NATIONAL 6 -(Spotlight Weekly)]

The Most Dangerous Profession?

Amnesty International condemns the Maoists' targeted killing of teachers

By A CORRESPONDENT

Muktinath Adhikari, acting headmaster at the Panini Sanskrit Secondary School (named after one of the great scholars of Sanskrit), was teaching at his school at Duradanda in the western district of Lamjung on January 16 when a group of four "revolutionary" Maoists tied his hands behind his back and took him about 200 meters away.

There he was tied to a tree and shot in the abdomen. He died on the spot. Adhikari, convenor of Amnesty International's local group in Lamjung, was also a member of Nepal Teachers' Association affiliated to the ruling Nepali Congress party (NC). His "crime": refusing to give "donations" to the Maoist insurgents and continuing to teach a subject "banned" by them.

Hundreds of miles to the east, Harka Raj Rai, headmaster of Chisapani High School at Kaule village, in the eastern hilly district of Khotang, was abducted on the same day by members of the Khumbuwan Liberation Front (KLF), affiliated to the CPN (Maoist). He was shot dead later that day.

These two tragic episodes were neither the beginning nor the end of the story. On January 12, the Maoists killed three people, including Top Bahadur Subba, a teacher at a village in the eastern hilly district of Tehrathum. On the evening of January 11, Tek Bahadur Patangwa, a teacher at Janata Secondary School, in nearby Taplejung district was among four people killed, reportedly by a group of around 35 Maoists who had entered the house where they were sleeping.

A classroom : Is teaching becoming hazardous?

On January 6, a group of Maoists entered the home of Rameshwor Pokharel, the headmaster of Sharada High School in Khoplang, Gorkha district — considered a Maoist stronghold ó and attacked him. The victim's relatives said the rebels broke his leg with a hammer.

Shiva Prasad Adhikari, 28, a teacher at Pancha Kanya High School in Hansapur village in the same district was brutally attacked in his school. He died while undergoing treatment at the Bhacchek Health Center on December 17 last year. On December 23, 2001, the Maoists hacked off the hands of Khem Bahadur Rana, the headmaster of Bahakot High School in Syangja district.

Twenty eight teachers have been deliberately killed by the Maoists so far — nine of them since the state of emergency was declared in late November last

year — and dozens of others have been maimed, said Amnesty International. In a public appeal addressed to the leadership of the CPN (Maoist), the London-based human rights watchdog condemned in the strongest terms the recent execution-style killings and maiming of scores of teachers, including Adhikari, in Lamjung.

Since the breakdown of a cease-fire and peace talks between the government and the Maoists and the subsequent declaration of the state of emergency on November 26, 2001, the human rights situation in this Himalayan kingdom has deteriorated fast, accompanied by an increase in reports of human rights abuses by the army, police and the Maoists, Amnesty said.

The organization has repeatedly appealed to the Maoist leadership to uphold minimum humanitarian standards such as those contained in Article 3, common to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, which prohibits governments and armed opposition groups alike from torturing anyone, from killing people taking no active part in hostilities, from harming those who are wounded, captured or seeking to surrender, or from taking hostages.

More than six years into the "people's war", the insurgency has affected life in almost all of the 75 districts of the country. In more than 60 districts, people have died in the context of the "people's war". In addition to conducting armed operations against the army, police and socio-economic infrastructure, the Maoists have been responsible for the deliberate killings of an estimated 400 civilians considered to be "enemies of the revolution", including alleged informants, Amnesty said in its report.

Many of the victims were supporters or members of the ruling Nepali Congress, although members of other political parties were among those killed. The Maoists have also been responsible for execution-style killings of police officers who were wounded or taken prisoner or who had surrendered.

In addition, between February 1996 and late July 2001 they have taken approximately 500 hostages, tortured scores of people taken captive and imposed cruel, inhuman or degrading punishments, including an estimated 25 "death sentences". They have also recruited children as combatants. These abuses continued throughout the August-November 2001 cease-fire period and after the resumption of the conflict, albeit initially on a reduced scale.

In December 2000 the Maoists' student wing called a weeklong closure of all schools to protest against the singing of the national anthem (on the grounds that it glorifies the King) and the teaching of Sanskrit (on the grounds that it disadvantages children from ethnic minorities). As the then government ó led by Nepali Congress strongman Girija Prasad Koirala — looked the other way, they also campaigned for the closure of all private schools and instructed children to attend government-run schools. Harka Raj Rai of Khotang was reportedly killed because he had continued to teach Sanskrit despite warnings from the KLF to stop doing so.

Why are the Maoists — who launched their "people's war" six years ago to overthrow the country's multiparty polity and constitutional monarchy and make Nepal a "people's republic" — targeting hapless school teachers?

Under pressure from the "cordon and search" and "search and destroy" operations of the Royal Nepalese Army, the insurgents want to show their existence and spread terror among the masses by attacking unarmed civilians and political workers, said analysts. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba claimed that the recent spree of violence unleashed by Maoists was an indication of "their defeated mentality". He, however, did not say if or when the security forces would be able to contain the violence. Until then, imparting education will continue to remain a dangerous profession in this Himalayan kingdom.