Crisis Group: Dealing with a Human Rights Crisis March 2005

March 24, 2005 - PRESS RELEASE Crisis Group:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

In wake of the royal coup of 1 February 2005, Nepal's human rights crisis is spiralling out of conttherol. A year after the international community first formally expressed concern at the 2004 Commission on Human Rights, the Maoists continue to operate outside the law while state security forces act with impunity and without civilian control. The 61st Commission on Human Rights now underway gives Nepal's friends their best opportunity to begin to reverse the trends by establishing a strong UN human rights monitoring mission that could form the core of action towards peace.

Using extortion and coercion, the Maoists are imposing an authoritarian regime on steadily increasing swathes of rural Nepal. State forces are engaged in well Publicationed, systematic violations from extra-judicial executions to illegal detentions, "disappearances" and torture.

By its willingness in recent years to give the royal government the benefit of the doubt and sidestep serious criticism and remedial action, the international community finds itself confronted today with what it fears the most: a no-party state that has decimated democracy, kills people at will in the countryside, forbids freedom of expression or dissent and demands unquestioning support for its unelected leader. It now recognises the gravity of the situation. A joint statement by bilateral donors and the UN in Nepal has warned that "insecurity, armed activity and CPN/M [Maoist] blockades are pushing Nepal toward the abyss of a humanitarian crisis".

The repeated gentle urgings of the past have done nothing to prevent the dismantling of democracy. Apart from the assault on fundamental rights, the royal coup and the royal government's subsequent actions have emboldened the Maoists and made any resolution of the conflict all the more distant. As Crisis Group has warned before, the Maoists are the only party in Nepal's complex conflict with a clear strategy. The king's seizure of absolute power has not brought with it any new strategy that can hope to address the challenge of the insurgency.

Human rights issues have assumed an increased significance, as one of the few available avenues through which the international community might be able to influence the resumption of the peace process. In this context the 61st Commission on Human Rights, meeting from 14 March to 22 April 2005, has a particularly important role.

The priorities are to:

secure a strong resolution calling for restoration of basic freedoms and guaranteed protection;

ensure that the resolution has robust enforcement mechanisms, and compliance is measurable against clearly defined benchmarks;

put in place an effective UN human rights monitoring mission to complement and strengthen national efforts;

call for both the government and the Maoists to sign a Human Rights Accord (HRA) as a first confidence-building measure towards a resumed peace process;

ensure that any military assistance to the government, as well as new Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) participation in UN peacekeeping operations, is tied to concrete improvements in human rights;

use effective human rights monitoring as a means of engaging and exerting leverage on the Maoists; and

link human rights efforts to a wider, coordinated international push for peace, with a contact group of key powers and the UN supported by donors working on the development and rights tracks.

This report describes the current human rights crisis, offers practical policy recommendations for tackling it by all relevant players, and explains how such measures would contribute to the longer-term conflict resolution effort.

RECOMMENDATIONS

To the Nepali Government:

1. End the suspension of constitutional rights imposed since 1 February 2005 and:

(a) release politicians, human rights defenders, journalists and others from preventive detention;

(b) lift the state of emergency; and

(c) remove media censorship to allow the reporting of human rights violations and honest war coverage.

2. End the practice of enforced disappearances by security forces, investigate all disappearance cases and prosecute perpetrators.

3. Renounce the use of vigilante groups, village militias and other extrajudicial means to contest the Maoists.

4. Cooperate with the international community to tackle the human rights crisis by:

(a) accepting a strong UN-led international human rights monitoring mission;

(b) accepting appointment of a Special Rapporteur and issuing a standing invitation to the thematic mechanisms of the UN Commission on Human Rights to visit Nepal;

(c) allowing the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to fulfil its mandate; and

(d) encouraging the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to accept standing offers of technical assistance from the international community.

5. Take immediate steps to demonstrate concrete commitment to ending the culture of impunity towards human rights abusers by:

(a) guaranteeing the independence of the judiciary and ensuring security forces' full cooperation with the courts;

(b) prosecuting those responsible for the Doramba killings as demanded by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in September 2003;

(c) investigating and prosecuting in the civilian courts other cases of alleged rights abuses, including gender-based violence;

(d) issuing clear instructions to all security forces that any use of torture or other human rights violations will be punished; and

(e) recognising that its National Human Rights Action Plan is an insufficient and inappropriate response to the current situation and urgently developing effective measures to address the human rights protection crisis.

6. Strengthen the legal framework for human rights and international humanitarian law by:

(a) signing the National Human Rights Commission's Human Rights Accord (HRA);

(b) repealing or amending the Public Security Act and Terrorism and Destructive Activities Ordinance;

(c) ensuring full compliance with existing commitments under domestic and international law;

(d) signing the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions; and

(e) signing the Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court.

7. Strengthen the capacity of the National Human Rights Commission by:

(a) extending the term of the current Commissioners;

(b) ensuring that the Commissioners and other NHRC officers are free to travel and fulfil their mandate;

(c) respecting the physical integrity of its offices in Kathmandu, Biratnagar and Nepalgunj so it can protect sensitive information on victims and their relatives; and

(d) ensuring that other agencies such as the Human Rights Promotion Centre and the security forces' human rights cells are not used to undermine its work.

To the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist):

8. Cease human rights violations and adhere in full to international humanitarian law, in particular by:

(a) respecting the rights of the civilian population and hors de combat security forces;

(b) releasing political detainees immediately;

(c) halting the intimidation, torture and killing of political workers, journalists, activists and others; and

(d) giving and enforcing clear instructions to all cadres on human rights and international humanitarian law.

9. Build confidence and work towards the rapid resumption of the peace process by:

(a) signing the Human Rights Accord;

(b) cooperating with national and international human rights monitors; and

(c) developing transparent methods for dealing with rights abuses, including gender-based violence.

To the Member States of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (CHR):

10. Use the 61st CHR to address Nepal's human rights crisis by:

(a) establishing an effective international human rights monitoring presence in the country through deployment of a clearly mandated mission of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) staffed by international monitors and national support staff sufficient to work across Nepal's difficult terrain and led by a head of mission of sufficient UN rank and ability to collate, evaluate and act on the information gathered by monitors;

(b) appointing a Special Rapporteur; and

(c) encouraging the royal government to issue a standing invitation to the thematic mechanisms of the Commission to visit Nepal.

To the Wider International Community, including CHR Member States, Diplomatic Missions to Nepal, and Bilateral and Multilateral Donors:

11. Use available leverage to end the culture of impunity by:

(a) preparing to suspend the Royal Nepalese Army from UN peacekeeping operations if it does not improve its record;

(b) making human rights protection a condition of military and other assistance; and

(c) demonstrating that it is prepared, through the UN Security Council, to authorise the International Criminal Court to exercise jurisdiction over exceptionally serious violations of international humanitarian law by either the state or the Maoists unless such violations cease and/or are submitted to fair and impartial domestic investigation and prosecution.

12. Support Nepal's National Human Rights Commission by:

(a) demanding that the royal government respect its statute in both letter and spirit so it can fulfil its mandate;

(b) insisting on the extension of the current Commissioners' terms; and

(c) planning, funding and implementing (most probably through the UN) all appropriate assistance it requests.

13. Help build non-governmental human rights capacity by:

(a) defending and strengthening national human rights NGOs, including women's organisations, and relevant professional associations, such as the Nepal Bar Association and the Federation of Nepali Journalists; and

(b) developing practical programs for protecting human rights defenders.

Kathmandu/Brussels, 24 March 2005

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