Humanitarian re-orientation needed, says UN official

A top UN official has called for a refocusing of UN agency efforts to avoid a further deterioration in the condition of civilians in conflict-ridden Nepal. Speaking to reporters on Friday in New York, Dennis McNamara, the UN's Special Adviser on Internal Displacement, said that the human rights situation was "extremely serious" and a "reorientation from development to humanitarian programmes" was a priority. "That's what we're urging our UN agency friends to do; to re-orientate," he said. The first challenge would be for aid agencies to deploy a significant field presence outside of the capital Kathmandu. "Many [international NGO] agencies are captured by Kathmandu," he said, explaining that the government authorities had limitations on the number of international NGO staff based in Nepal. "We need to lobby [the authorities] on this as it is unsatisfactory," he added. McNamara travelled to Nepal this month to review the status of people displaced by the nine-year conflict between the Nepalese government and Maoist insurgents. Local human rights NGOs claim that up to 200,000 people are internally displaced, while up to 2 million Nepalese are believed to have fled or migrated to India in recent years. "If this is roughly right, then it's a major displacement of people," said McNamara. While exact figures were difficult to ascertain, the displacements were directly or indirectly conflict-related, he maintained. "We've heard reports that younger Nepalese were moving due to forced conscription. In some areas, up to 80 percent of the local population has left over the years," he said. The Maoists imposed nationwide blockades at will, with the exception of the Kathmandu Valley, which remained under control of the government. In rural areas, the civil administration was living in military compounds and was ineffective, the UN official explained. Local and international human rights groups share the view that more must be done to stem the violence in Nepal. Director of Watchlist on Children in Armed Conflict, Julia Freedson, told IRIN in March that civilians were caught between both sides of the conflict. "All imaginable violations against children are happening. Young people are suffering violations of their rights by both parties to the conflict. People are accused and counter-accused by the Maoists, and then the Nepalese government, and then threatened by both," she said. Families were too scared to send their children to school for fear of being detained or caught in the crossfire. "Children go elsewhere, or to India, often in dire circumstances and are exploited," she said. Freedson considered that the Maoist blockades and the declared state of emergency would further reduce access to rural areas, and she looked to the international community to help "end the spectrum of violations committed by both parties to the conflict". "The UN needs to respond to what is an emergency situation, and address the human rights and humanitarian situation in the rural areas. It has been operating for so many years in a development mode. This is a chance for the UN to demonstrate a capacity and willingness to step up to the challenge," she said. A step in this direction may have already been taken. McNamara told reporters that a groundbreaking agreement on deploying human rights monitors to both sides of the conflict had been reached on 8 April in Geneva. However, he stressed that in recent months the emergence of armed vigilante groups in the rural areas was an "alarming development", underlining the fact that civilians were caught up in a no-win situation. McNamara said that humanitarian action should not supplant sustained political action, as was so often the case in past crises, nor should it detract from putting pressure on the authorities to do more for the displaced. "In my view, there needs to be more sustained effort to get key resolutions negotiated. Humanitarian action is not a solution, it's only a palliative," he said.