The UN Security Council was told Tuesday that Nepal presents a "discouraging picture" because of the "real" risks to the peace process from the continuing conflict between the government and Maoists and the unresolved national leadership, dpa reported. The UN special envoy for Nepal, Karin Landgren, told a council meeting that Nepal was "on the brink of an uncertain and dangerous constitutional dilemma." Landgren's descriptions of the political landscape in Nepal were stronger in language than a report by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made public Friday. Ban said he would prefer to draw down the UN mission in Nepal (UNMIN) because it has been made a "scapegoat" for the failure by the government and Maoist forces to settle their dispute. The current UNMIN mandate expires on September 15. The Nepalese government wants the Security Council to renew UNMIN's mandate, but lift its monitoring of the national army and only focus on the Maoist rebel leaders. Maoist leaders objected to the suggestion. Nepal's leaders blasted Ban's report. Its ambassador to the UN, Gyan Chandra Acharya, attended the council meeting to denounce the report. "We would have liked to see the report more balanced, nuanced and reflective of the correct assessment of the situation on the ground in its entirety," Acharya said. "It is important that we have a well- rounded view of the situation based on accurate assessments." Landgren repeated and expanded on the UN report when she addressed the council. She said the deadlock in forming a power-sharing government in Nepal has kept critical decisions concerning the country "in limbo." "The biggest risk of all may be that the peace process and parliamentary processes appear discredited, sending a discouraging signal to existing and emerging groups about taking the democratic route to push for change," she said. She said ascribing the blame to the UN was not a new phenomenon, except that it has grown "incrementally and in intensity." Ban has said the UNMIN mission has had positive effects, saying its 250 international and local personnel have contributed to defusing tensions and disarming the two sides in the Himalayan nation. "On the other hand, its seemingly indefinite presence may be taken for granted, and the mission is repeatedly made a scapegoat for matters which lie beyond its mandate," Ban said last week. UNMIN was commissioned in 2007 to oversee Nepal's peace process. Its mandate was extended for the sixth time in May 2010. The country is under a caretaker government after Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal resigned in June. Maoists waged a decade-long war in Nepal to establish a communist state, in which nearly 14,000 people died. Over 19,000 Maoist combatants currently live under UN supervision in seven cantonments across Nepal. The country's legislature has failed seven times this summer to cobble together a new government.
