Nepal 113

A peace accord in 2006 saw the effective cantonment of the Maoist army in seven main cantonment sites, each with three satellite sites spread strategically, from the Maoist perspective, around the country. While the violence of the civil war ended, the peace accord had been anything but comprehensive and left scope for prevarication from all sides in addressing the detail. With their surprise electoral success in 2006 the Maoists found themselves in a dominant political position. With support of a UN Political Mission, UNMIN, an Interim Constituent Assembly was established, originally for a period of two years, tasked with the drafting the national constitution and the delivery of the peace process through the integration of members of the Maoist army into the National army, or their ‘rehabilitation’ into civilian society. The Maoists objected to the term disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR), as they considered it to represent a process in which a defeated force would surrender and hand up their weapons. The term ‘Integration and Rehabilitation’

was accepted. A UN supported registration of Maoist troops in the cantonments in late 2007 identified 24,600 cadres of which 4,008 had been under 18 years of age on the date of recruitment or had been recruited after the cease fire. Close to 30% of these were female. Both the underage and the late recruited groups were considered ineligible for either integration or rehabilitation support, and as such,

113 The author was Senior Advisor Rehabilitation with the UN in Nepal from 2010 to 2012 and much of this section on DDR in Nepal is drawn from his memories, contemporaneous notes, occasional and End of Mission Reports.

the term “unqualified” was applied to them. Unfortunately, this translated into Nepali as something closer to “inadequate” and contributed to an enduring sense of injustice and marginalisation amongst the unqualified groups. The UN lumped both groups together and required the Maoists to remove the total of 4,008 from the cantonments. In an environment of political stalemate and Indian pressure in mid-2008 the Maoists ceded political power back to the pro-Indian parties (Seven Party Alliance) and move back into opposition. To December 2009 the Maoists maintained their cadres in the cantonments when they decided under international pressure that it was time to release the under-aged and late recruited (verified minors and late recruits, VMLRs) cadres. The majority of the VMLRs were minors, classified as child soldiers in the context of the Paris Accord, grouped together with the late recruits, were now expected to be ‘rehabilitated’ through reintegration back into the depressed socio-economic and feudal environment of their home communities. The UN Country Team insisted that it was necessary to offer support to the entire group of 4,008 VMLRs in rehabilitation into the community and in finding education, skills training or entrepreneurial opportunities for sustainable livelihoods.

The government felt that this group was not entitled to any support and the Maoist leadership felt that the benefits being proposed by the UN were insufficient in considering the kind of promises that they had been making and the expectations created amongst their cadres. Both disowned the process of rehabilitation support to VMLRs, leaving the UN on a solo run.

Thus, in March 2010 in collaboration between four UN agencies, UNDP, UNICEF, ILO and UNFPA, the UN Integrated Rehabilitation Programme (UNIRP) was developed to support the rehabilitation of VMLRs.¹¹⁴ It was hoped that successful support to VMLRs would encourage the remaining 19,600 Maoist cadres in the cantonments by demonstrating that rehabilitation into the community with sustainable livelihood was feasible.

VMLRs were generally unhappy to be forced from the cantonment. In Nepal’s feudal cast-based society, the poor youth were at the lower end of the pecking order. Having contributed to ‘a successful revolution’, having achieved a level of self-actualisation and having lived in a relatively egalitarian environment in the cantonment for up to five years, return to a society that had not progressed significantly was a retrograde move. Girls especially experienced difficulty returning to their communities. Mixed cast-marriages had been encouraged in the cantonment, taboo in society that considers that they (girls in particular) had been living in a promiscuous environment. Further, many

114 The official launch, in accordance with the funding period was in June 2010

young girls returning with children resulting from those mixed-cast marriages were finding a level of rejection from both their own families and their new in-laws.

These challenges were coupled with the high expectations that were created prior to departure from the cantonment with cadres believing that having sacrificed for the revolution, they were entitled to permanent high-level jobs. The UNIRP programme design was limited by the Ministry of Finance that the value of the ‘package’ to the VMLRs could not exceed the total value of compensation paid to the families of 2^nd level martyrs, approximately US$1,300. Within this limitation, the UNIRP could offer career counseling, guidance towards an optimum personal livelihood sustainability enhancement in education, skills training or micro-entrepreneurial development, limited psychosocial counseling and support particularly in addressing gender constraints to participation and some job-placement support.

The programme did manipulate some additional benefits beyond this limit such as daily hot food to enhance the package.

In this challenging environment, with some direct Maoist leadership obstruction of the programme, just over 50% of the eligible VMLRs entered the programme. With a manageable number, despite volatile conditions, UNIRP was able to attempt to develop excellence in delivery in several areas.

These included in improving career counseling, addressing gender constraints, health support and job placement support. By early 2012 more than 60% of graduates of UNIRP were engaged in sustainable livelihoods.

