Where Are They?

FROM GORKHAPATRA

By Nandalal Tiwari

Recently, different human rights organisations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), made public a list of those who were made to disappear during the 10-year armed conflict, from 1996 to 2006. They have shown that the whereabouts of nearly 1,300 people are still unknown. Of course, this is not the first time that the human rights organisations have come up with a list of the disappeared and demanded that the government take the issue seriously as well as steps, including setting up of a powerful commission, to establish the status of the disappeared. However, successive governments have so far been trying to evade the issue.

Cases of disappearances

The act of disappearing people started after the government began arresting people suspected of being members or sympathisers of the CPN-Maoist that launched an armed rebellion in February 1996. There were cases of disappearances during the 30-year Panchayat period, too, but they were few compared to the insurgency period. The numbers suddenly increased after the army was deployed to quell the insurgency in 2001. This is made clear by the National Human Rights Commission, which in 2005 said that it had received nine complaints of disappearance in 2000 whereas the number rose to 584 in 2003 alone.

A committee formed after the reinstatement of democracy in 1991 under the chairmanship of Hiranyeshwor Man Pradhan, who was additional justice of the Supreme Court, had submitted a report to the government a year after. This is the first committee in Nepal’s history set up to probe into the disappearances. The committee had probed into the cases of 61 persons who were kept in custody and made to disappear for acting against the partyless Panchayat system. The committee had reported that 37 of the disappeared were killed in custody whereas the status of the 26 persons remained unknown. The committee had recommended that the government take action against the security personnel involved in the act of disappearing. Unfortunately, the government never took steps to that effect, instead it promoted those police officers found guilty by the committee.

With the escalation of cases of disappearances by the state, the families of the disappeared had held a fast unto death in 2004, demanding that the government make the status of their kin public. Following it, a committee was formed under assistant secretary Ram Gopal Malego of the Home Ministry during the premiership of Sher Bahadur Deuba. Although the committee made public a list of the disappeared many times, it never showed the status of those disappeared. It only made public the names of those who were taken into custody and then released. The other committees formed later, including one headed by Baman Prasad Neupane, now Defence Secretary, fared no better.

Thus, not a single committee formed to investigate into the disappearances during the armed conflict has been effective. The reasons being that, first, the government was insincere; second, the committee lacked specific power; third, there was lack of legal provision; fourth, the security wings were unwilling to admit their mistakes and bring the guilty to book.

It is obvious that the previous governments never wanted to work towards making public the status of the disappeared. Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai in 2000, for instance, in response to a query about the whereabouts of Milan Nepali and Dandapani Neupane, had bluntly admitted, “They have been killed.”

The NHRC mentions that both the army and police act very irresponsibly in relation to its queries on disappearances. It must be noted that the ICRC in Nepal had stopped working on disappearances in 2004, on the ground that the government and army refused to cooperate. A report of the UNOHCHR in Nepal in 2006 on the disappearances of the 49 people held at the Bhairabnath battalion barracks at Maharajgunj in Kathmandu also stated that it never got any response from the army. The government had labelled the CPN-Maoist a terrorist organisation in 2001and imposed a state of emergency and enacted the Terrorist and Disruptive Act to curb the rebellion. This Act was instrumental in enabling the security mechanisms to arrest any individual and keep him/ her in detention for a year without observing any legal procedures that included notifying the family members or the human rights organisations. This Act was scrapped only in 2006.

Facts, fiction and fate

Maina Sunuwar, a girl of 15, was arrested from her home at Kharelthok in Kavrepalanchowk district on the morning of February17, 2004 by a covert team dispatched by the Birendra Peace Operation Training Centre in Panchkhal. Under the pressure of the HR organisations regarding her whereabouts, the army first stated that she had been shot dead while trying to escape at Hokse area. But later on, after a year, it admitted that she had died of electrocution and been buried at the Centre.

At midnight of July 15, 2004, a team of the army took away Sarala Sapkota from her home at Jeevanpur-1 of Dhading district. Her father tried best to locate her status, but got himself detained. However, on January 11, 2005, a team of the NHRC accompanied by forensic experts exhumed a human body from a field near Sarala’s village. Sarala’s relatives as well as the villagers were sure that the skeleton was that of Sarala. However, the NHRC wanted a DNA test and sent the sample to India, but there has been no report on the findings.

Krishna Sen ‘Ichchhuk’, the then editor of Janadisha’ daily and a renowned literary figure, was arrested on May 20, 2002 at Naya Baneswor in Kathmandu. He was detained at the Mahendra Police Club. Eyewitnesses say he was badly tortured. He died five days later and was cremated at Pashupati. However, the government then claimed that he was killed in an encounter at Gokarna, north of Kathmandu.

The ways ahead

The CPN-Maoist, now the party in the government, and the then government headed by

Koirala had agreed in the Comprehensive Peace Accord to set up a Commission of Inquiry to investigate into the disappearances and make public the status of those who were made to disappear. However, two years have elapsed since then. In addition to the unwillingness of the previous governments, the commission was not set up due to the deficient legal framework. Therefore, the government should immediately make the necessary legislation to that end.

In the meantime, it is imperative that the government provide relief to the families of the disappeared. And the relief should not be less than it provides to the families of those who were killed during the period. In fact, it should be more because the families of the disappeared have suffered more. Sphere: Related Content