The footage Subodh was taking about features the gruesome image of our father Muktinath Adhikari’s mangled body tied to a tree. On January 16, 2002, my father was brutally killed by the Maoists. After torturing him, they put a bullet through his head. His body was tied to a tree to make it appear as a suicide. Earlier on that ill-fated day, my father had been abducted from his classroom in Panini Sanskrit High School, Duradanda, Lamjung.
He was accused of denying ‘donations’ to the Maoist party. Other charges leveled against him were that he was a spy and that he had been teaching Sanskrit against the Maoist diktat. In fact, he was a Science and Maths teacher, a social worker and a human rights activist working as a convener of Amnesty International Group-79, Duradanda, Lamjung.
There are thousands of similarly depressing stories of suffering and unbearable loss from the conflict period. The Maoists started their so-called people´s war with the slogan of equality, rights, peace, progress and happiness of common people. But contrary to their slogans, they only brought suffering to the innocent people of villages right around the country.
The Maoists as well as the security forces terrorized these hapless people, accusing them of spying for the other side, or of colluding in ‘terrorist’ activities. The common people’s suffering perhaps can never be understood by high-level political leaders, government officials, aristocrats and corrupt bureaucrats, who have not had to go through anything remotely similar.
A decade after the killing of our father in cold blood, we are still awaiting justice.
The armed conflict disproportionately hampered the livelihoods of poor people. It wiped out the prospect of a bright future for those who came of age during the conflict. Thousands ‘disappeared’ or suffered serious rights violations like cruel executions, torture, displacement and confiscation of properties. During the 10 years of conflict, more than 16,000 people were killed, over 1,300 were disappeared; another 5,000 were physically handicapped and over 80,000 displaced from their ancestral habitat.
People of all age groups continue to suffer as the state fails to address the concerns of conflict victims. Some families have lost their sole breadwinners, children have lost guardianship; it is a travesty of justice that five years into the peace process, they are still deprived of education and job opportunities. Helpless mothers continue to fret about the fate of their children while they still struggle to put behind the death of their husbands. Families of the ‘disappeared’ wait forlornly for the day when they will finally get news on their loved ones. The displaced are eagerly waiting for rehabilitation and the tortured, for adequate treatment.
At the root of this suffering is their victimization. First, at the hands of the Maoists, who victimized them for not adhering to their ideology; then, the security forces, who added to their difficulties by accusing them of being Maoist sympathizers. As both the sides to the conflict were responsible for their suffering, both the state as well as the responsible political actors must own responsibility for gross rights violations and untold suffering of civilians. Unlike injury and death of combatants in field of battle, victimization of civilians is a serious crime as per the international humanitarian law.
Conflict victims have been regularly raising their voice in their quest for justice, both during and after the conflict. We have been on the street seeking justice, in the process sidelining our familial responsibilities, study, job and career development. But justice and sustainable peace is still uncertain. Victims were hopeful of justice through the peace process. But in last five years, voices of conflict victims have never been heard, maybe since leaders and high level authorities cannot feel their pain.
This is why the issue of conflict victims has forever been overshadowed by the issue of ex-Maoist combatants. In fact, integration and rehab of ex-combatants has been seen as the sole basis for the conclusion of the peace process. But what about us? We have time and again filed cases demanding investigation, justice and punishment for perpetrators. But even when investigations have been completed and verdicts issued, the government has seldom obeyed court orders and recommendations of National Human Rights Commission. None of the perpetrators of human rights violations has been punished. Rather the perpetrators are rewarded and promoted to higher positions in security forces and political parties without vetting, completely disregarding the concerns of victims.
It has to be understood that justice and reparation of civilian conflict victims is a sensitive and inseparable components of the peace process. The state has the responsibility of healing the wounds of conflict victims by establishing transitional justice mechanisms, complying with international practices, persecuting perpetrators, and ensuring justice and reparation for the victims.
In the past the government has tried to use relief programs as a way to buy victims’ silence. Yes, the victims have the right to monetary relief, but the government needs to understand that it is not our priority: no amount of money can compensate for what we have been through. Instead, we demand long-term programs to address our basic needs such as education, income generation, treatment, recognition and gainful employment.
Addressing past human rights abuses, prosecuting the perpetrators and ensuring victim´s right to justice is not only the concern of conflict victims but the whole society. A sensitive humanitarian issue, justice for conflict victims is important. But, ignoring the concerns of victims and state obligations, political parties, in the name of reconciliation, have raised the issue of blanket amnesty. Don’t they understand that granting blanket amnesty by denying the rights of victims only promotes impunity, weakens rule of law and adds to the agony and disappointment of victims, and, god forbid, could lead to another conflict?
The importance of formation of Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Disappearance Commission as provisioned in Comprehensive Peace Agreement and subsequent accords cannot be overemphasized. In fact, addressing past rights violations, justice and reparations for conflict victims is pre-requisite for broader reconciliation and sustainable peace.
The writer is the elder of the two sons of late Muktinath Adhikari, the Lamjung-based schoolteacher who was killed by the Maoists in 2002
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