‘Sole focus on rights can’t solve war cases’

KATHMANDU, APR 13 - Amid opposition from some victims’ groups and rights advocates of the bill on transitional justice mechanism, political leaders have said a purely rights-based approach will not be enough to address issues of transitional justice.
While rights groups have demanded the bill be withdrawn, leaders of major political parties involved in drafting it said in interviews that it was far more important to take recourse to reconciliation in order to complete the final phase of the peace process.
Taskforce members from the ruling parties Nepali Congress and CPN-UML have stressed that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission ( TRC
) bill may not be perfect but the reconciliation approach it takes falls in
line with the spirit of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and various inter-party agreements signed after 2006. To take departure from the post-2006 political framework will only complicate the CA process, they said.
“There is no point creating ruckus over reconciliation, as it is a natural course of peace process post conflict. Seeking revenge will take us nowhere,” UML’s Pradeep Gyawali told the Post. He said perpetrators of serious crimes should not get away with their crimes. “The bill has ambiguous provisions, which might be interpreted in more than one ways, which should be amended during the deliberations on the bill in the House,” he said.
Rights activists, however, argue that the bill has granted amnesty to serious crimes as it has not defined ‘serious crimes’ nor has it given any negative list of crimes of such nature.
Besides, the bill has given the proposed commission an authority to exercise its discretion to decide on reconciliation and amnesty other than recommending prosecution.
“We have defined serious crimes in the definition section. The bill has clearly stated that amnesty cannot be granted to serious crimes and rape,” said NC’s Ramesh Lekhak.
“The bill has nowhere mentioned serious crimes will be condoned. On top of all, the bill has mandatory provision of seeking victim’s consent for amnesty if the parties concerned are willing.”
Lekhak and Gyawali, who were involved in the peace process since its inception, admit that the issue of disappearances has been left out in the bill. The SC had ordered the government to criminalise disappearances too. It requires a separate Act, for which there was not enough time too. The law minister has promised the taskforce bringing the Act soon.
UCPN (Maoist) leader Ram Narayan Bidari said that establishing truth is the most important job of the transitional justice mechanism. He also said there is no provision of amnesty to perpetrators of serious human rights violations.
“The bill has not addressed the issue of disappearances, which can be incorporated during a deliberation on the bill in the House,” he said.
Some are skeptic about the nomination of commission members. However, the bill has clearly provisioned vetting for commission members.
“Let’s not make assumptions before the commission is formed. We can either keep fighting and further delay the process or form a commission to resolve the issues long overdue,” said Lekhak.