non-personal information, such as the number of combatants, their gender, home-districts etc surely is a matter of public interest and should be released! Secondly, if it is true that the govt signed an agreement to hide such information, then what kind of idiots are those who signed such an agreement? Just another evidence of what a flaky, flawed piece of work the so-called “Peace Agreement” was!