Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
02KATHMANDU634
2002-03-29 12:33:00
SECRET
Embassy Kathmandu
Cable title:  

SUSPECTED TORTURE, EXTRA-JUDICIAL KILLING BY ROYAL

Tags:  PHUM PGOV PTER MARR ASEC PREL PINR NP 
pdf how-to read a cable
This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 KATHMANDU 000634 

SIPDIS

LONDON FOR POL/RIEDEL

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/28/2012
TAGS: PHUM PGOV PTER MARR ASEC PREL PINR NP
SUBJECT: SUSPECTED TORTURE, EXTRA-JUDICIAL KILLING BY ROYAL
NEPALESE ARMY

Classified By: AMBASSADOR MICHAEL E. MALINOWSKI, REASONS 1.5(B),(D)

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 KATHMANDU 000634

SIPDIS

LONDON FOR POL/RIEDEL

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/28/2012
TAGS: PHUM PGOV PTER MARR ASEC PREL PINR NEPAL'>NP
SUBJECT: SUSPECTED TORTURE, EXTRA-JUDICIAL KILLING BY ROYAL
NEPALESE ARMY

Classified By: AMBASSADOR MICHAEL E. MALINOWSKI, REASONS 1.5(B),(D)


1. (S) Summary. Evidence that Royal NEPALese Army (RNA)
personnel brutalized and killed one man they suspected of
being a Maoist has spurred private investigations into the
army's alleged practice of covering up the deaths of
detainees. Military attaches from the U.S. and U.K.
Embassies viewed the corpse of one man who evidently had been
shot through the head after suffering a sustained beating.
Residents of the man's village told a team of human rights
activists that army personnel had picked him and four others
off the street. The next morning his body turned up in a
Kathmandu morgue and attracted the attention of a doctor
affiliated with a group that works with torture victims.
Asked by a British military attache to investigate the
incident, a high-ranking RNA officer replied that the man had
been shot while trying to run away. The extent to which
high-ranking RNA officers are aware of such incidents remains
unclear. End Summary.

Investigations Into RNA Abuse In Kathmandu Valley
-------------- --------------


2. (S) The GON,s Human Rights Commission, the Center for
Victims of Torture (CVICT) and local human rights
organizations are investigating reports that Royal NEPALese
Army (RNA) personnel have tortured and summarily executed
individuals they suspect of supporting the Maoist cause. The
RNA has allegedly released the names of such individuals as
having been killed in a clash with or in flight from security
forces. The case of one man in particular attracted the
attention of Kathmandu-based organizations after his body
turned up at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in the
capital early on the morning of March 16. A doctor who
viewed the body upon reporting for work later that morning
related what he saw to the head of CVICT.

Signs of Beating, Gunshot Wounds
--------------



3. (S) Emboffs, in the company of British Embassy officials,
visited the hospital March 20 and met with the doctor who
reported the condition of the corpse to CVICT. DATT and
British Assistant Military Attache (AMA) then viewed the
body, which was still in the morgue. Afterwards, the British
AMA described viewing an individual in his late twenties or
early thirties with multiple blunt-trauma contusions to the
face, shoulders, arms and hands. The blows to the arms and
hands were apparently inflicted while the man was sitting in
a chair. He had a small puncture wound in one calf and a
mark on his neck which looked as if it had been made by a
strip of cloth, but his skin was otherwise unbroken. Cause
of death was four gunshot wounds, three in the back and one
through the head, the British military officer stated.
(Note: On March 27 AMA related to Poloff that he had asked
the RNA Director of Military Operations (DMO) to investigate
the incident. In his reply, the DMO stated that the man had
been shot while trying to run away. End Note.)

Villagers Report Army Sweep
--------------


4. (C) Also on March 20, a fact-finding mission consisting of
representatives of four local human rights organizations
visited the man,s village, Saraswoti, in the Tokha area of
Kathmandu approximately four miles from the city center.
Villagers related that on March 15 at about 7:30 p.m.
approximately twenty army personnel arrived at the village
gate in two vehicles. The soldiers took five men into
custody; they have not been seen since. One was Kancha
Dangol, whose body the military attaches viewed in the
morgue. Dangol worked as a carpenter and day laborer, and
had stood as a NEPALi Congress Party candidate in a recent
ward election. Among the other four missing men were another
carpenter, an electrician, a mechanic and a tea shop owner.
The men,s houses were "very close to each other." (Note:
Press reports March 16 quoted a Defense Ministry press
release indicating that a man from Tokha had been killed the
previous day in a clash with security forces.)

Press Coverage
--------------


5. (S) Representatives of a consortium of human rights groups
held a press conference March 21 to release their findings,
but asked the media not to reveal the names of the
organizations or individuals involved. Members of these
organizations expressed to Poloff a reluctance to go public
out of a fear of retribution from security forces. Kantipur,
NEPAL's leading vernacular daily, published a story March 22
that related most of the groups' findings.

Other Victims Suspected
--------------


6. (S) The head of CVICT, Bhogendra Sharma (protect),told
Poloff and visiting DRL/PHD officer Gianni Paz that his
organization had received reports of "fake encounters" -
where someone had been killed in custody but the RNA reported
the death as operational - but Dangol's case was the first
case for which they had solid information. If such an
incident could happen in the capital, Sharma speculated, then
it could happen anywhere in the country. Sharma took pains
to explain that his organization has had good connections
with the army, and that he understood that the army was
engaged in a war. At the same time, he continued, a system
of accountability was needed; the army must investigate
reports of "fake encounters"; and authorities should not
"protect" soldiers who commit atrocities, but rather punish
them in a manner that would set an example to others. As it
was, the RNA was "turning a blind eye," Sharma judged.


7. (C) The National People's Front (NPF),a minority
extreme-leftist party with five seats in Parliament, filed a
complaint with NEPAL's human rights commission alleging that
the army had killed three of their cadres in Baglung. The
three were arrested along with seven others. NPF leaders
claim that, ironically, the three had previously been
threatened by the Maoists.

Note on CVICT
--------------


8. (C) CVICT is a non-partisan NGO that works with victims of
torture and their families. To preserve its impartiality,
CVICT does not issue press releases or otherwise publish
information about its clients. It has aided victims of both
Maoist and state abuse. CVICT is one of two organizations
Post relies on most in preparing the NEPAL section of the
annual Human Rights Report. The second organization is the
Informal Sector Services Center (INSEC). The head of CVICT
has given testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations
committee. CVICT has received financial and materiel support
from both the Department of State and USAID.

Comment
--------------


9. (S) The British Assistant Military Attache concluded from
his examination that Dangol was killed by a bullet to the
head after sustaining a beating with a blunt object. That
the RNA reported Dangol's death to the press - before the
body was examined by the CVICT doctor - and that the RNA
later asserted that Dangol had been killed while trying to
flee indicates that he was in their custody before he died.
How much the RNA's top brass knows about this - and similar
instances that have been reported to us anecdotally - remains
unclear.
MALINOWSKI