These are extremely delicate times for Nepal. The country has been in a difficult transition for nearly seven years, and there are difficult insurgency-era issues that are yet to be resolved. During the civil war, both the state and rebel actors engaged in serious rights violations, as has been well documented in OHCHR’s report on the conflict brought out last year. It is for the resolution of these issues that the two sides agreed to the formation of transitional justice mechanisms like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Disappearance Commission. But it had started to appear that the two sides to the conflict agreed to these mechanisms more out of compulsion (to be seen on the right side of the law), than with any intention of implementing them. There is a fear that if conflict-era cases are to be handled on a case-by-case basis, the whole edifice of the peace process might come tumbling down.
But the recent detention of Nepal Army Colonel Kumar Lama (in the UK), and the arrests of those accused of murdering Dailekh-based journalist Dekendra Thapa in Dailekh eight years ago, hint that it is impossible to sweep the cases of grave rights violations under the carpet. That if the state does not deal with them voluntarily, it will be forced to, sooner or later. This is the reason all the political actors should expedite the process of transitional justice mechanisms. We believe it would be wrong to understand these mechanisms as aimed at extracting revenge. Rather, these mechanisms help bring out the truth about alleged rights violations, to compensate the victims and provide them with a sense of closure. The mandate of the commission can be made broad enough, so that it can bear witness to, record, as well as grant amnesty (though not blanket amnesty) to perpetrators of rights violations, along the lines of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up in South Africa at the end of apartheid.
In Thapa’s case, we are glad that there has finally been some development to bring his murderers to book. This was another issue which could have been handled by a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but given the inordinate delay over its formation, the latest arrests have nonetheless sent a hopeful (albeit inadequate) message regarding the state’s commitment to free and independent media. The year 2012 proved to be one of the most unsafe for Nepali journalists in recent history, with an alarming escalation in the cases of violation of press freedom. We urge both UCPN (Maoist) as well as the breakaway CPN-Maoist, whose cadres have been apprehended in relation to Thapa murder, to let due process run its course and desist from intimidating security personnel and journalists.
Since one of the murderers has even confessed to his crime in gruesome detail, it does not behoove democratic political parties to try to protect criminals. All the nine persons implicated in Thapa’s killing have to be apprehended without further ado—so far only five have been. We would also like to believe that bringing Dekendra Thapa’s murderers to book would be the first step towards investigation and prosecution of all the unresolved cases of serious (and often fatal) attacks on Nepali journalists. It would be unfortunate if universal jurisdiction has to be invoked again, perhaps to punish the violators of press freedom in Nepal this time.
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