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No End To Impunity In Nepal
By KTM Metro Reporter in Kathmandu
On October 16, 2009, Human Rights Watch (New York) and Advocacy Forum (Nepal) have jointly released a 47-page report titled "Still Waiting for Justice: No End to Impunity in Nepal" in Kathmandu and have called for the Government of Nepal investigating and prosecuting those responsible for crimes committed during the armed conflict. Human Rights Watch and Advocacy Forum have said that lack of political will and consensus, prevailing political instability, and lack of progress in the peace process means the Government of Nepal has not delivered on its promises to prosecute the perpetrators of crimes, as set out in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed by the government and the Maoists in 2006.
The report has stated that the Government of Nepal has failed to conduct credible investigations and prosecute those responsible for thousands of extrajudicial killings, torture, and enforced disappearances three years after the end of the country's decade-long armed conflict.
"The politicians, police, prosecutors, and army are letting the people of Nepal down once again," said Brad Adams, Asia Director of Human Rights Watch. "The government has had plenty of time to set the wheels in motion to prosecute the perpetrators, but all it has done is make empty promises."
Human Rights Watch and Advocacy Forum have said that the families of those killed and disappeared have filed detailed complaints with the police seeking criminal investigations, but so far the Nepali justice system has failed miserably to respond to those complaints.
To date, not a single perpetrator has been brought to justice for grave human rights abuses before a civilian court. Political parties have put pressure on the police not to investigate certain cases in order to protect their members. Police, prosecutors, and courts have devised multiple strategies to obstruct and delay justice, while institutions opposed to accountability particularly the Nepal Army have dug in their heels and steadfastly refused to cooperate with ongoing police investigations.
The government has also failed to reform laws that impede effective criminal investigations into past abuses, and little progress has been made in setting up the transitional justice mechanisms such as a commission of inquiry into disappearances and a truth and reconciliation commission promised in the peace agreement.
