In a new Briefing Paper, Director of ICTJ’s Truth and Memory program Eduardo González Cueva analyzes the stalled process of truth seeking in Nepal.
Nepal's ten-year-long armed conflict between the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M) and state security forces saw violations of international human rights law and serious breaches of international humanitarian law.
The human cost of the conflict was stunning: some 13,000 people were killed, thousands more tortured and displaced, and about 1,300 persons remain missing or disappeared.
According to the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, between 2003 and 2004, Nepal headed the global lists of reported disappearances.
Six years after the conflict ended, and in spite of specific agreements in the peace process, the government of Nepal has failed to initiate a comprehensive investigation into the past.
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As a result, it has failed to uphold the rights of victims and Nepali society to know the truth about abuses.Inaction is particularly cruel regarding the relatives of the disappeared, for whom lack of information on the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones equates to permanent anguish and extreme suffering. |
In a briefing paper Seeking Options for the Right to Truth in Nepal, Eduardo González Cueva, director of ICTJ’s Truth and Memory program, asserts that the legislative proposals presented by the government in the last six years have been inadequate, and that the current political crisis in Nepal has stalled further progress.
The paper examines the main weaknesses of earlier proposals for truth seeking measures, and analyzes the extent to which they have been resolved, reproduced, or made worse in more-recent legislation proposed by the government. Based on this analysis, it proposes ways in which the right to truth could be advanced in Nepal.
Right to Truth is Not a Political Issue
The 2006 Comprehensive Peace Agreement formally ended hostilities, and outlined a plan to establish truth-seeking policies, based on the urgent attention to the situation of the disappeared. However, legislative negotiation of two bills, on a proposed Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and a Commission of Inquiry on the Disappearance of Persons (COID), never led to passage.
| In May 2012, the dissolution of Nepal’s legislature ended the process of drafting legislation.Though the two bills had serious flaws, they were the result of a long effort by legislators and civil society, and their derailment was a major setback. |
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In August 2012, the cabinet presented the President of Nepal with an ordinance which proposes the merger of the TRC and COID bills. The ordinance inherited many of the flaws of the earlier bills and in some cases deepened them.The ordinance was met with strong opposition by civil society and victims groups, but four months later, it remains uncertain whether it will be signed or withdrawn.
There is significant concern among national civil society and the international community that if promulgated, the mechanism established would be ineffective and inconsistent with government obligations to the rights of victims.
"Victims in Nepal have been waiting too long," said Eduardo González. "Their right to know the truth and seek redress for crimes committed against them should not be subordinated to failures of the political process."
Establishing the truth about serious human rights violations is not an issue of political expediency, but a universally recognized right, derived from instruments such as the Geneva Conventions, the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and a growing body of international jurisprudence.
Seeking Options for the Right to Truth in Nepal affirms this right and asserts that establishing a historical record of the past speaks to the integral fabric of society:
The right to the truth is not limited to individuals who were victimized and their families, but rather includes their societies: knowing the facts is part of the historic heritage of each nation, and it is a powerful tool to expose structures and patterns of abuse, honor victims, educate future generations, and prevent crimes from being repeated.
On the individual and collective level, truth-seeking can reveal about violations the missing, identify those responsible, and form a basis for sustainable peace.
Nepal should fulfill its commitments to ensure truth-seeking and not allow these and other transitional justice processes to be held hostage to the current political stalemate. Rather, the government of Nepal should act to renew its commitments and establish a consultative process to review legislation ensuring the prompt establishment of truth-seeking mechanisms to uphold the rights of victims.
In the meantime, it should also act urgently to search for and the missing and disappeared - a process which can proceed regardless of when a truth commission is finally established.
PHOTO: Victims in Nepal hold photographs of their sons who went missing in the conflict, December 10, 2012. (Santosh Sigdel/ICTJ)
