Interview with Ian Martin, head of UN human rights monitoring

Agreement was reached between the United Nations and the government of Nepal on 11 April 2004 to allow United Nations human rights monitoring in the country. Ian Martin arrived in the capital, Kathmandu on 7 May to head the new Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Nepal. With over 30 years experience in human rights, Martin has led significant missions to conflict-ridden countries like Rwanda, Bosnia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and also recently to Darfur in western Sudan. He spoke to IRIN on Tuesday about the challenges facing him and his team, in launching a human rights monitoring operation in Nepal. QUESTION: Your arrival has brought a lot of hopes for human rights protection. Are we expecting too much? ANSWER: I hope that we can fulfil the expectations, although one must be realistic about what a limited number of people can do. Monitoring human rights and humanitarian law in a conflict situation is inherently very difficult. But so far I’m getting assurances of cooperation that suggest that our work should be able to make a real impact. Q: Can you tell us about your mandate? A: There is a very clear agreement as well as assisting the development of local capacity. As per our mandate, we will certainly assist the national human rights commission and of course, civil society organisations. Ultimately, that is where the protection of human rights depends. But in the meantime, we also have a mandate to do independent monitoring of the human rights situation and have very strong commitments to having complete freedom of movement and access to places of detention, as well as high-level channels of communication with the authorities including the army. That puts us in a position where we ought to be able to be effective. Q: What challenges do you foresee? A: One of the challenges is going to be able to carry out independent objective investigations as a result of reports of violations of human rights and humanitarian law. But our responsibility is not just to depend upon reports from others but to assess those ourselves. Access is difficult in the terrain to get promptly to places where incidents have occurred. So it’s not going to be easy always to carry out the investigations first hand we want to carry out. I certainly see that as a challenge. In an armed conflict and highly politicised environment, it is not easy to ensure that we approach things with the standards of testing the credibility of information that the UN must apply. Q: What will be your priority? A: Our immediate action is to open the channels of communication which I have already begun doing in discussion with the government and to begin to assemble the team that we need, then orient and train the first of the human rights officers to join this operation. People have to understand that it takes time. We are a functioning team. Once we can open offices in other parts of the country we will start to function from there. How soon we can do that, also depends on how quickly the donors are willing to give resources that are necessary for this operation because it is dependent on voluntary funding. Q: What would be the profile of the independent monitors? A: We won’t be able to find people who have both previous experiences in human rights investigation/monitoring and are fluent in Nepali language. We would like to recruit some Nepali speakers as human rights officers and we are also giving some basic training in Nepali to those who have arrived. But we also need to have the assistance of interpreters. Q: So when will the deployment start? A: Our initial team (about 12 monitors) is already here and as soon as they complete their training, we will begin to operate. The UN has already begun to operate and has a human rights presence through the human rights advisor and the human rights information unit that is being established. We will be operating at the initial level from next week. Q: How would the monitors operate in Maoist controlled areas? A: We clearly need to get some guarantees there won’t be any threat to our personnel moving around the country and there have been public statements that indicate support for the operation. So we’ll have to test that out. My expectation is that all parties will cooperate with this operation and guarantee the security of our personnel. Certainly the international community would be very concerned if that was not going to be that case. Q: Do you think the operation will help towards negotiations in future? A: I have been making very clear that my mandate is confined to that of human rights monitoring and assistance, but I certainly believe that if we can contribute to an improvement in the human rights situation that can be a positive factor in the overall path to peace. That’s been the experience in other countries. So, it’s not my mandate to explore possibilities of negotiations. However, the [UN] Secretary General has made it clear on a number of occasions that the United Nations is willing to offer its services to assist towards peace. But that is not my mandate. My mandate is to contribute to an improvement in the human rights situation. Q: Where will the monitors be reporting to? A: Our report will go to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, and she is asked in the agreement to report to the General Assembly and of course the Secretary General. Q: Will you be opening up previous investigations as part of the operation mandate? A: I wouldn’t separate monitoring from investigation. I think we have quite enough to do addressing the current situation and fresh reports of incidents rather than open up retrospective investigations. But of course, one of the objectives is to address impunity and therefore, the extent to which there is proper follow-through on investigations into past incidents is very important. Q: How long do you expect the mission to remain in Nepal? A: The agreement is initially for the period of two years but it is renewable, so it becomes a matter for discussion between the High Commissioner and the government of Nepal. As we come towards the end of that two-year period let’s see what’s the situation is at that time.