Nepalis fear forgetting the missing as justice delayed

By Deepak Adhikari

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AA) – Sitting on the edge of her bed in a rented room on the outskirts of Kathmandu, 67-year-old Chandra Kumari Basnet fixed her gaze on a framed photograph of her son for a while, then asked: “Can a mother’s grief be treated with medicine?”

“Do the politicians know the agony of a mother who doesn’t know where her grown-up sons are?” she sighed. “I want to ask them: for how long will a mother have to suffer before her pain is over?”

Chandra Kumari’s ordeal began in the winter of 2002 when her three sons, Pushpa, Birendra and Dhirendra Basnet, all studying in state-run colleges in Kathmandu and members of the then-underground Maoist party’s student wing, were arrested.

She and her husband Bhim Bahadur Basnet, a former village head who is also 67, moved to Kathmandu to fight for the release of their sons, who were incarcerated in the country’s dilapidated central jail.

The couple from the eastern Nepal town of Damak ran from pillar to post fighting for their sons’ release. Their efforts bore fruit a year later: the young men were freed from jail in March 2003.

“We feared that the police would arrest them again so we moved to another place in Kathmandu. But a few days later, they rejoined their party,” she told Anadolu Agency.

Her worst fears came true in early December 2003 when Pushpa, the eldest of the three, was rearrested near a vegetable market in the capital. A week later Dhirendra was also arrested.

Her other son, Birendra, now 27, who had been arrested earlier, was released after serving a 27-month jail sentence.

Since then, the Basnets have no idea where their other two sons are or whether they are dead or alive.

More than 16,000 people were killed between 1996 and 2006 when the Maoist rebels waged war against the state to establish a communist regime in Nepal.

Both the Maoists and state security forces committed war crimes, including enforced disappearances, torture, extrajudicial killings and sexual violence. More than 1,300 were forcibly disappeared during the decade-long war.

In November 2006, the government and Maoist rebels signed a landmark peace deal, which later turned the country into a republic, launching the transformation of the Maoists into a mainstream political force.

In August, the Basnet family was among 2,000 victims who filed complaints with the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons, a body tasked with investigation into cases of disappeared persons.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a truth-seeking body established to investigate the war crimes during the conflict, received more than 50,000 complaints from victims.

In November, Nepal marked the 10 anniversary of the peace deal but rights groups have expressed concern over a culture of impunity that promotes perpetrators of grave human rights violations.

“The legislation undergirding the commissions is deeply flawed as it allows for amnesty for certain crimes, creating space for those responsible to escape justice,” Human Rights Watch, a New York-based organization, said in a statement on Nov. 18.

Phanindra Luitel, whose school teacher father was killed by Maoists on charges of spying against them on Sep. 8, 2003, when the Maoist insurgency was at its peak, said he had doubts over whether the commissions could deliver on their commitment to justice.

“I have serious doubts about their capacity to do justice to the victims. I don’t have much expectation from them. The commissioners were politically appointed for their connections. The law is not only weak but is also designed to protect the perpetrators,” the 33-year-old told Anadolu Agency.

Dewan Rai, a Nepali journalist who covers human rights for The Kathmandu Post newspaper, said the commissions were stymied by lack of government support.

“The government has also not allocated enough budget for the commissions to carry out investigations. The government has been ignoring the commissions’ proposal for legal reforms and requests for the budget and staff,” he said.

Transitional justice in Nepal has increasingly become a part of a larger political deal, including power sharing, Rai said. “The transitional justice process is likely to get stuck here until a new political agreement is reached on implementation of the new constitution,” he added.

Rai criticized the government for not taking victims into confidence while forming the commissions two years ago.

“In fact, it did not even consult with representatives of the victim community, while forming the commissions. It did not seek victims’ opinion on legal reforms and reparation policies,” he said.

As a result, the victims have taken an approach of critical engagement, he said. “They criticize the process but also engage in it.”

Most families of victims who spoke to Anadolu Agency wanted to build memorials to commemorate the contributions of their relatives.

Luitel has built a statute of his father Guru Prasad Luitel on the land where he was hanged.

Having already produced a short film on the 41-year-old teacher, he is lobbying his father’s party, the Unified Marxist-Leninist, to name an under-construction road in Okhaldhunga district after him.

Chandra Kumari wants to set up a foundation in her sons’ name and provide scholarships to impoverished female students at the school in Damak the boys went to because she feels the sacrifices they made have, of late, begun to be forgotten.

“Our sons used to say they had joined politics to change the face of the country. But neither the politics that our sons pursued became successful not did their dreams come true,” she said.

“I want people to remember my sons as young men who dedicated their life for the country.”