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By M.R. Josse

KATHMANDU:  Last week’s unprecedented virtual commemoration of the 75th birthday of the United Nations (UN) was a doleful occasion caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Personally, however, forlorn as it was, it offered me an opportunity to recall lingering memories of men and matters relating to Nepal’s UN association.

Since reams of lofty, learned assessments on the achievements and failures of the UN have populated much of the global media lately, I confine myself to presenting a narrower, more personal, anecdotal perspective. This is based largely on my background as someone who was privileged to represent his country for nearly five years at the UN, including two as Nepal’s Alternate Representative to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), 1988-89.

UN AND NATIONAL SECURITY

At the very outset let us trace Nepal’s interest in UN membership soon after its establishment in 1945 and understand its nexus with her traditional search for security as an independent, sovereign nation-state.

It is important to remember that apart from Prithivinarayan Shah’s signature foreign/security policy injunction for Nepal to maintain a balanced relationship with her immediate neighbours, there has, ever since, been a conscious effort to expand her international contacts.

Nepal at UN Security Council in 1988-89. Photo: MRJ

Thus, even prior to the British departure from South Asia in August 1947, she had secured recognition as an independent state from the United States in April 1947 and had established diplomatic relations with France in May 1947. Diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom had, of course, been established long before, in December 1923. In 1934, Nepal opened a diplomatic mission in London, her very first.

For all the bad press the Rana regime has received – much of it well deserved – admittedly there were some positive achievements the Rana rulers did notch up. In fact, they were savvy enough to realize the intimate link between national security and international contacts.

“Notably, even during the last years of the Rana era, Nepal wisely chose to expand ties with the outside world to, in major part, enhance her standing and visibility in the international arena.” (M.R. Josse, Nepal’s Quest for Survival, NEFAS, Kathmandu, 2020.)

Much earlier, in March 1947, Nepal participated at the Asian Relations Conference in New Delhi, and in April 1955, took part at the landmark Asian-African Conference in Bandung, Indonesia.

To return to the foreign policy contributions of the Rana rulers: “One important milestone in that regard was her initial move to secure membership of the United Nations, when Nepal’s Ambassador in London Kaiser Shumshere J.B. Rana met UN Secretary-General Trygvie Lie in New York in 1947. The latter accurately informed the former that because of Cold War politics, prospects for the same were not very bright.” (Ibid.)

“Despite that, the following year, Padma Bahadur Khatri, military attaché in London, was dispatched to New York to explore that very possibility. Nepal formally applied for UN membership in 1949.” (Ibid.)

It came through on 14 December, 1955 when, along with 15 other nations. In a message to the nation on 6 January 1956, King Mahendra expressed his gratification at Nepal’s admission to the United Nations, inter alia, expressing the hope that “playing an active role in world affairs, Nepal, too, would be able to make her own contribution towards the realization of the great objective of the UNO, to materialize the ideals of world peace, freedom and justice.” (King Mahendra: Proclamations, Speeches and Messages, Dept. of Publicity, HMG, Nepal, 1967.)

Nepal’s entry into the United Nations was an integral component of Nepal’s quest for security: she was now no longer a remote mountain country in the stagnant backwaters of international politics.

Sita Shrestha interestingly speculates, “It is quite likely that if the Rana regime had taken an early initiative in 1945-46, before the Cold War froze the issue of admissions, Nepal would have become a member of the United Nations along with Afghanistan, Sweden and Iceland in 1946.” (Nepal and the United Nations, Sindu Publications Ltd., New Delhi. 1974.)

In any case, 1955 may be rightly regarded as the year when contemporary Nepalese foreign policy began in earnest.

As I observed in my 1984 book, Nepal and the World: An Editor’s Notebook, Vol II: “All this is not to relegate to the background Nepal’s foreign relations in the era before the Revolution of 1950-51. But since her foreign relations, in historical times, were limited to contacts with her immediate neighbours – as was the case with most other countries of the world of the same period – it can be argued that  modern Nepalese foreign relations really only began from her admission to the world  body.”

Furthermore, 1969, when Nepal became a non-permanent member of UNSC for the first time, marks Nepal’s formal coming of age in international relations.

BALANCED AND MODERATE

She was elected to represent the Asia-Pacific region in UNSC for 1969-70 securing 120 votes in the General Assembly. Nepal, in the process, thus acquired international conscience-keeping functions. Padma Bahadur Khatri, as Nepal’s Ambassador/Permanent Representative, led the Nepali UNSC team with great distinction.

Nepal’s second innings as a non-permanent member of the UNSC was for the 1988-89 period. It crystallized when, on 15 October 1987, UNGA elected Nepal on the first ballot, with 144 votes. (Vide, Josse’s Nepal’s Quest for Survival for details.)

This time, the team was ably led by Ambassador/Permanent Representative Jai Pratap Rana, an experienced senior Foreign Ministry official.

Nepal’s election – twice – to UNSC in a relatively short period of time was considered quite a diplomatic feat. As I discovered, this was due to the perception of Nepal’s scrupulous adherence to a genuinely non-aligned foreign policy – neither as pro-West as, say, Singapore, or as pro-Socialist, as Cuba.

