The Kathmandu-office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said it has reached into an understanding with the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) allowing theICRC to resume its visits to detainees held in RNA barracks countrywide after a gap of nearly one year.

In a statement issued Thursday, the ICRC said the visits have started this week. ” As in the past, the ICRC will provide the detaining authorities with its confidential findings and recommendations on the conditions of detention in
RNA barracks,” the statement said. “It wishes to maintain a transparent and open dialogue with the RNA, to the benefit of persons deprived of their liberty,” it added.

The Geneva-based organized, which specialises in monitoring the conditions of prisoners of war, had put on hold visits to detainees at army barracks in Nepal since April last year saying that the was not complying fully with an agreement on the conditions for the visits. RNA officials, on their part, said they had not stopped the ICRC from paying visits to their barracks.

“We have visited persons detained by the RNA since December 2002 and we had some problems as far as the respect of the ICRC’s worldwide working modalities for and with detainees are concerned,” Nepali Times weekly quoted Friedrun Medert, ICRC’s Delegation Head in Nepal, as saying in June last year. “We have discussed these problems with the RNA and we felt that the steps it took were not sufficient to redress the situation,” she added.

Under its rules, the ICRC is allowed to inspect all the premises of a detention place, meet every detainee, register their names and talk to them in private. The Geneva-based group is also allowed to offer detainees a message exchange service with families and make repeated visits to check if the detainees have been put under pressure after previous ICRC visit. ICRC officials described these working modalities as a “package deal” but refused to go into detail as to which one of the provisions were not respected by the RNA.

ICRC deals directly with the highest army authorities to present its findings with the aim of improving the situation of the detainees and making sure they are protected from disappearance, abuse, torture and psychological anxiety. It does not question the right of the authorities to detain someone but underlines that, while in custody, they must be treated humanely and according to the spirit and the letter of the Geneva Conventions.

“The RNA knows that we work in a confidential way which means that our findings are shared with the detaining authorities only. We do not know the reasons why our cooperation was at times hampered,” Medert had said.

Talking to Nepalnews on Thursday, a spokesman of the ICRC office in Kathmandu, Giuseppe Pogliari said ICRC had paid over 400 visits to a total of 246 detention centers including jails across Nepal last year.

ICRC officials said they continue to visit detainees in the district and central jails, police stations and rehabilitation centres of former Maoists who have surrendered to the army.

The recent understanding between the ICRC and RNA has come just a week ahead of the session of UN Committee on Human Rights in Geneva. Nepali rights groups as well as international rights watchdogs including Amnesty International have called on the UN body to bar the RNA from taking part in the UN peacekeeping operations for its alleged rampant rights violations.

The authorities say RNA and other security bodies are well aware of their human rights obligations.