In Conversation with Ian Martin

Transcript of the conversation with Ian Martin, former head of the UN mission in Nepal (UNMIN). 

Date: 1st of December 2023 

Time: 09:00 a.m.

Place: London

Surya: Greetings Everyone! Welcome to the very first episode of Le Réaliste. 

Today we are joined by a very special guest, former head of the United Nations mission in Nepal, Ian Martin. A very warm welcome Ian!

Ian Martin: Thank you.

Surya: Ian has had a very long career in the field of human rights and peace building. He served as the secretary general of Amnesty International from 1986 to 1992. Later, He went on to lead a number of UN human rights and peacebuilding missions. And apart from heading UN missions in Libya, East Timor, Nepal, Haiti, Rwanda, he has served in different capacities for the UN all across the globe. He was vice President for International Centre for Transitional Justice from 2002 to 2005 and from 2015 to 2018, he served as the executive director of Security Council report. He has also authored books on his experience in East Timor and Libya. The book titled “Self-determination in East Timor: The United Nations, the ballot and International Intervention” gives unqiue first hand account events in East Timor leading up to independence and the subsequent international intervention Whereas his book on Libya titled “all necessary measures? The UN and the international interventions in Libya” details his experience as the head of the United Nations support mission in Libya.

It’s my pleasure to have you here Ian.

Ian Martin: My pleasure. 

Surya: I find it really interesting that you studied Development Economics at Harvard. However, you went on to work in the field of Human Rights. What changed your mind? 

Ian Martin: I studied history before I studied development economics. And I think that's had a more lasting contribution to my thinking than the economics. But I did indeed come out of university having been focusing on development economics and went off to work as I wanted to in a country where that might be relevant to development programs. So I went to India for a year and moved from there to Pakistan, the last year of undivided Pakistan. And that really was my first experience of conflict, because I was in Dhaka on the 21st of March, 1971, which is when the Pakistan Army cracked down and the Bangladesh War of Independence began. And I then went back and worked in independent Bangladesh in its first year, 1972. So that was my first experience of political conflict. And probably that's what contributed to the direction I took later to to work for human rights. 

Surya: But you also joined active politics for a brief period of time in the UK. 

Ian Martin: Yes I came back to the UK after having worked in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and then in that period I was active in the Labour Party. I joined the Labour Party as soon as I left school and I was indeed a local councillor, elected councillor for four years in an outer London Borough.

Surya: And why didn’t you continue into active politics?

Ian Martin: Well, for two and a half years I was General Secretary of the Fabian Society which is a socialist society that tries to contribute thinking within the the Labour movement but I got pretty fed up with the state of politics at that at that time. I joined Amnesty International which reflected what was already a strong interest in my life. And once I joined Amnesty, particularly once I became its Secretary General, that really wasn't compatible with having any political profile or activities. So I didn't at that stage leave the Labour Party, but I ceased to be active and certainly to be in any way publicly identified.

Surya: So it was after that episode you served as the secretary general of the Amnesty International for six years before resigning in 1992. Why did you resign? Was there any disagreement within the organization?

Ian Martin: Yeah, I'm afraid it was characteristic of what happens in a number of nongovernmental organisations. It was essentially a difference of view between myself and the then chairperson of the International Executive Committee regarding our respective functions. But I actually continued to work as Secretary General for another year and a half after I had resigned at the request of the organisation while those issues were sorted out for the future.

Surya: Would it be possible to elaborate on what exactly the issue was at the time?

Ian Martin: I don't think it, it's either too complicated. I think it is best summed up as I summed it up, a difference of view between the chair of a voluntary board and the full-time Secretary General regarding respective roles.

Surya: And so, so it’s been long time since you started working in the field of human rights. How do you think it have evolve since you started working in the field and when you compare things what’s happening right now in this field?

Ian Martin: I was extraordinarily fortunate because I was Secretary-General of Amnesty, as you said, from 86 to 92. This was the end of the Cold War. The Cold War had made human rights work extremely contentious between East and West.

With the end of the Cold War, all kinds of greater opportunities to promote human rights opened up. I was able to lead the first Amnesty International mission that was invited to Moscow to discuss with then the Gorbachev last Soviet government. 

Parts of the former Soviet bloc opened up to Amnesty, but also it was a time when in the Arab world, when in Africa, Amnesty had much more opportunities to engage in dialogue with governments and the atmosphere within the United Nations. 

What was then the Commission on Human Rights became much more one of collaboration. Unfortunately we've now gone back a long way from that and the geopolitical situation has opened up much more conflict again around human rights issues. 

But one other thing happened which I was able to participate in after I left amnesty which was sort of taking human rights from being a topic of discussion in committee rooms in Geneva onto the ground into the field and my early UN roles were having responsibility for quite large teams of human rights officers in situations where there had been or were continuing to be major human rights violations.

So that's what I did in my first UN role in Haiti and then in Rwanda just after the genocide and indeed a role I returned to and I went to Nepal initially to establish a human rights monitoring mission for the UN. 