Despite considerable challenges, both national and institutional, the UNIRP has achieved extraordinary results and is recognized in the DDR community of practice as offering many examples of good practice.¹¹⁵ The implementation was supported by the mainstreaming into the routine management system of an effective Dynamic M&E Strategy incorporated into a Comprehensive Rehabilitation Information Management System (CRIMS) that pulled together quantitative and qualitative programme information to facilitate dynamic adjustment of implementation, manage expectations and to encourage improved levels of national ownership of the processes.

UN engagement in and influence on ensuring a human security approach to the rehabilitation of the 19,600 combatants who remained in Maoist cantonment has been prevented by macro-political influences and the assertion of a brand of national ownership that addresses narrow political interests in Nepal. As the dust settles on an imperfect politically driven process, cash lump sums are distributed to ex-combatants and as development partners scurry for engagement, the UN may yet have a damage

115 Irma Specht, Independent Evaluation of the UNIRP, Nepal, Transition International, Feb 2013

limitation role in picking up the resulting human debris in polarized communities and in reintroducing a people-centered approach to post-conflict rehabilitation in Nepal.

The UN experience of attempting to support the delivery of DDR in Nepal offers new considerations and reinforces many lessons learned in other environments offering considerable potential for contributing to the evolving theory of DDR. Here we review the most relevant and replicable lessons learned or relearned in Nepal.¹¹⁶

i. The planning environment

a) The CPA is only the beginning of the solution

The planning process for Integration and Rehabilitation (I/R) was greatly complicated by the ambiguous political environment in which the national adversaries assumed the provisions of the CPA as the starting point of negotiations for the details of the I/R process rather than an agreed position.

b) Absence of UN political leverage in Nepal post-CPA

The absence of political leverage by the UN, both the DPA Mission, UNMIN and the development agencies, which were largely overshadowed by the regional macro-political environment, undermined the capacity of the UN to insist on the application of international principles in planning and delivering an effective rehabilitation of ex-combatants or in a credible SSR process. The impact of this may have been underestimated at the outset.

c) UN responsibility to maintain a Human Security approach

While bilateral (diplomatic missions) partners have tended to focus on supporting their regional partners in exercising spheres of influences, prioritizing short-term political progress benefiting the political elite beyond the concept of longer-term human security, the UN in pursuing the rights/needs based commitments of the Charter must maintain its advocacy for solutions that contribute to longer-term human security.

d) The option for Cantonment should be undertaken with caution in DDR processes

One lesson from international practice of DDR relearned in Nepal is that challenges associated with operating cantonments for combatants, particularly before formal disarmament is undertaken, can outweigh the benefits. They can give rise to major security threats in that they offer a concentrated target; a consolidation and training opportunity to cantoned units that may delay implementation of the peace process and they are costly in human resources, materials and finance. As such, cantonments

116 These lessons are adapted from End of Mission Report by Senior Rehabilitation Advisor. Molloy, “UN Senior Rehabilitation Advisor, End of Mission Report”, March 2012

periods, where they are essential, should be as short as possible. In Nepal the existence of sustainable cantonments contributed to a political stalemate.

e) Investment by the International community in combatants in the cantonments was counter-productive

International support to sustainability of the Maoist combatants through infrastructural and educational investment over an extended period in the cantonments was contrary to international DDR principles and most bilateral funding rules, and may well have contributed to lengthening the political stalemate by reducing the pressure on the Maoists to leave the cantonment.

ii. UNIRP

a) A UN owned process…

It was a radical move to launch the UNIRP in the absence of national ownership. While this is contrary to international principles of DDR it does not constitute a failure as it permitted humanitarian commitment to a very vulnerable caseload, a record of this commitment and the establishment of a tenable moral position for the UN.

c) Absence of base-line data

The absence of sufficient baseline data on the ex-combatant caseload (socio-economic profiling, a process that was obstructed by Maoist leadership) and the labour environment (labour market analysis, local, national and beyond, as relevant) into which ex-combatants must reintegrate is a serious handicap for planning a reintegration process. This constrained the capacity of the UNIRP to design the optimum training options and support systems that would accurately target both the needs of the labour market and the capacities and aspirations of the beneficiaries. It led to a time lag in improving the delivery of the programme that was addressed through the implementation of a dynamic M&E system. The omission of adequate base-line data remains a recurring failure in DDR programmes.

d) A community-based approach-

The UNIRP failed to programme a robust community-based approach citing the wide geographical spread of participants and budgetary constraints. This failing was somewhat addressed though the inclusion of peace-building activities (engagement of the VMLRs with CBOs, women’s groups and youth groups in collaborative social, cultural and sporting activities) and improved outreach of necessary services to families of participants as the programme progressed. This failure at the outset to emphasise the community-based approach; a programme approach that would ensure the participation

of the community in all aspects of the programme design, implementation and as beneficiaries, was a shortcoming that should be avoided in future.

