From Nation Weekly

INVOLUNTARY DISAPPEARANCES
JOHN NARAYAN PARAJULI Tuesday December, 21 2004
Source: NATION
Nepal’s escalating internal conflict has earned the country many worldwide top-tens, including that for most disappearances—cases where people are deprived of their liberty unlawfully and are without access to the justice system.The National Human Rights Commission says it has documented 1,430 cases of disappearances, both by the security forces and the Maoists. Other rights organizations say that, on average, one person disappears each day, mostly into state custody: The actual number could be many times higher. Many families don’t report disappearances for fear of being targeted again.The disturbing pattern of disappearances has been on the radar screens of the U.N. High Commission for Human Rights and other non-governmental organizations for quite some time. Members of the U.N. Human Rights Working Group are in Kathmandu to gather firsthand information on the alarming human rights situation after local human rights activists asked them to intervene. Although the group can’t impose legal sanctions, the fact that it is here to assess the situation, say rights activists, will put pressure on the government and security forces to discharge their obligations under international conventions.On the last International Day of the Disappeared in August, the working group made direct reference to Nepal’s growing numbers of disappearances. “The working group expresses particular concern over reports received from reputable non-governmental organizations on the situation in countries such as Nepal, Colombia and the Russian Federation,” a statement said. “While in 2003 the working group transmitted 18 cases of alleged enforced or involuntary disappearances to the government of Nepal, in the first half of 2004 this number had risen to 130.” The group set up by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in 1980 has taken up 50,000 cases of alleged disappearances with over 70 governments. It was established to assist the relatives of those who have disappeared in ascertaining their fate and their whereabouts and to act as a channel for communication between the families and governments concerned. The U.N. group notes that involuntary disappearances infringe upon an entire range of human rights embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in other major international human rights instruments. It describes enforced disappearance as a serious crime with severe consequences for victims, for the relatives and friends of the victim, and also for entire societies and for the credibility of states. The alarm bells on Nepal’s rights records now seem to be ringing continuously.In October, the Asian Human Rights Commission, a Hong Kong-based rights group, called for urgent action to stop massive cases of disappearances. It said that hundreds of people, including children, have disappeared in Nepal, that authorities have taken no action to stop the situation and that the perpetrators have absolute impunity. More innocent lives will be lost and the country could record one of the worst cases of disappearances in the entire human history if nothing is done to arrest the problem.Rights organizations, both national and international, say the rule of law has collapsed and that Nepal has failed to discharge its obligations to its citizens in accordance with the international conventions. The scale of disappearances is shocking.“This is a dangerous trend,” says Shiva Hari Dahal, president of Peace Campaign Nepal and a member of the Civilian Probe Committee on Disappearances. Rights activists say that supporters of the victims’ families have also been threatened. The government has revealed the whereabouts of only 30 of some 800 people allegedly detained by the security forces. The Army, however, claims there are no more than 50 individuals under detention. “The Army is committed to human rights,” says the RNA spokesman, Brigadier General Deepak Gurung. “We are investigating cases of human rights violations and extra-judicial killings and compensating those affected.” The Army in its recent press briefing said it has freed more than 1,000 private individuals after interrogation. It also claimed that it has punished 105 security personnel accused of human rights violations. But it denies having the alleged detainees in its custody. Human rights groups fear that many of them may have been killed.Amnesty International’s recent report says that it has, to date, documented a total of 622 cases of disappearances by the state. Rights activists have been demanding that the government make public the whereabouts of all illegal detaintees. Following a hunger strike by relatives of some of those who had gone missing in the third week of June, the Home Ministry formed a five-member probe committee under Joint Secretary Narayan Gopal Malekhu to investigate the cases. After three months of investigations, the committee came up with 30 names. Rights organizations lament the increasing tendency in the government to stonewall the allegations. They say the government probe is inadequate and incomplete. “Without an independent probe commission investigating the cases of disappearances,” says Hiranya Lal Shrestha, a member of Civilian Probe Committee on Disappearances, “it is highly unlikely that any government committee will provide factual statistics on disappearances.” The committee has documented 1,705 cases in total—1,193 by the state, 449 by the Maoists and 63 by unidentified groups. Among the reported cases, Kathmandu, shockingly, has the highest cases of disappearances, more than one individual per day. “It doesn’t appear that the government is serious about improving the human rights situation,” says another member of the committee, Padma Ratna Tuladhar. Local human rights activists are increasingly asking the international community to pressure the government.With the arrival of members of the U.N. working group, the rights groups hope the government will be forced to act more responsibly. Recently the New York-based Human Rights Watch sent a fact-finding team to Nepal and lobbied the U.S. Congress to pressure Nepal to do something about the poor rights situation. The U.S. Congress has now tied human rights strings to its military aid to the Army, and for the first time in two years, the Army’s chief met officials from the National Human Rights Commission. He had repeatedly declined to do so prior to the Human Rights Watch visit. “This visit will also have an impact on the government’s modus operandi,” says Dahal. That should also apply to the Maoists, who seemed to have upped the ante since the Dashain ceasefire came to an end.