That was an important trend that too has become a bit more difficult. There's more sort of resistance on sovereignty grounds, United Nations missions that were given quite a strong human rights role by the UN Security Council that's now more contentious. 

So I'm afraid I think we're in a period of some regression but I was very fortunate to be part of a period when opportunities for effective human rights work were really increasing.

Surya: You just mentioned about your visit to the Soviet Union and its opening up. I’m curious about what the ambience was in the Soviet Union at the time and right after its collapse in former soviet spaces.

Ian Martin: Well, there was a major opening up You know there had been amnesty had been attacked by Soviet media as a CIA Organization hostile to the Soviet Union just as it was being attacked in, you know, Latin American dictatorships for being a left-wing organization when it criticized their their military rule But with Peristroika with Gorbachev that began to open up. We began we Amnesty International began to engage with Soviet diplomats Particularly the United Nations where we had that access.

 Eventually, they sent a deputy foreign minister to come and visit our headquarters in London and check us out I guess you should say the paving the way And then we had an official Invitation through what was called the Institute of State and Law to engage in a discussion on legal and human rights issues. So, yes, it was a period of openness, and we were able to go on and establish a little office in Moscow to promote human rights on the ground. By then, things were moving beyond the Soviet Union into Russia and the Yeltsin period.

Surya: You have dedicated yourself in this field for a very long period of time. I assume there must have been moments of highs and lows. Is there any particular moment that you would consider memorable and which evoke emotions?

Ian Martin: I wouldn't really single out any particular moment. I was very fortunate, and later on, I mean, if one broadened that question, not just to my more purely human rights roles into broader political responsibilities. I think I have to say my responsibility for heading the United Nations mission that carried out the self-determination referendum in East Timor in 1999 and paved the way to what is now independent Timor-Leste. 

That was the most dramatic and therefore emotional of my UN roles.

Surya: So most of the environment where you have worked is very precarious and filled with uncertainties and have you had any moment where your life was threatened or you felt like maybe your bodily integrity was online?

Ian Martin: The UN doesn't get asked to do easy jobs in non-conflictual situations, or at least the United Nations human rights and peace operations aren't in that context. We were in a very difficult security situation in East Timor during the run up to the referendum but also just afterwards when the Indonesian army and pro-Indonesian militia that they had created sort of wreaked vengeance on the population that had voted for independence. 14 of the Timorese staff of the mission I headed were killed. We were extremely fortunate that none of our international staff were were killed and I suppose as head of a mission you're always potentially a particular target but it was actually in Libya in 2012 when I actually had a small IED thrown under the vehicle that that I was in which fortunately was an armored vehicle so didn't do anybody any damage so you know that that possibility is always there.

Unfortunately the UN from a time when the UN flag was thought to protect those working under it has sometimes become a target in a number of situations as we've seen and many good colleagues have lost their lives in different countries.

Surya: And what motivates you to keep doing the work?

Ian Martin: I think it's extremely worthwhile work it's also extremely interesting so I wouldn't you know deny that there's a satisfaction that comes from the interest of the work but also in some contexts you know situations don't go well and all one has been able to do is to maybe achieve some improvement in the situation of individuals but in other situations and I would put certainly East Timor and Nepal in this category I think there's no doubt that the UN role has contribute to some major positive evolution in the situation of whole countries.

Surya: And so you were back in 2005, you headed, I mean you were there with the OHCHR in Nepal. I mean, what was your first impression of state human rights in Nepal and as well as in general, how did you find Nepalese people?

Ian Martin: Well I think we should put that in the context of what had been happening because we were talking about the ninth tenth year of a civil war between the Maoists and the state in which human rights had suffered greatly.

People had been killed, tortured, disappeared. The ordinary population that wasn't necessarily on one side or the other of the of the conflict found themselves trapped between it and then what added to the human rights context and indeed added to the decision to accept a United Nations human rights role was King Gyanendra’s crackdown when he introduced a state of emergency and locked up democratic politicians, civil society leaders and so on so already in 2004 there had been strong criticism and pressure on Nepal at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and then in 2005 this was just after the introduction of the state of emergency the the pressure grew there might have been a decision to have a resolution specifically criticizing that situation and establishing what the UN calls a special rapporteur on Nepal.

The government was eager to avoid that and therefore instead it agreed to the establishment of an OHCHR office and that's what I was invited to go to Nepal to head. So we came into a situation which had been a grave one, what was still state of emergency in Kathmandu, conflicts still throughout the country. 

But I'm glad to say that the decision to invite the UN to play this role and our arrival and then our reaching out as much as we could around the country certainly led to a mitigation of the situation. Obviously didn’t lead to an end in human rights abuses. 

So that was a very positive from the very beginning. One could see a positive effect on the situation and a great deal of cooperation very strongly from civil society actors who themselves had lobbied for there to be this United Nations role but also from politicians. 

So I think it's also true that the general population was very welcoming of this and so our our personnel got a very warm welcome in general from people around the country and therefore the impressions were that it was an extremely positive place to work. 

