KATHMANDU, March 22: While stressing that the issue of impunity should be addressed, visiting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said on Sunday that stories of serious human rights violations in Nepal were similar to those of Rwanda.
Pillay, who arrived here on March 18, told a press conference organized at the end of her five-day visit that serious rights violations were committed both during and after the conflict and by the acts of both parties to the conflict. [break]
“Their stories were similar and painfully reminiscent of the dozens that I heard during my eight years working with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR),” said Pillay, who left Kathmandu for New Delhi later on Sunday. “The families want the truth so they can have a sense of closure; they need reparations so they can start rebuilding their lives; and, most of all, they want justice.”
The chief of the UN human rights body warned that the peace process could be jeopardized and “a truly new Nepal” won’t emerge until demands for justice are fulfilled and accountability for past, and particularly ongoing, violations is ensured. She had interacted with human rights defenders, Devi Sunar (the mother of a 15-year-old girl killed by the army inside barracks) and journalists, among others.
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Family members of teacher Mukti Nath Adhikari, who was dragged out of his class before being shot dead by former Maoist rebels (who now run the government) on the very day of his appointment as the headmaster of a school in Lamjung district in 2002, also gave her a memorandum.
Prior to assuming the current office last year, Pillay had served for five years as a judge on the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, the first permanent independent court set up to try cases of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. And, before being appointed to the ICC, she spent eight years with ICTR, including four years as its President. During her tenure, the court made several ground-breaking rulings that have shaped international criminal law. This was her first visit to Asia as the high commissioner.
During her meetings with Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Foreign Minister Upendra Yadav, Nepali Congress president Girija Prasad Koirala and CPN-UML chief Jhala Nath Khanal, among others, Pillay had sought their support in getting the mandate of the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal (OHCHR-Nepal), that is expiring in June, extended for further three years. PM Dahal told her that he would get back to Pillay after two weeks.
“The leaders of the NC, UML and MPRF (Madhesi People’s Rights Forum) all assured me of their support for the extension of this mandate,” she told journalists. “We are also confident that we have the support of civil society. I am happy to be leaving Nepal with this good news.” Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council is discussing Nepal on April 2.
Though the OHCHR-Nepal was initially established in 2005 for two years and later its mandate was extended for further two years, she said, she has requested for an extension of further three years because it will be easier to plan for three years “logistically”. She also added that terms of OHCHR offices in Latin America are of four years. The UN rights body’s largest field mission in the world, OHCHR-Nepal is downsizing its strength in June, when its current mandate expires, to make it of the equal strength of the second largest mission in Columbia.
During her visit, Pillay, however, didn’t raise the issue of her office’s request to establish its South and West Asian office in Kathmandu though the OHCHR offer to establish the office in Nepal was one of the reasons why she came here. She gave the reason for not raising this issue with the government that has remained quite reluctant to the OHCHR idea: “because I prioritized the issues”. She said her office has been in discussion with the Foreign Ministry on the matter. “I continue to raise the issue in India as well.”
Though the OHCHR sent an offer to Nepal about six months ago to set up the regional office in Kathmandu, the government is yet to send its official response. Foreign Ministry sources have said Nepal is most likely to say “no” because of the “sensitivities of our regional friends”.
India is vehemently opposed to the idea of establishing the OHCHR regional office in any of the South Asian countries. However, sources said, Bangladesh is the only South Asian nation that is more positive than others about hosting the office in Dhaka.
