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| Kathmandu, Saturday December 21, 2002 Paush 06, 2059. |
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Serious indictment
The Amnesty International (AI) has once again
come out with damning evidence of the gross abuse and human rights violation in Nepal.
Impunity continues to reign supreme. In fact, the abuse, denial and human rights violation
has been almost a regular phenomenon figuring in the annual report of the AI. The
seven-year-old Maoist insurgency has propelled the escalation of the trend to a level
never known before.
The AI report holds both the government agencies
and the Maoists equally guilty of perpetrating the violation. Murder, persecution and
torture are the common methods applied by both sides against the other. In addition, the
Maoists continue to face the charge that they are recruiting child soldiers,
notwithstanding the denial they have issued, while some security personnel have been found
guilty of rape by the AI. In such a grave situation, it is only natural that the AI has
tried to exert its moral authority on both sides of the conflict—the government and
the Maoists—to pursue peace dialogue. For that, both sides have to uphold human
rights and humanitarian standards as necessary conditions for confidence-building
measures.
However, given the past experience of both sides
ignoring the suggestions of international bodies to adhere to international conventions on
human rights, it seems to have compelled the AI to seek a far greater UN and international
role. It has called on the UN Secretary General to step up efforts to ensure human rights,
support the development of an office of the Commission of the Human Rights with human
rights monitors given the mandate to protect human rights, besides taking effective
measures to strengthen the judiciary and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
While the AI’s concern is understandable,
more effective and sensitive agencies of the state alone would be the best guarantee for
upholding human rights in the country. The AI’s concern and pills for remedial
measures can only be secondary. The international bodies and pressure can at times play a
crucial role, but will be meaningless in the absence of a committed as well as effective
state. The NHRC, judiciary and the police, besides the security forces, have to be
sensitive towards human rights commitment and rules as a first condition for the
improvement in the situation. Secondly, the government has to be serious and bold enough
to end the culture of impunity by awarding punishment to security personnel and other
authorities found guilty of rape, and other forms of the violation of human rights.
Thirdly, the Maoists have to show to the Nepalese as well as the international community
that their politics is not an anti-thesis of everything that is human rights, and that
they have to honour all conventions and norms in a situation of conflict. A situation of
external intervention is not the ideal thing to happen for both sides of the conflict and
the country as a whole. |