Sometimes the UN is deployed into contexts where there is you know resentment of the UN role, friction between of these and outsiders coming in wasn't like that at all in Nepal. It was really a very welcoming situation

Surya: I think we are also known for hospitality.

Ian Martin: Indeed!

Surya: But like you said that there was a possibility of appointment of Special Rapporteur for Nepal and instead the King opted for the presence of the OHCHR in Nepal. I would like to know what difference it would have made if there had been Special Rapporteur rather than the OHCHR and why would it have been more beneficial for the King to have the presence of the OHCHR rather than the OHCHR?

Ian Martin: It's a very good question, because I think if I had been advising the King, I probably would have told him that a Special Rapporteur would be less trouble than an OHCHR office on the ground. 

The Special Rapporteur makes occasional visits and then publishes reports. So from an external point of view, there's sort of strong external criticism, but the role on the ground, of course, went much deeper in terms of human rights engagement with Nepal. 

I mean, I've discussed that question with some of those from the Foreign Ministry who were advising the King. And I think from their point of view, obviously one of their jobs is to sort of ward off external criticism, so they wanted to avoid the criticism that came with the Special Rapporteur.

But perhaps they also rightly saw that a role on the ground could be more constructive, as indeed I think it was.

Surya: As soon as you took over OHCHR in Nepal. I mean, how did you proceed on the ground, like what was your kind of initial step?

Ian Martin: Yeah, I mean, I didn't take it over. I started it up. I mean, and initially with a very small team, but gradually we were able to recruit and expand until at the peak, I think we had about 120 international and national staff.

We tried deliberately to, you know, show the UN presence as much as we could around the country. You know, sometimes it wants to be discrete, but in this particular case we wanted to show that there was an active human rights role. 

The agreement that had been reached between the High Commissioner for Human Rights herself and the government of Nepal was a very strong agreement. For example, it gave the OHR office the right to visit places of detention unannounced, have access to the detainees, and we immediately began asserting that. 

At that particular time there was still quite a lot of detainees who were in army custody, not in regular civil prisons, and it's there that there had been ill treatment and torture, so it was important to assert that right of access that we had under the agreement. 

And you know we became a public voice in Nepal and you know Nepal even in the late period of the state of emergency, it still had an active media and a very active diplomatic community who had worked to help bring this OHCHR presence to.

So our public assessment and criticism of the situation was able to be quite forceful and quite well noted.

Surya: You said that you were given access to detention centers and prisons right?

Ian Martin: yeah.

Surya: What was the state of detainees at the time, especially in the military barracks?

Ian Martin: By the time we had that access, we didn't find people who were, you know, currently being subjected to really terrible conditions or torture. Some of that had occurred, certainly, but I think, well, inevitably, once those responsible know that there's an international presence coming, then the situation is improved.

And quite quickly, we were able to insist that, I mean, there was no legal provision for people to be detained for long periods in army barracks, so we were able to insist that they should be transferred to civil prisons, where conditions in Nepal were not wonderful, but they were not conditions of deliberate ill treatment.

Surya: So what kind of difficulties did you face while trying to investigate cases of human rights abuse or trying to get access to detainees? Was there like hindrance to what you were trying to achieve there? Did the army help you all out ? What kind of situation was there in overall sense?

Ian Martin: Well, no security forces are ever delighted to have external scrutiny or to open up to it completely. But I have to say, in the context of Nepal and this particular moment where OHHR deployed, we had perhaps an unusually high degree of cooperation from both sides to the civil war. 

The Maoist leadership had invited, had spoken publicly in favor of a UN role. They were seeking more international respectability, one might say, as well as alliance with the political parties who the king had ousted from their role.

So there was dialogue not only at the leadership level, but at local levels as well. The army and police, of course, have had over the years a very major role in the United Nations peacekeeping operations, very proud of that. 

They weren't therefore delighted to have the United Nations come and scrutinize them, but they definitely saw a need to cooperate with that. And the High Commissioner of Human Rights, Louise Arbour, herself on a visit to Nepal in early 2005, just before the agreement, months before the agreement, you know, had suggested that if the army continued to commit serious human rights violations, that could jeopardize their role in United Nations peacekeeping, and they were certainly very sensitive to that. So there was a dynamic on both sides of the conflict that gave us, you know, better opportunities for cooperation than I've experienced in other situations.

Surya: And how well the National Human Rights Commission was collaborating with the OHCHR and like did they, I mean to what extent did they collaborate and how well it was? and what kind of difference it made on the ground?

Ian Martin: There had already been United Nations efforts to provide support to the National Human Rights Commission before OHCHR was there through UNDP. And we wanted to, you know, play our roles so that it strengthened the National Human Rights Commission as well. 

And obviously OHR wasn't going to be there forever and what was going to be important for the long term would be an effective National Human Rights Commission. I think in the long term that did happen because some of those. who got greater experience, I mean, Nepalese who got greater experience through working with OHHR continued to strengthen the National Human Rights Commission role. But I think there was probably also some feeling on the part of the National Human Rights Commission that they were a bit pushed aside by this larger, rather large international actor.

