National The Telegraph - Weekly (Nepal)

N A T I O N A L

The ethical harmony between journalists and their sources gives them a sense of public mission to foster normative values of social cohesion, harmony and peace. Value neutrality, detachment and a claim for professional prerogatives in society do not mean abdication of social obligations. The fundamental challenge of South Asian journalists now is to bring back the mutilated public into normal life and transfer the society of interest groups that are not communicating to each other into a eliberative public.

During pre-conflict phase, media workers can provide early warning of the potentiality of conflict eruption and identification of fault line zones. During situation of violent conflict, media workers can supply information that can increase people’s sensitivity about conflict and ability to take part in the political, economic and social process in a meaningful way and mobilize popular pressure for conflict de-escalation, ceasefire and peace process. They equally have a major responsibility to defend civil liberties, provoke robust debate and political criticism to energize the public interest in peace. And during post conflict situation media workers can provide support to the victim and aggrieved people to get justice, freedom and autonomy, educate the public about human rights nd flesh out alternative approaches for reconciliation and conflict resolution. In South Asia, where politicians tend to communicate more to the media than to each other, media workers have additional responsibility in spreading the message of freedom, peace and social justice.

Human rights issues are crosscutting theme. Disciplinary knowledge is not enough to capture its space and complexity. Building union capacity for human rights and conflict reporting means equipping media workers with inter-subjective knowledge and instilling in them a spirit of inquiry so hat they can create public opinion relevant to the political imperative of national and regional reconciliation and democratic peace. Ignorance of public implies the failure of media and denial of people’s right to know n public affairs.

Between Facts and Perceptions

Whatever message media reports does not spring "innocently." Social and political "facts" are neither context-free not free from the language, feelings, thoughts and culture of people. To be sure, they are drawn from certain life situation where the display of power, resource, identity and resistance generates the gyration of causes and effects. Facts are interpreted and reported according to the values, preferences, knowledge and skills of journalists. A growing perception of fear about conflict prevents journalists to objectively report the fact of human rights violations. Because of this fact, perception often plays as important a role in human life as does facts. In a situation of violent conflict, the responsibility of media personnel, therefore, lies not only in "framing facts" in the name of objectivity that may stir up events but instill in the main actors certain normative values that are useful for the transformation of conflicts by means of changing contexts, actors, issues and institutions. Freedom of the press minimizes the ferocity of violence by means of enforcing the accountability of human rights violators and keeping the public in a constant state of vigilance.

Media workers must anticipate the consequences of information it generates and unmask private opinions reported as facts. During a situation of violent conflict human values and perspectives are as important as facts. There is always a perceptual gap between reporter’s definition of the situation and more objective facts of reality reported as accurate judgment. Maintaining a sense of proportion between perception and judgment is, therefore, absolutely essential. Similarly, when human lives are really at stake, reporting the news should not be decided by market imperatives of profit calculus, but by social utility of protecting public interest. Only then, information and knowledge can serve as instruments of human solidarity and bring the public back into a normal life.

Methodological Questions

The style of reporting is also a question of methodology. Journalists must know how conflict is constructed, what are the hidden motives, which sets the dynamics and what is the rationality behind its escalation. Using conflict analysis and conflict mapping in reporting the "root causes" of human predicament can help journalists seek the solution through bonding of actors what Bert Hellinger calls, "systemic constellation." Building multiple webs of bonds with press unions and civil society means fostering open, honest and dependable working relationship, opening exchange of ideas and offering concrete alternative to conflict transformation. Media can pull together the connectors of society so as to link different groups in the bonding. Peace building largely rests on human rights training and peace education to journalist and civil society who can simplify the arcane language of experts, researchers and academics to make the message and information clear, precise and understandable to the ordinary public and create a constituency of peace.

The scale of humanitarian tragedy that Nepal has had to withstand due to the direct violence is difficult to describe. Informal Sector Service Center (INSEC), in November, reported that the state has killed over 5,781 individuals in encounters with Maoists whereas over 2,740 were killed by Maoist rebels during the eight year insurgency. Some 200,000 persons, mostly teachers (143 killed), landowners and government employees, have been displaced from their homes and 250 gone missing while in government detention. The conflict has caused the deaths of 447 women (383 by the security forces and 64 by the Maoists), displaced 3,000 teachers from their job and caused the closure of several hundred schools. Just after the breakdown of the cease-fire two journalists were killed and 70 subjected to detention and interrogation. The trauma faced by widows and orphans, sexual violence, forceful eviction of women from their homes, beating, torture, arbitrary detention etc. have been appalling. The migration of conflict-affected people to India and abroad remains unrecorded. Child Workers in Nepal Concerned Center (CWIN), reveals a record of 1,158 children directly affected by the violence, 197 boys and 81 girls killed, 4,000 uprooted from their homes and 300 sustained injury.

The health budget stands at 4.5 per cent of the total while defense is allocated 23 per cent. To meet this cost, the government has raised taxes, diverted funds from development and resorted to extra borrowing. Macroeconomic stability has been disturbed due to a rising fiscal deficit, widening current account deficit, trade imbalances and increasing foreign aid and debt burden. The national economy has lost 66.2 billion rupees in GDP over last eight years.

The introduction of a ‘visa system’ in some hilly districts by the Maoists has worsened the supply of food in the food-deficit districts. Over one third of the 3,913 VDC buildings, and 600 post offices have been completely demolished. Physical infrastructure including bridges, telecommunication equipment, power stations, airstrips, school buildings, water supply schemes, have been destroyed. The rehabilitation cost of the damaged infrastructure stands at a whopping $400 million. Maoist bomb attacks on multi-national companies like Coca-Cola, Lever, Colgate, Palmolive, Dabur Nepal, Nepal Lever Ltd and Nepal Battery have scared prospective foreign direct investments. Private investors have diverted their capital elsewhere. The unpredictable security situation has caused the suspension of many construction works, such as Sindhuli-Bardibas Highway, Melamchi drinking water project and Surkhet-Jumla road. On December 3, the United Nations World Food Program, GTZ and the British Department for International Development (DFID) suspended field activities in parts of Dailekh district following a Maoist assassination of a social mobilizer. Earlier, in September, Maoists attacked the project office of GTZ in Bhojpur. Due to Maoist threats all American organizations have left their field offices. At least 13 cooperatives have come under attack by the Maoists since the breakdown of the cease-fire.

Responding to the precarious human rights situation in Nepal, the National Human Rights Commission of Nepal (NHRC) in November asked the government to invite the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) to monitor the human rights situation. Earlier, on November 13, the UNHRC expressed its "profound concern over reports that dozens of individuals are being detained secretly in Nepal and are therefore at risk of suffering torture and other forms of ill treatment….Both sides in the conflict have committed human rights abuses since the cease-fire collapsed." It said that they have received information "about individuals, including some journalists arrested by security personnel on suspicion of supporting or being involved with the CPN-Maoist."

(Courtesy, FES Excerpts: Political, Economic and Social Development in Nepal, 2003)