E-Kantipur

On May 10, the government announced a plan to withdraw murder charges against the Minister for Information and Maoist lawmaker Agni Sapkota. Sapkota is allegedly involved in the abduction and killing of Arjun Bahadur Lama in June 2005 in Kavre district. In March 2008, the Supreme Court ordered the police to register the case. But three years on, nothing has been done. The government’s recent announcement is effectively a declaration of amnesty, leaving the rule of law and transitional justice processes in tatters.

There has been no public comment in this regard from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal (OHCHR-Nepal), putting a big question mark over its performance. Repeated evaluations have underlined that the High commissioner (HC) must address the increasingly visible lack of political skills, leadership and strategy. It is difficult to conclude that she has acted appropriately and there is sufficient evidence to suggest she has actively denied the Nepal Office the support it needs.

The HC’s mishandling of the mandate negotiations in 2010 is a case in point.  Prior to the negotiations, OHCHR-Nepal had a powerful mandate, strong field representation outside Kathmandu and enjoyed a formal place in the peace process; an agreement that the government had no power to change unilaterally. Yet, in defiance of the peace accords, and the prevailing human rights situation, the HC conceded everything. The field offices outside Kathmandu were abandoned and even more inexplicably, all new monitoring handed over to Nepal’s imploding National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

Yet another emblem of a dysfunctional OHCHR-Nepal— although its term has just been extended by six months—is its recent decision to place Nepal’s National Human Rights Action Plan (NHRAP) at the centre of its strategy. It is now clear that OHCHR-Nepal gave its political support to the NHRAP without actually understanding the content. The NHRAP is terminally flawed: with poorly defined (indeed non-existent) objectives, unrealistic outcomes, vague activities that have little link to the problems and no result-oriented approach. The approach to measuring progress is almost uniquely process-oriented. The regional human rights community recognises that development indicators in some cases are well documented, but the NHRAP is sorely lacking when it comes to guaranteeing civil and political rights.

OHCHR-Nepal continued to offer the NHRAP uncritical support even after these issues were out in the open. The recent withdrawal of key human rights cases reveals the real agenda behind the NHRAP, which is little more than a log book for impunity: a dimension of ongoing attempts by successive Nepali governments to avoid accountability. Impunity is mentioned only in passing; entirely consistent with the current political environment. The interest in not addressing accountability is a rare example of cross-party consensus amongst the major parties. The new government is no different, as the announcement of amnesty to Sapkota and many others demonstrates.

The Maoists could choose to cooperate with the civilian judicial system but instead resort to intimidation and threats.  The Army has the capacity to prosecute.  It can and does rapidly prosecute criminals within the military, again when it chooses. 

The decision not to prosecute  human rights violations is a choice; and, given that armies tend to be highly rule-bound, this implies that this choice is a policy; a policy because the violations are, and have been, part of military operations; a finding consistent with the large body of evidence documented by OHCHR-Nepal. The Army’s problems are unlikely to be solved through awareness training offered by the NHRAP. 

Nepal is effectively placing conditions on its international obligations. This conditionality is more than sufficient to undermine improvements in human rights. They are conditions that make human rights technical assistance and money to the NHRC and the NHRAP, at best, a waste of funds. In terms of government action on human rights, the only logical position for donors is to suspend human rights and transitional justice funding to government institutions pending a thorough review. Funding should only be renewed if and when the government demonstrates political will, by actually implementing commitments and reversing policy decision like that involving Sapkota. To lend political support to what is clearly a political agenda deleterious to international human rights compliance, is to agree to undermine the whole transitional justice process.

How, for example, are transitional justice mechanisms supposed to work if the Army has punished all the violators in its ranks, as the prior government repeatedly claimed? Politically, how far will the transitional justice process proceed if one side is exempt?  And how convenient would this exemption be to the leadership of UCPN (Maoist)?

The political risk of continuing with unconditional support, like that extended term by OHCHR to the NHRAP, is that engagement, whatever the intention, provides de facto political support for continuance of the current consensus; a policy which adds up to little more than a stream of commitments with no visible implementation, balanced by acts like appointing suspected murderers to the Cabinet.

OHCHR-Nepal is in a position of leadership; where it leads on human rights, the international community is likely to follow. But, rudderless, maladroit and increasingly impotent, OHCHR is bowing to the agenda of the leading political actors in Nepal, all of them with no interest in addressing impunity.

If OHCHR-Nepal is to have any meaningful role it must demonstrate willingness to undergo urgent reform, signaled by immediate announcement of an expedited process for the appointment of a suitably experienced and high level Country Representative. Technical support should be immediately suspended. And OHCHR-Nepal must now insist on concrete measures of progress on impunity before engaging in any rights initiatives with the authorities.

Despite its current flaws, the presence of OHCHR-Nepal is still vital, for the national institutions to promote and protect human rights are as weak, or weaker, than in 2005, the time commonly believed to mark the lowest ebb of the rights situation in Nepal.

Chakma is the director of the Asian Centre for Human Rights, New Delhi

Post Your Comment

Please note that all the fields marked * are mandatory.
* Full Name
* Address
* Email Address
* Comment
* Captcha	Get another CAPTCHA code
Note:	Comments containing abusive words or slander shall not be published.