The fact that Nepal was able to maintain cordial relations with Israel and Middle Eastern states – simultaneously – was also a major contributing factor, in as much as I could gather from private conversations with knowledgeable diplomats. An ambassador of a small country indeed confided that he had been instructed to ‘go along with Nepal’ when in doubt on tricky voting options!

Was the fact that both times Nepal served on the UNSC she was a functioning monarchy just a coincidence? I will leave that to the reader to answer, but I will remind him/her that Nepal’s third bid for UNSC non-permanent membership, in 2006, was an unmitigated disaster!

She lost to Indonesia at elections – 28 against 158! – held in UNGA on 17 October, 2006. Two features are particularly notable: one that, hitherto, even as important and resource-rich a country as Indonesia had not served even once on the UN’s most prestigious organ; the other, that ‘naya’ Nepal was, by then, a republic! One wonders why republican Nepal has not made another attempt to do so since then!

I may add that Japan, India and Pakistan top the list of Asia-Pacific nations that have served the greatest number of times on the UNSC as non-permanent members. Japan’s score is eight; India will reach that number after she becomes a member for two years, beginning 1 January 2021; Pakistan has served seven times, the last period being 2013-14.

It may also be of some academic interest to recall that these three UN Secretaries-General paid official visits to Nepal: U Thant, of Burma; Kurt Waldheim of Austria; and Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru. As far as I can recall, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who also served as UN Secretary-General, visited Nepal while he was Egypt’s foreign minister.

Among Nepal’s most memorable luminaries who have addressed UNGA are Prime Minister B.P. Koirala, in 1960, and King Mahendra, in 1967.

Why King Birendra did not do so in his lifetime, I frankly have no clue. I suspect that perhaps the thinking was that it would be most appropriate for him to address UNGA, appealing to the world organization to endorse his 1975 Zone of Peace proposal, after both India and China had done so. As India refused to play ball – unlike China – King Birendra’s UNGA address regrettably did not fructify.

What did happen is King Birendra’s address to the UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC) held in Paris, September 1981. That he did on behalf of all LDCs in the Asian, Pacific and West Asian region, possibly in recognition by the UN of his well-known concern and stress on national development.

In my reckoning, the most remembered Nepalese UN ambassadors to date are Rishikesh Shaha, Padma Bahadur Khatri, Sailendra Kumar Upadhayay, Uddav Dev Bhatta, Jai Pratap Rana and Narendra Bikram Shah.

Interestingly, the last three named not merely served under Ambassador Khatri when he led the Nepalese team on the UNSC, 1969-70 but, in time, became ambassadors to the UN themselves!

RINGSIDE SEAT

Yours truly had the rare opportunity to gain valuable insights into the arcane world of multilateral diplomacy and the inner workings of the UNSC while Nepal was a member of that important UN organ, 1988-89.

Among the most significant is that the real business of the UNSC is conducted in what are called ‘informals’ – meetings away from the glare of TV cameras or myriad curious human ears. It is only after all differences are worked out – to the extent possible – that the UNSC meets in open session before the world, where members read out their carefully prepared statements before voting on the issue under discussion.

I recall one occasion, where the Brazilian ambassador sought to act tough with his American counterpart, in the informals, but soon changed his tune after – as I later learned – the US President made a telephone call to his Brazilian counterpart who then called his ambassador in New York. Result: by the time of the open debate, the Brazilian diplomat was dutifully toeing the American line.

While my UN stint was a splendid learning opportunity in drafting and negotiating changes in the language of resolutions, I believe it has helped me to better identify key issues often buried in the opaque or anodyne language of diplomacy.

Finally, I would like to conclude this story by recalling two instances reflecting the reality of membership to UNGA, even if only in the non-permanent category.

The first relates to the then Prime Minister Marich Man Singh’s phone call to me – Ambassador Rana being away from New York – wanting to know why Nepal should not/could not raise the matter of India’s ‘blockade’ in the UNSC.

While admiring his bold determination to tackle India’s bullying, I had the sad duty to inform him that only matters directly relating to “the maintenance of international peace and security” could be raised in that forum. Since India had taken care not to close off all trade/transit openings to Nepal, we could not possibly convince the UNSC that the grim situation back home was indeed tantamount to a threat to “the maintenance of international peace and security.”

The second episode, around the same time, concerns a PTI correspondent accosting me in the corridors of the UN and asking, point blank, words to the effect – “Does Nepal intend to raise the matter (implying the Indian ‘blockade’) in the Security Council”, to which I replied something like this: “At this time, we do not.”  I then directed his attention to my caveat: “at this time”.

To that, he responded something like this: “But, the Nepali ambassador in Washington (then, Mohan Man Sainjyu) told reporters that Nepal would do so.” I responded, somewhat brusquely, that “in all matters concerning Nepal and the United Nations, it is Nepal’s Permanent UN Mission in New York, not the Embassy in Washington, D.C., that speaks authoritatively.”

The principal lessons from the above are (a) that while there are clear limits to what a UNSC member can or cannot achieve, (b) the very fact of membership is a valuable diplomatic asset as a deterrent against those who do not have the best intentions.

Nepal did not bring up the matter before the UNSC. That Nepal was a UNSC member not only enhanced her international visibility and prestige but provided her valuable diplomatic protection.

The writer can be reached at: manajosse@gmail.com

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