f) Emergency and development approaches give rise to intra-institutional tensions

DDR is usually an emergency programme operating in a dynamic and evolving post-conflict environment where rapid response is required to exploit short windows of opportunity to capture short-term objectives. This environment favors some degree of substance over form, i.e. moving rapidly with imperfect documentation to achieve results rather than waiting to ensure perfect documentation, and a level of political risk-taking. Development agency prerogatives on the other hand, must consider the longer-term political impact of actions and favor a nuanced and perfectly formed approach to interaction with political entities and the public of the host country. This is particularly so as regards both public information and relations with the host government. In the complex political environment in Nepal, and a very cautious attitude by the UN Resident Coordinator, Head PBRU, UNDP tightly managed these matters. The constraints that were placed on the DDR practitioners in the area of public information and dealing with GoN in this risk-averse environment led to considerable response-time delays and frustration. With greater latitude for the DDR practitioners, it may have been possible to deliver a more responsive public information capacity and better relations with MoPR leading to an enhanced public narrative regarding the UNIRP.

g) The importance of collaboration with Parallel Programmes

While tentative efforts were made to develop synergies through collaborating with parallel programmes purported to offer support to the war-affected communities or supporting youth employment, being implemented by GoN and bilateral development partners, the initiation of such collaboration did not materialize. Many excuses can be posed for this failure. It will be wise to reconsider the impact of this omission and to ensure political and institutional will for such collaboration that can optimise the outcomes of peacebuilding and development investment in the future.

h) While context matters, the IDDRS are relevant

A primary lesson learned in the planning and delivery of the UNIRP is that the lessons learned in global practice concerning DDR and its cross-cutting issues, and codified as a tool-box within the IDDRS, are relevant to the I/R environment in Nepal. However, IDDRS does not offer a template for application in Nepal. Innovation has been necessary in addressing a unique environment with specific political, security, economic and socio-cultural facets. The UNIRP has lessons to offer international

practice, particularly in the areas of Dynamic M&E, gender specific support, electronic information management and the innovative use of technology; psychosocial support and job placement support.

iii. Rehabilitation of Ex-combatants in Nepal

a Regional politics and the loss of the Human Security Approach

Both the regional powers and the United Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M) have concluded that a lump-sum cash payment to combatants in the cantonments will achieve their differing objectives. Ostensibly, for India this may be that cash payment will rapidly dissipate the numbers of Maoist combatants in the cantonment; for the Maoist and perhaps also China, it will strengthen the political position of the UCPN-M while moving the political process in a direction that the international community will support. A people-centered approach under the overarching philosophy of Human Security has been abandoned. While bilateral and diplomatic partners may focus on short-term political progress, it is essential for the UN to advocate a rights/needs based approach to the reintegration of ex-combatants in compliance with the provisions of the Charter, and expressed within the Human Security concept. In addition to considering the rights/needs of the individual ex-combatants, this implies a broader community-based approach.

b) Shift from a narrow focus on Ex-combatants

The Maoist leadership has manipulated the combatants in the cantonments as pawns in a political power play since the signing of CPA. The rehabilitation of the VMLRs was an exceptional obligation to a specific group (the VMs) that fell to the UN and has been dealt with in an appropriate manner as a benchmark on the path to peace. Following the payments of lump sums to ex-combatants or their absorption into the NA, the exceptional treatment of Maoist ex-combatants is no longer justified as a critical element of stabilizing the peace process. Any further benefits to ex-combatants must be in the context of contributing to broader community development.

Can the theory be applied? The experimental environment in Nepal UNIRP suggests that it can, to some degree! The big failing in Nepal UNIRP was in its incapacity to apply an effective community-based approach to the socio-economic reintegration of VMLRs. This was because of the political, budgetary, geographic and time constraints, the absence of base-line data to support optimal programme design and particularly in the absence of economy of scale. The small scale of the programme did permit the incremental scale-up, as a result of an effective dynamic M&E system, of some of the lessons drawn from the evolving theory and offer examples of good practice in the areas of

gender perspective, psychosocial support and job placement support. In a complex political environment in Nepal and in the absence of national buy-in to the process precluding the development of an effective integrated communications strategy, winning the positive perceptions and attitudes of either the caseload of ex-combatants or the community was a major challenge.

However, the evolving theory, comprising of a critical analysis of the collection of lessons learned on good practice, must be viewed as offering overarching philosophy to guide implementation decision-making.¹¹⁷ Each context has its specific limitations that requires a process of triage in deciding which elements of the theory must be sacrificed in favour of strengthening elements that are more important, i.e. prioritisation.