The human rights community and the civil society should work constructively to bring the voice of the voiceless in the agenda of future peace agreement and develop strategies to ensure the healing the wounds of the victims of the conflict

By Surya Bahadur Deuja

Nepal is celebrating historic peace deal which has paved the way to end the 11 years long violence after the Seven-Party Alliance (SPA) and CPN (Maoist) reached a six-point agreement on 8th of November after a marathon summit talks. Among other issues the decisions reached at the summit talks include the implementation of past agreements, management of arms and armed forces, contents of interim constitution, rehabilitation of people affected by conflict and time schedule.

The peace deal has stated the formation of a high-level Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate into serious violations of human rights and crimes against humanity during the armed conflict. However, the agreement fails to specify the role of the National Human Rights Commission, which already has recorded thousands of cases of violations and human rights abuses. The experiences of past agreements have already shown that there were no efficient mechanisms to address the violation of the agreement. Therefore, a comprehensive human rights agreement is necessary in the proposed peace agreement by November 16, 2006.

The most important factors of the peace deal are interim power sharing arrangement between the SPA and CPN (Maoist). Similarly promises are made for the families of people killed in course of armed conflict and people sustaining disabilities as well as internally displaced people to provide them with appropriate relief, respect and compensation and rehabilitation.

Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and the Nepalese Context

It has been a common phenomenon to set up truth commissions during and immediate post-transition period. Basically most of the truth commissions around the world have been established as non-judicial investigative bodies with certain mandate for the statement taking, investigations, research and public hearings. The truth commissions are designed to offer same form of accounting for the past in situations where prosecutions for gross violation or massive crimes are impossible or unlikely due to lack of capacity of the judicial system or amnesty. In the past, more than 30 truth commissions around the world have various structure, mandate and proceedings.

The past experiences have revealed that it is almost difficult, if not impossible to prosecute for massive violations during and after the conflict. Therefore, the practice of setting up truth commission has been common with aim to bring the truth about the patterns of violations committed in the past and its detail as well as to suggest the sustainable way-out to prevent further violations or abuses through institutional reform and other policy interventions.

The United Nations handbook mentions that truth commissions cannot function properly without adequate funding and other necessary support from the government and the atmosphere where victims or witnesses can freely express their experiences about the details of violations or atrocities with their full protection from intimidation or harassment from any side. Some of the fundamental principles which should be considered while planning for the creation of the truth commission in any country are: national choice, rights –based transitional justice perspective, local context of the specific country, political will and independence from undue interference of the state or any entity and international support.

In past seven months the issue of Constituent Assembly, management of arms and political power-sharing had overshadowed other significant issues such as reparation and justice to the victims of violations, creating truth commissions or other mechanisms to look into past violations and abuses. The tight time-frame incorporated in the peace deal for intensifying political process for the constituent assembly election reflects that the SPA and the Maoists have not given much time to seriously workout the structure of Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The human rights NGOs and civil society have not also brought the issue under discussion. Therefore, the human rights community and the civil society should work constructively to bring the voice of the voiceless in the agenda of future peace agreement and develop strategies to ensure the healing the wounds of the victims of the conflict in order to ensure the proposed ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission’ really function to achieve the desired goal then being registered as additional talking machine and report producing commission.

Deuja is a Human Rights Intern at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Regional Office for South-East Asia, Bangkok and can be reached at [email protected])

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