The UN Secretary General was very recently in India for an official visit. Today he is scheduled to reach Honduras and he will travel to El Salvador on Thursday.
Why didn’t he bother to visit Nepal and instead delegate the task not even to the Deputy Secretary General but just to an Under Secretary General, Jeffrey D. Feltman?
Of course Mr Feltman is a very senior officer within the UN as he heads the powerful Political Affairs Department in charge of following political developments within the member states.
In different circumstances, it would have made perfect sense for Mr Feltman to visit the country but now the circumstances are quite extraordinary for Nepal at least at this juncture.
It is true that Ban Ki-moon is a globe trotter as on his agenda there is the entire world. Not that the appointments in Central America are less important. When visiting El Salvador on Thursday, he will participate in the commemorations for the 23rd Anniversary of the signing of the Peace Agreements that put an end to the bloody 12 years of armed conflict.
I am pretty sure that the celebrations in El Salvador were scheduled for a long time and I can’t imagine how complicated and how many negotiations must be happening in setting the agenda of the big boss of the UN.
Given this I feel Ban Ki -moon should have, at least, made a few hours stopover in Kathmandu to bring the national leaders the symbolic but extremely important message that the entire world has high expectations from them about the constitution.
Imagine if the Central American trip wasn’t scheduled at all. What would the Secretary General have done? Could he have spent a few days in the country and try to forge a consensus?
One deeper question: Can the UN forge a consensus on such a delicate issue of national interest?
Nepal should have probably requested his direct and personal involvement but is it really like this? I mean just imagine a country on the verge of a political crisis (here I am not referring to Nepal…): do you really think that the political leaders of that particular country would have the time and possibly the common sense to make a call to the UN Secretary General?
Honestly speaking I have no idea about the protocol, how certain diplomatic interventions can happen. Probably the UN Security Council could have endorsed or better requested a direct intervention of the Secretary General but what are his real role and power apart from the “prestige” of being the head of the UN?
How much does the UN Secretary General count? How much does the UN as a global institution count in terms of crisis mediation? Where is the UN directly involved in conflict mediation among warring parties?
Let me be clear: I do not want to underrate the terrific work of the UN.
I am sure that a huge amount of crucial and very sensitive work, in terms of political brokering within member states in situations of crisis happens behind closed doors, without much visibility. The UN has been playing a very important role in many critical crises all over the world and when it does play that indispensible role, it is certainly not too concerned about advertising it.
At the same time the UN is a weak institution and the real power does not lie with the Secretary General and his senior management team but with the five permanent members of the Security Council.
Maybe this is one of the reasons that, in general, the post of Secretary General is not a heavy weight like a former prime minister from a nation with strong global influence.
Still regardless of all these considerations, the UN Secretary General should have a stronger, though personal approach while dealing with situations similar to what Nepal is currently experiencing.
After all the office of the Secretary General represents a global institution mandated to ensure peace, prosperity and harmony among the member nations. He does need authorization from the Americans or Europeans or Russians or Chinese to carry out his job.
If Ban Ki -moon had visited Nepal, could he have tried to broker an agreement? Maybe not
I am pretty sure that there are at least a dozen countries going through circumstances similar to what Nepal is experiencing. In comparison with what is happening in Libya, Ukraine, Iraq and Afghanistan and Central African Republic, Nepal is still the good story of how a civil conflict can end.
Yet the role of the UN should be to prevent situations not yet so dangerous like Nepal from spiralling into the next big crisis.
With these words, I wish I could be totally wrong. For this reason I wish Under Secretary General Feltman my best wishes to successfully broker an agreement among the political leaders of Nepal.
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