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December 2006 -January 2007
23 January 2007 - Political mission established to support the peace process in Nepal.
 The Security Council unanimously authorized the deployment of UN political mission in Nepal, UNMIN, with a one-year mandate to monitor and assist in critical aspects of the peace process aimed at ending a decade-old civil war in the Himalayan nation. These include the monitoring of combatants and their arms during the runup to upcoming constituent assembly elections through which Maoists insurgents intend to peacefully enter the political mainstream. The deployment of UNMIN responds to a request for U.N. assistance from the two parties to Nepal's Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in December of last year -- the Government and Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). Even as the Council moved to authorize UNMIN, a team of 35 advance monitors was already on the ground in Nepal where UN-supervised registration of Maoists arms and combatants (pictured above) got underway on 17 January under the guidance of the Secretary-General's Personal Representative in Nepal, Ian Martin. In addition to arms and armies monitoring, the Security council mandated UNMIN to assist in the planning and monitoring of the Constituent Assembly elections as well as the monitoring of cease-fire arrangements. The request for U.N. assistance to the peace process in Nepal followed several years of diplomatic contacts with all of the relevant parties in Nepal, managed by the Department of Political Affairs, as well as the work of the Personal Representative of the Secretary-General, deployed in August 2006 with a mandate to facilitate agreements between the parties.
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9 January 2007 - Security Council briefed on DPA support to elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
 Contributions from the UN and the European Union to the historic elections last year in the DRC were noted in a Security Council briefing at which the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Ibrahim Gambari, pledged continued assistance from the Department of Political Affairs. Also addressing the Council were Jean-Marie Guehenno, the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, and Javier Solana, the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union, which funded a key electoral assistance project and also sent troops to support UN peacekeepers in providing security during the voting. DPA, through its Electoral Assistance Division, provided advice and support last year to both DPKO and MONUC, the UN peacekeeping mission, as they carried out, along with UNDP, the largest electoral assistance mission ever conducted by the United Nations. Follow-on local elections scheduled to begin in the second half of 2007 will require continued UN assistance. Looking back on the achievements to date, USG Gambari told the Council: “These elections have resulted in the establishment of the first democratically elected national institutions in over four decades, and of this we can be justly proud. However, much still remains to be done.”
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12 December 2006 - UN to help Guatemala fight criminal groups
 In a step to help Guatemala battle criminal groups who have become a threat to human rights, the U.N. Secretariat signed an agreement with the Government of Guatemala to establish the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, an independent body whose commissioner is to be appointed by the Secretary-General and report periodically to him. The agreement was negotiated by the Department of Political Affairs and signed in New York by the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Ibrahim Gambari, and the Vice-President of Guatemala, Eduardo Stein. Under its terms, the Commission will have an initial two-year mandate to investigate the existence of “illegal security groups and clandestine security organizations” and to assist Guatemalan justice authorities in carrying out criminal prosecutions against them. Pending its approval in the Guatemalan Congress, the Commission will be established with an initial two-year mandate to carry out its own investigations and to assist Guatemalan institutions, particularly the Office of the Public Prosecutor. The existence of illegal armed groups is considered a legacy of the Guatemalan armed conflict, which was brought to a close in 1996 through UN-brokered peace agreements. “With this agreement, the United Nations is standing by Guatemala as it tries to solidify democracy and the rule of law by exposing and dismantling criminal groups that grew out of the armed conflict,” Under-Secretary-General Gambari said.
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