Surya: So after the signing of the Peace Agreement, you headed the United Nations mission in Nepal but like you have said in your writings as well that it unusual of a UN mission. How exactly was that?

Ian Martin: Well let's address a little the question as to how the the mandate of UNMIN came about and it became clear that the UN was going to be asked to play not just this human rights role that OHCHR had played but a political role in supporting the peace process and a United Nations political officer had been quietly engaging with the government, the political parties, civil society, the Maoist leadership and so on. And they all saw a need for a United Nations role in particular in relation to two matters. One was what came to be called the management of arms and armies because a fundamental aspect of the peace process was that neither the Maoist army nor what was seen as the King's army should influence the constituent assembly election that was to be held under the peace agreement and the other was that the election itself of the constituent assembly should be a proper fair election which was difficult in a context where the Maoists had driven the other political parties out of a lot of the the villages and of course the Maoists themselves had not been operating above ground in the the major towns in Kathmandu. So to achieve anything like a level playing field for that election was going to be a problem. So those were two central roles. 

would have liked to see the UN more centrally involved in the actual mediation of the peace agreement but India was absolutely, I mean India was very reluctant to see the UN involved at all as it is in general in situations in what it regards as its its region and in some ways it's remarkable that India in the end tolerated a UN peace operation at all in Nepal but it was always anxious to keep it as constrained as limited as possible it saw in the end that nobody but the UN could really play the role in relation to monitoring arms and and armies. 

So that was a long process of discussion between the UN and all the actors involved even before UNMIN in itself was set up and mandated I was involved in that because the Secretary General made me his representative in having those discussions with the parties or based in Kathmandu, while the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was still under negotiation. 

So it was an unusual UN role. It wasn't a big comprehensive role, and indeed it wasn't a role that involved what the UN calls formed troops. That's to say regular troops in uniform, armed with a mandate to use force in certain circumstances. 

India absolutely didn't want that, but the Nepali actors didn't want that either. So we fashioned a mission that was rather unusual in its nature, but its actual mandate was constrained by, particularly by the Indian pressure on the Nepali actors.

Surya: Basically, it had been, so the mandate was for the management of arms and armies and as well as monitoring the election of constituent assembly. So how did the management of arms and armies went on? I remember like there was a lot of controversies surrounding the registration process of Maoist combatants and their numbers. What kind of difficulty did you face during the registration process?

Ian Martin: Well, first we should have set the context.

As I said, the principle was to keep the armies out of the political process, and that was to mean that the Maoist army would assemble in a limited number of cantonments. It was limited, but it was actually it was 28 sites, seven main sites and 21 sort of satellite sites, that the weapons would be, and the term that emerged was weapon separation. The non-Maoist parties wanted the Maoists to give up their weapons completely. Decommissioning was the term for that. The Maoists were insistent that they would not, before the election of the constituent assembly, completely surrender control of their weapons, but they agreed to their storage under United Nations monitoring, so the United Nations could blow the whistle if the weapons were removed from weapons storage containers. 

So it's a very complex agreement. There was also agreement that the Nepal Army should be monitored and should, its activities and limited number of its weapons should be also under UN storage. So all of that, that's the one aspect of the peace agreement where the UN was directly involved in the negotiations because we said, if we're being asked to monitor, we have to have a basis for that, an agreement that the UN judges is capable of monitoring. 

So that was a difficult issue. And again, we had 186 arms monitors, which is a tiny number for, as I've said, 28 now is cantonment sites, as well as responsibilities to monitor the Nepal Army. So there was then a responsibility to register both the weapons but also the individual combatants in the Maoist cantonment sites. And that was made difficult because the agreement said that those who would be in the cantonments and would be eligible for consideration for integration into state security forces or what was called rehabilitation, all of these things were very vague terms in the peace agreement, were those who had been in the Maoist Army before agreement was reached on this on the 26th of May, 2006. 

Generally, the view was the strength of the Maoist Army was seven, eight, 10,000, not more than that. But there was also an expansion of the Maoist Army in the very last stages of the conflict when I think some of the Maoist militia were brought into the Army. 

But then, when the Maoists brought people into the cantonments, lo and behold, there were 31,000. And a lot of them were very young. And again, nobody was supposed to be eligible if they'd been recruited under the age of 18.

So that really made the UN's life very difficult to register because clearly there are a lot of people in the cantonments who were not eligible to be there. And that, of course, was resented by the government, which was being pressed, not only to provide the costs of the cantonments, but also was asked by the Maoists to provide salaries for those.

So this became a major point of contention. And when the UN began verification, very first cantonment site, the UN disqualified 40% of those in the cantonements as not having been bona fide combatants who were recruited of a proper age and before the date.

That led to a big row with the Maoists, not surprisingly, and it was some time before we were able to resume verification and by then the Maoists themselves had taken quite a number of the people out of the cantonments again but the number the UN ended up with still caused controversy.

