Kathmandu: Gurkha Army Ex-Service Organisation (GAESO) President Padam Bahadur Gurung is leading a four-member team to participate in the 56th United Nations Human Rights Commission meeting to be held in Geneva.  The team will attempt to attract the international public support for their plea, said the campaigning Gurkhas here today.

Since last five-years the retired Gurkha soldiers are campaigning in Nepal for equal treatment to the Gurkhas at par with their British counterparts in the British Army in pension and other welfare benefits. This is the first time they are taking their plea to international platform.

Nevertheless, the issue captured international attention when a Gurkha soldier was killed in Kosovo mid last year and British newspapers highlighted the unequal amount of death gratuities their government was providing to the family of the Gurkha soldier and his British counterpart. Later in October 1999, the British government raised payments to the families of Gurkha soldiers killed in service to match the amount received by a British soldier responding to a recommendation made by the Ministerial Working Group on Gurkha Pensions and Gratuities chaired by British Armed Force Minister John Spellar.

“We are taking the issue to international platform because we have lost faith that the governments of Nepal and Britain are serious to find a solution diplomatically,” said Padam Bahadur Gurung. He also flayed both the Nepalese and British governments for failing to follow the suggestions forwarded by their respective parliaments for resolving the unequal-treatment issue. The Human Rights and Foreign Affair Committee of Nepal’s dissolved House of Representatives had suggested that the Gurkha issue was a national issue and should be resolved diplomatically. “The recommendation has not been tried by the government so far,” charged Gurung.

On the other hand, the British Ministarial Working Group formed to deliberate and report on Gurkha pensions by the end of last year was dissolved with the announcement of a hundred per cent increase in Gurkha pensions in the last week of December 1999. The British government decision drew a harsh criticism from a fraction of campaigning Gurkhas in Nepal.

After attending a Human Rights Commission Meeting, two of the team members, GAESO President Gurung and Sociologist Dr. Om Gurung, will visit universities in six European nations to attract support from Western intellectual circle, according to a press release issued by GAESO. And on their return to Nepal, veteran Human Rights activist Rhishikesh Shah will visit United States to discuss the Gurkha issue with international rights lawyers and activists.