Addressing Nepal's Wartime Tragedies

The End of the War

Nepal faced the most bloody times in its history during the decade-long armed struggle that started in 1996. Over thirteen thousand lost their lives and millions were displaced.  With the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the State and the Rebels by then Head of State Prime Minister Late Girija Prasad Koirala and Maoist Supremo Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda, our country has entered a transitional phase at which the terms of state restructuring and lasting peace are still being discussed. The State has since then entered into dialogue with numerous other armed outfits which have submitted arms as a result of various agreements and the deals that were made.

 

We are in a phase now where the issues of the past have still not fully been resolved and efforts are being made to move the country into a peaceful future by resolving the myriad of issues related to the armed conflict and the various movements. One constituent assembly has given birth to another and the progress has been rather tricky and slow.

Our Context

There are various factors that play a role in the transitional justice after a conflict. One of the key factors is the conditions in which peace has been achieved in the society. The approach to transitional justice in a society in which the authorities won over the rebels will be surely different from the approach that is applied in societies where peace is brought about through the process of dialogue between the warring groups. In Nepal, the Government and the Maoist Rebels agreed on a 10 point agreement they signed on November 2006. Some of the points of the agreement that need special mention regarding the peace process and conflict resolution are copied below:

............................................................................................................................

5. Ceasefire

........................ 

5.2. Ways of normalising the situation: 

..............................................................................

5.2.3. Prepare the details of the disappeared persons or those killed in the conflict with their real name, surname and residential address and publicise it within 60 days from the day of signing this agreement and inform the family members of concerned persons.

5.2.4. Both parties agree to form a National Peace and Rehabilitation Commission to initiate process of rehabilitation and providing relief support to the persons victimised by the conflict and normalise the difficult situation created due to the armed conflict.

5.2.5. Both parties agree to form a high level Truth and Reconciliation Commission on mutual understanding to conduct investigation about those who were involved in gross violation of human rights at the time of the conflict and those who committed crime against humanity and to create the situation of reconciliation in the society.

5.2.6. Both parties vow to renounce all forms of war, attacks, counter-attacks, violence and counter violence existing in the country and commit to guarantee the democracy, peace and progressive changes in the Nepali society. It has been agreed that both parties shall help each other for maintaining peaceful situation.

5.2.7. Both parties guarantee to withdraw accusations, claims, complaints and under-consideration cases leveled against various individuals due to political reasons and immediately publicise the status of those imprisoned and immediately release them.

5.2.8. Both parties express the commitment to allow without any political prejudice the people displaced due to the armed conflict to return back voluntarily to their respective ancestral or former residence, reconstruct the infrastructure destroyed during the conflict and rehabilitate and socialise the displaced people into the society.

5.2.9. Both parties agree to take individual and collective responsibility of resolving, with the support of all the political parties, civil society and local institutions, any problems arising in the aforementioned context on the basis of mutual consensus and creating an atmosphere conducive for normalisation of mutual relations and for reconciliation.

5.2.10. Both parties express the commitment not to discriminate against or exert any kind of pressure on any member of the family of either side on the basis of them being related to one or the other side. 

.......................................................................................................................

Thus we see that peace has been achieved in our country largely by agreements and not through aggression. This demands a similar approach towards the approach to transitional justice to move the country towards lasting individual and national reconciliation and eventually, peace and progress.

 Common Sense

This does not however mean that we should not be blinded by the past and the proceedings to meekly think that the killings of the unarmed men and women, sons and daughters will not hurt if the past is just forgotten. Some components of common sense that can not be compromised are the issues of the investigation of each of the past human rights deprivation, identifying the individuals and the intentions behind those instances and procuring peace at the hearts of the victims or their families and preserving and enhancing peace in the nation as a whole.

 

The first process in the delivery of justice in the post conflict era in our situation is obviously the classification of the Human Rights issues. However the prosecution of general people as sympathizers and informants had formed blur lines between political punishments and outright human rights atrocities. Yes, there were instances where the motive was truly political. And yet, there were other instances where local leaders of each side acted out of their personal hatred to specific (groups of) people. One such case which has divided the nation is that of the murder of Krishna Prasad Adhikari of Gorkha whose parents are on fasts-onto-death demanding justice for their son. The fact that very few people know the actual details of the events and that the issue constantly shakes up the political sphere reminds us of the complexity and the sensitivity of matters like these.

Similarly if we wish to classify the individuals into the perpetrators and the victims we see an interesting reality shaping up. For example, although the whole country was affected by the conflict the major groups of the victims  that were directly affected and the perpetrators that were directly involved were:

The Victims

1. The General People who had nothing to do with any parties but were ambushed, trapped in arial raids, arson or bombings.

2. The General People who did not carry or use arms but were labelled informants by either sides.

3. The Soldiers who died defending their country against the Rebels or who died for the 'Revolution'.
4. The Intelligentsia and the Officials and the Leaders who did not use weapons but provided the theoretical and strategic support to either the state or the rebels through their expertise and experience.

The Perpetrators

1. The Armed Soldiers who carried out executions and torture.

2. The Local Leaders of the Army of both sides who masterminded and/or ordered torture and executions.

3. The People who sided with one of the warring or the political parties and gave key information about the hideouts to the army or security forces of their liking.

Through the above examples we see that a large chunk of the population which made up the direct victims could have as well been the perpetrators. This reality places us in a difficult situation. Thus, without proper understanding of the local context labeling any incident as political or criminal by any law made from the top might turn out to be disastrous and may in turn trigger anger and further violence.

The Step Ahead

Trials and Amnesty are broad approaches to the post-conflict era in any nation and are generally held as direct predecessors of Justice and Peace respectively. 

Experience has shown however that the best approach is a spiral of both these approaches with priority aligned towards one of them according to the case at hand so that Justice and Peace are both achieved and neither of them is eliminated.

There are issues which are best solved by the community because communities at local level include both the perpetrators and victims and also the witnesses of the cases of human rights violations. And the communities are best suited to both understand, decide and act according to the actual situations on the ground.

There are issues which should be solved by the bigger political sphere. Some issues may not only be solved by the communities not only because a small community has limited resources but also because decisions on some issues have implications that hold significance far wider than in the community directly involved.

Guided by the norms of a participative Truth and Reconciliation Committee, each of the instances of the wartime human rights abuses should be carefully studied by the communities and the state.The focus of the Transitional Justice should be on the victims, the families of those killed, disabled or displaced during the conflict. They should be taken care of by the state wherever necessary. Some of it has already been done in the form of a lump sum payment. However, a more stable source of socioeconomic empowerment should also be added to help the families sustain. It is important that the perpetrators genuinely apologize to the victims and their family members for all that they did during the war, for any reasons, and ask for forgiveness. And gestures of respect like memorials and commemorations also help. And yet, until the truth about each and every individual and incident is not honestly spelled out, it will never be possible to compensate for the loss of an innocent person by an economic stimulus or by tears shed in remorse alone, the family members just want to know the truth about their beloved ones. In the end, it is not about forgetting, rather it is about forgiving.

It is now time that the political leaders shed their partisan masks and rather prove themselves as national leaders by not protecting a criminal just because he/she belongs to some party but by protecting the innocent witness; by not fueling rampant impunity but by helping rule of law and unity.

It is also time that we as a society work hard to remove the cycle of chronic poverty, inequality and despair that eventually nurtured violence. The civil society should also help protect and promote peace while on its mission to prevent such atrocities of war in the future. Together though we may not remove all scars but we surely can do a great deal in healing the hearts.

Jay Desh!