I don't think anybody entirely knows the truth of the numbers involved but unfortunately this fed disagreements between the parties as well as giving rise to I think some very ill-founded criticism of the UN for not being able to do something it clearly was not really in a position to do.

Surya: You said like there was a cut off date for the combatants to be registered within the rebel army. How did you determine, apart from those combatants who were underage, what about other combatants who were not underage but could have joined on later date. So what was the mechanism to determine whether they joined before the cut off date or after the cut off date because I feel like it would be really difficult to know that thing.

Ian Martin: It certainly was difficult yes and but I mean I should say it's a task that the UN took extremely seriously. I mean we had teams that included UNMIN arms monitors but also registration experts who were provided through UNDP, UNICEF personnel who of course were had the expertise in relation to assessing the age of children.

The nature of documentation and questions that will be asked were discussed in the Joint Monitoring Committee we had with the Nepal Army as well as the Maoist Army and you know where there was documentation obviously that was taken into account but one couldn't rely completely on either the documentation that the Maoists had issued to their personnel or birth certificates in in Nepal so yes it was very complex and and of course one couldn't guarantee complete accuracy of the of the decision-making but if there'd been more goodwill on on all sides then the UN role would have been less difficult and less contentious.

Surya: And there were a lot of criticisms as you said hurled at the UN 

Ian Martin: I know there was a lot of criticisms. Some..

Surya: I mean for instance I would like to quote from Kanak Mani Dixit. He has said that "There is no doubt that the Mission’s inability to challenge the Maoists to stand by their peace commitments contributed to that party’s obduracy, helping delay the peace process." . So how true do you think it was like UNMIN's fault and are these allegations true? It seems like they are trying to say that UNMIN was deliberately trying to favour the Maoists.

Ian Martin: It's absolutely untrue, and the record shows that, because if you go back and look at the efforts, including public efforts, public criticisms that UNMIN made throughout of the Maoists in many ways, that's not borne out at all.

Surya: So given that these kind of allegations are very common, right? Do you not think that the UN missions should also include a robust presence of media like an integrated part of its missions? For instance, you have said that in your book on East Timor you have said that the Indonesian government and the pro-autonomy element within East Timor were very active in hurling allegations against the UN mission on the ground and sometimes it might I mean in Nepal it might not be severe as far as security situation is concerned but for instance in East Timor it was the security situation was even worse. Do you not think that there should be a media, UN’s own media presence to counter these allegations?

Ian Martin: Of course there should be and there is and both in Nepal, in UNMIN and in East Timor, in UNAMET we had very strong communications teams. I mean one can always argue for more but in Nepal the media task was a very difficult one especially I mean one of Nepal's problems and that's where this criticism comes from is the sort of the domination of a very limited number of people in Kathmandu rather than the ability to reach the population as a whole which one can't do through you know,

through the print media in Kathmandu, one could only do through radio, which we tried to use quite extensively, which involves a number of languages and so on. So, you know, within what was a fairly small mission, we had an extremely active and I think very effective communications team in Nepal as we did in East Timor. 

But yes, I think that the UN rightly has continued to give more and more consideration to what it calls its strategic communications. You can never do enough, but I think we did a lot.

Surya: And during your work in Nepal did you see any moment where there was a real possibility of derailment of the peace process?

Ian Martin: Oh yes, I mean, 2007 was a very difficult year. With, you know, two phases that seriously threatened the process and in each case resulted in a postponement of the date that had been agreed for the constituent assembly election. 

The first of those was the kind of Madheshi uprising and one should also bear in mind that that was also reflected in the view of other marginalized groups that they had been rather excluded from a peace process that had been negotiated among a limited group of mainly high caste men.

So that derailed the process for a while until those issues were addressed through changes in the agreement on the electoral system and a further commitment to federalism. And then there was the point at which the Maoists withdrew from the interim government of which they had become a part and made additional demands to those they'd made previously.

And that led to another major renegotiation so so an election the election was held much later than it was supposed to be after we had gone through two very difficult periods that threatened the process

Surya: You mentioned about Madheshi Movement, I remember there was a time when there was a meeting between the UN and a cross-party group of Madheshi leaders during that time and it was the first time the issue of Madhesh was internationalized. Did you face any criticism from the Kathmandu elites for holding that meeting?

Ian Martin: It wasn't an internationalization of the Madeshi issue, it was a good faith effort by the UN to better understand the Madeshi grievances that were becoming a major obstacle in the peace process and the task that we were assisting. So yes, I convened a meeting, it wasn't just people from political parties, it was Madeshi's from all political parties, but also Madeshi's civil society with some of my staff with OHCHR personnel because we really needed to better understand what was clearly a major emerging issue. And the international community, like the Kathmandu elite, really didn't sufficiently understand or give sufficient attention to the Madeshi perspective, so that's what we were doing. It did indeed result in the Indian ambassador protesting to me that this was not something that the UN should be doing, but it wasn't a political initiative at all, it was simply the UN trying to better understand an important part of the context it was operating in so that it could do its job better.

