Kathmandu: Nepal has failed to ensure accountability for human rights abuses during the brutal decade-long Maoist insurgency, a global rights watchdog said on Friday, blaming the government and political parties of sacrificing victims’ needs to promote their own interests.
In the recently published World Report 2017, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) also accused the government of failing to disburse relief funds to the victims of the devastating earthquakes of 2015.
The report also said the international community remained silent on the contentious constitution drafting process as well as on the transitional justice mechanisms.
The 687-page report reviews human rights practices in more than 90 countries, including Nepal.
“Nepal made little concrete progress on justice for serious abuses committed by both sides during its civil war that ended in 2006,” the report said, adding that efforts to ensure prosecutions in civilian courts for serious human rights and humanitarian law violations during the conflict remain stalled.
Both government forces and Maoist former rebels were accused by rights activists of rape, arrests, illegal killings, disappearances and torture during the decade-long insurgency that ended in 2006 conflict that caused about 17,000 deaths while hundreds disappeared.
The report has claimed that efforts to enforce rights or provide justice for wartime abuses were stalled due to violent protests in Terai in the wake of promulgation of new constitution in September 2015.
“Every step of the way, what we see with the Nepali government and political parties is a willingness to sacrifice victims’ needs in order to promote their own interests,” said Brad Adams, HRW’s Asia director.
“This is a fundamental betrayal of the promises made a decade ago when the democratic parties wrested control from an authoritarian state, established a peace, and promised a new inclusive and just governance,” Adams said.
“It is disturbing that the government has dragged its heels on tending to urgent humanitarian needs of earthquake victims. There is no excuse for this dithering, and the government should be held accountable for this negligence,” he said.
Political instability persisted through 2016, with yet another change in government. A new political coalition, led by Maoist Prime Minister Pushpa Kumar Dahal, took over in July, offering some hope for a breakthrough in the political stalemate. It was the ninth government to be formed over the last eight years, damaging efforts to implement human rights protections.
A new constitution was adopted in September, 2015 but violent protests over the failure to address demands for greater inclusion by minority communities, particularly in the southern plains, stalled efforts to enforce rights or provide justice for wartime abuses, the report said.
Two transitional justice commissions set up to deliver justice to victims of the country’s 1996-2006 civil war received a reported 59,000 submissions, but the terms of reference of their future work remained unclear.
Source: News18