Surya: And in your opinion what could have been the best exit strategy for the UN?

Ian Martin: Well, given that the core task of UNMIN was the management of arms and armies, the exit strategy could only be the resolution of the issues surrounding the armed personnel. 

And the problem there was that UNMIN was only given an interim monitoring role, it was not given a role of resolving that issue. And the peace agreement itself didn't resolve it, it was the area where the peace agreement was vaguest. It talked about the integration and rehabilitation of Maoist combatants. In fact, everybody understood that that meant some integration of Maoist combatants into the state security forces, but there was, I think, some promise from Girija Prasad Khoirala to the Maoists of a number that might be taken, but that wasn't defined in the agreement.

Then there was talk, too, about the democratization of the Nepal army, right-sizing, which implied downsizing of an army that had swollen during the fighting, its democratic control. None of this was defined, but there was to be a special committee, you know, so if you can't reach agreement, you agree that you set up a committee.

And then the parties didn't really want to move on the committee either. So although we were constantly pressing that the special committee should be set up, that didn't happen ahead of the election or indeed for some time afterwards. 

So UNMIN, as it were, was stuck with the role of continuing to monitor arms and the cantonments, but excluded really particularly deliberately, and this is another area where the Indian influence played a significant role, from assisting the party and actually addressing the underlying issue.

So that was the core problem. And from a UN perspective, the UN could have been much more helpful because the UN has significant experience on what usually is called security sector reform from a number of countries. 

But it's not a role that it was given. So what was intended to be a fairly short term monitoring role while those issues were addressed got strung out as the parties failed to address them.

Surya: It is really interesting that you mentioned about the peace agreement and the ambiguity with phrasing of the agreement. How important it was that the agreement should have been clear from the start on the modalities of army integration and rehabilitation of Maoist combatants? Do you think that the parties involved in the peace agreement missed an opportunity by not fielding an experienced expert on peace processes during the negotiations? Do you think that they should have taken more advice from the specialists and probably taken more time before they reached the final agreement?

Ian Martin: I could argue that both ways. Certainly if the UN had been, if there's been a context where the UN was mediating the overall agreement, almost certainly it would have tried to insist on clearer, more detailed understandings around the future of the security sector. 

But it may be that agreement amongst the parties at that point on those issues was just... Almost impossible and and it would have even derailed a peace agreement if if one had tried to insist upon that. So the other point of view could have been that it was sort of bettled better to muddle along and in the end the issues were Resolved not satisfactorily. 

I I don't think entirely satisfactorily although it was beyond my own involvement But without any return to to fighting So you can argue it either way. It would have been in a perfect world agreement on really clear Understandings of the of the way forward certainly would have made it easier for the UN to support the the process But maybe it wasn't attainable and maybe the situation needed to be allowed to evolve to a point at which those issues were eventually dealt with.

Surya: To me it seems that the UNMIN was made a scapegoat by the leaders for their own inability to forge a broader and long lasting consensus because the expectations from what you heard in the media was very high but the leaders were reluctant to grant UNMIN a wider mandate.

Ian Martin: Yes, the core problem of UNMIN was exactly that that it was extremely limited in its mandate Extremely limited its personnel. You know UNMIN would come to be blamed for anything that one of you know, thousands of people in the Maoist cantonments did, as if 186 UNMIN arms monitors could or should have monitored what was going on, you know, amongst thousands of individuals in 28 cantonment sites, I mean, 

clearly. So yes, I mean, UNMIN was trapped and that's only on the question of the conduct of the cantonments in a much broader sense. UNMIN was sort of held responsible for what didn't go forward in the peace process, although its mandate and its personnel were very limited. 

But you know, that's all right. I mean, the Secretary General Kofi Annan used to say that SG stands for scapegoat and that is kind of the UN role and what matters is not how the reputation of the UN emerges, what matters is how peace emerges and is sustained and there's been no return to fighting in Nepal and I personally look back on the UNMIN experience as one which is actually a particularly successful one in terms of the UN role in supporting a transition to peace.

Surya: There is another thing about the peace process which we haven’t touched but I would like to ask you about the issue of conflict victims which was supposed to be resolved soon after the peace agreement took in effect. Do you believe that the UNMIN or the OHCHR could have created stronger international pressure to start the process on time?

Ian Martin: I think that has to be seen as a responsibility of the parties because there were strong commitments written into the comprehensive peace agreement regarding what we would now call transitional justice, truth commission, commission on disappearances, reparations, compensation and so on.

There was a very active OHCHR role that continued well beyond the period of my responsibility. There was a very active diplomatic community that sought to press those issues. I don't think one should suggest that more international pressure would have brought that about.

I think the responsibility of that rests very clearly with the main actors who I'm afraid I don't think were really sincere in the commitments they made at the time that they made them and indeed certainly after the time I left had made very little progress and although I've only followed it distantly since it's still very disappointing that you know it's only today that there is talk of quote completing the peace process by finalizing this transitional justice provisions.

Surya: Yes, but I mean the process has not even started. It's just the TRC bill that has been passed and.

Ian Martin: Indeed!

Surya: And not even single investigation has moved forward and given the number the cases that has been filed with the commissions, I think it might take I mean a while before anything substantial happens.

: I'm afraid I think that's probably true. I mean, each actor protects its own. The army protects those of its ranks who are responsible for major violations. The Maoists protect those of their members who are responsible for human rights crimes. 

The political parties that had responsibility for the security forces when they were committing violations don't want to see too much of that opened up. Um, um, yeah, I'm afraid that the...

Surya: And during your work at the OHCHR you must have met conflict victims and what was your general overview of the situation about the state of the victims back then?

Ian Martin: Well my own period at OHCHR was a period of still active conflict so we were much more trying to bring violations to an end than we were focused on the sort of the the the eventual questions of I mean certainly we were pressing all the time for investigations but it's really in the period since my own involvement that conflict victims rightly became more organized that the UN engaged more with them as conflict victims and the transitional debate justice debate developed. 

I mean my my period I mean it certainly involved a lot of contact with victims but mainly around the issue of stopping ongoing violations rather than addressing the past. .

Surya: I would like to move on to more general questions on the current state of the UN but before that I would like to know your final thoughts on what’s happening in Nepal and if you have suggestions regarding how things should proceed in Nepal.

Ian Martin: I left Nepal at the beginning of 2009 and although I've made occasional visits since they've been purely to visit friends, not to make an assessment of the situation. So I don't regard myself as qualified to pass judgments on things now in the way that, you know, perhaps I have more confidence in talking about the period when I was living and working in Nepal. 

The one thing that I will say when I look back on Nepal is that the ultimate criterion for the success of a peace process is that people aren't killing each other anymore. It's not that good governance has been created desirable as that is. 

That's always a longer term, more difficult, imperfect task. But the fact that in many years now since I worked on the ground supporting the peace process, that there's been no resurgence of the old conflicts or at least no fighting.

I mean, conflict happens in many ways. That means I think that it is a peace process that was successful. That owes everything to the Nepali actors who came to see that as necessary and mediated it. But I think it does also owe quite a lot to the international actors that supported it and to the United Nations.

Surya: Moving on to the questions on the United Nations, a lot has changed in the past 30 years and now there has been a lot of criticism on the way UN functions. Many regard it as very anachronistic and that it is not adapting to the realities of the changes in the global order. Do you agree with this assessment and do you think the UN needs some changes? For instance when you look at the Security Council, the countries from the global south feel like they have been left out of the decision making process. Given the global reconfiguration, the global south rising up and forging their own alliances, do you think it’s time more importance should be given to general assembly rather than the Security Council?

Ian Martin: Well, absolutely, I think that the governance of the UN is anachronistic, I don't think there's any doubt about that. But first I want to say when one talks about the UN, one should distinguish different things.

The UN is its member states, it is ultimately an intergovernmental body of 193 member states and that's where we get to talking about the Security Council and the General Assembly. It's also a Secretariat, headed by a Secretary General, which under the United Nations Charter is itself an organ of the UN. 

And it's the United Nations Agency's funds and programs, UNHCR for refugees, UNICEF for children, WFP to feed people, Office of the High Commission for Human Rights and so on. So, generalizations about the UN, the UN is ineffective, the UN is doing badly, need to sort of break that down a bit because there's still an enormous amount of work, very positive work that is being done by the United Nations. 

The problem is the member states, frankly, and there's no question that the composition of the Security Council, which has only been changed once since it was established, is anachronistic. The difficulties in changing that, you know, are because there are very great differences amongst those 193 member states as to how it should be done. 

There's increasing pressure, I very much hope that compromise between different interests and points of view might be reached. I mean, everybody agrees that Africa needs to be properly represented, which it really isn't at the moment on the Council, Latin America, Asia too are underrepresented.

as against Europe which is which is over-represented. I agree myself the case of the UK and France to be two of five permanent members of the Security Council is anachronistic but but reaching agreement there is very very difficult and your question is right to imply that that place is a greater weight on what can be done in the General Assembly but the General Assembly is constrained in its powers in relation to peace and security under the UN Charter but it's also 193 member states it's not an easy body within which to reach agreement and and now the fundamental problem is the state of geopolitics. It's a state of division in the in the world and I spent three years after my last major United Nations role with an organization called Security Council report which does what it says on the tin,

reports on the Security Council, independent organization but one widely used by diplomats to follow what goes on in the Security Council. And even in my period, which ended in 2018, now six years ago, conflict within the Security Council made its decision-making very difficult, and that was even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the events in Gaza, which have been even more divisive in the Security Council.

So yes, I'm afraid we're in a very bad geopolitical moment with a United Nations system whose governance is outdated, but whose member states are finding it extremely difficult to agree on how to change it.

Surya: At the same time, even when there has been semblance of consensus within the UN, for instance there was no veto used against the intervention in Libya. However, the intervening party had no post conflict planning and it’s evident as of now Libya stands more fragmented than ever. Do you think these kind of events further erodes the confidence in the Security Council and the UN? And how do you think one can hold Security Council accountable for these kind of unwarranted developments?

Ian Martin: I mean, if one traces the divisions in the Security Council before Ukraine and Gaza, I would start with Iraq, with the illegal invasion of Iraq by the US and the UK. Then the nature of intervention in Afghanistan then then then Libya You know one can have a complicated discussion about all of them, and I worked in in Libya Libya was not a gratuitous Western intervention it was An uprising ousting a dictator Which faced the international community with difficult questions to what to do I I believe myself that the Mandate in the Security Council, 

which was not a unanimous mandate I mean you're right that it wasn't vetoed of course or it couldn't have happened But there were five major abstentions And very early criticism because the countries which intervened then in my view Exceeded a mandate that was only to protect civilians in order to bring about regime change and then we get into the question of what could happen post conflict which was a very difficult question after 40 years of a dictator who had consciously not developed the proper institutions of a functioning democratic state. 

So yes I mean the UN has fractured around these these questions and that's now made I mean Syria followed Libya and there there was no ability to reach any agreement in the Security Council as to how to address the Syria situation despite the best of possible mediators in Lakhdar Brahimi and Kofi Annan.

We're in a very difficult world for the UN to be effective but the fundamental reasons for that are the geopolitics amongst its member states.

Surya: So what kind of immediate and possible reforms might be suitable for the UN?

Ian Martin: Well I mean I think it's going to be very difficult for I mean the main that there's a thrust from countries from Africa for two permanent seats on the Security Council although they haven't agreed on what two countries would get them and then insistence from India, 

Brazil, Japan and Germany that they should become permanent members. I don't believe that's gonna happen. A revision of the Charter needs two-thirds majority of the General Assembly and then it must be endorsed by a two-thirds majority, but including all five permanent members. 

So at that point, there are vetoes. I think the more realistic route to a more representative security council is expanding the elected membership, but with longer term seats and the possibility of re-election.

At the moment, the elected members can only serve for two years and they can't then stand for re-election. And that inevitably makes them really quite weak in their capacity as against five permanent members that have big diplomatic teams, historical experience there all the time.

So I think the realistic route is an expansion of elected membership, but for longer terms and with the possibility of re-election so that... major countries, countries like India and Brazil, which and the major African countries that have a particularly strong claim to being on the Security Council can get elected and also can continue if they continue to command the support of the General Assembly.

Surya: And what do you think the effect of growing regional organizations would be on the UN?

Ian Martin: Well, that's not an entirely new issue because regional arrangements were envisaged in the United Nations Charter and what exists region by region is very different. 

I mean, Africa is the only region where the African Union itself and sometimes its sub-regional organizations have been able to play a major on-the-ground role in peace and security carrying out peace operations themselves.

Other regional organizations are much more focused on economic cooperation. Of course, Asia doesn't have a comprehensive organization. It has ASEAN for Southeast Asia. SAARC for South Asia is very limited in its nature. 

The Organization of American States is a more comprehensive organization, but it doesn't get involved in military operations. So the picture is very different to region by region by region. It's very important for the UN to work closely with regional organizations, and it has done so more and more over the years.

But one has to look at the actual capacity of regional organizations in different contexts, in different regions.

Surya: I only hope that there is a reform as soon as possible within the United Nations. But I would like to hear from you since you have so long in this field what would your advice be for the people who are looking to become practitioner in field of human rights and peacebuilding?

Ian Martin: There's no simple answer to that question.

There are many different organizations that contribute in many ways. I mean the United Nations globally, regional organizations we've referred to, but civil society organizations and you know what's effective in which particular aspects of peace building and human rights there is, so I can't sum up advice in any one way. 

other than perhaps to say that the reality is what happens on the ground, it's not what happens in meetings of the United Nations or anything else. So I said earlier that a key moment in the development of human rights was when it kind of took to the field and we were able to play an active and effective role on the ground.

I'm not saying that discussions in what's now the human rights council are unimportant but it's what's on the ground that makes the biggest difference and my advice to people wanting to work in the area is usually to try to find some opportunity to early on in their careers to engage on the ground.

Surya: And what kind of attributes do you think must be essential for people looking to get into mediation?

Ian Martin: I mean one could talk about skills but the most important thing is commitment.

Surya: Ian, I would like to congratulate you for being appointed the chair of United Nations Associations, UK and at the same time I would also like to thank you for your time today, thank you Ian.

Ian Martin: Thank you. I don't know if congratulations are appropriate. I'm becoming the chair of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Association of the UK. Today that's a voluntary role of an organization which has a small permanent staff, but I hope it can continue to play a role in ensuring the support of people in the UK for the United Nations system and also pressing the United Kingdom Government to play as constructive a role as it can at the UN, but thank you.

Surya: Once again, thank you Ian, it was very insightful talking to you and thank you to all of our viewers. We will soon be back with more contents and hopefully keep you glued to the conversations.