Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
03KATHMANDU1805
2003-09-15 09:58:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Kathmandu
Cable title:  

NEPAL: HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION ALLEGES HUMAN

Tags:  PHUM PTER MCAP PINR NP 
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This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KATHMANDU 001805 

SIPDIS

STATE FOR SA/INS AND DRL
NSC FOR MILLARD
LONDON FOR GURNEY

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/03/2013
TAGS: PHUM PTER MCAP PINR NP
SUBJECT: NEPAL: HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION ALLEGES HUMAN
RIGHTS ABUSES BY ARMY IN THE EAST

REF: A. USDAO KATHMANDU IIR 6 867 0059 03


B. KATHMANDU 1620

Classified By: AMB. MICHAEL E. MALINOWSKI. REASON: 1.5 (B,D).

---------
SUMMARY
----------

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KATHMANDU 001805

SIPDIS

STATE FOR SA/INS AND DRL
NSC FOR MILLARD
LONDON FOR GURNEY

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/03/2013
TAGS: PHUM PTER MCAP PINR NP
SUBJECT: NEPAL: HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION ALLEGES HUMAN
RIGHTS ABUSES BY ARMY IN THE EAST

REF: A. USDAO KATHMANDU IIR 6 867 0059 03


B. KATHMANDU 1620

Classified By: AMB. MICHAEL E. MALINOWSKI. REASON: 1.5 (B,D).

--------------
SUMMARY
--------------


1. (C) On September 12 the National Human Rights Commission
(NHRC) submitted a report to the Prime Minister that
implicates the Royal Nepal Army (RNA) in the summary
executions of 17 Maoist prisoners and two civilians in
Ramechhap District on August 17. Although the Embassy has
not seen the report, the Secretary at the NHRC told us that
the evidence includes photographs of the corpses, exhumed
from a mass grave in Ramechhap, with gun shot wounds to the
head at close range. The findings generally support earlier
accusations made by a local human rights group with a
broad-based grassroots network. The RNA, which had earlier
conducted its own inquiry exonerating the unit involved of
wrongdoing (Ref A),has said it will reopen the
investigation. The NHRC, which has been plagued by charges
of incompetence and partisanship, appears to have made a
good-faith effort to appoint an impartial blue-ribbon panel
to conduct this inquiry--an effort that we hope will be
duplicated in the future. Although there have been numerous
allegations of RNA wrongdoing in the past, this marks the
first comprehensive effort to examine all available evidence
and provide impartial documentation of a case. How the
Government of Nepal in general and the RNA in particular
handle this landmark report will be watched closely by
Nepalis and members of the internatonal community. End
summary.

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REPORT FROM RAMECHHAP
--------------


2. (SBU) On September 12 the National Human Rights
Commission (NHRC) submitted a report to Prime Minister Surya
Bahadur Thapa on the killings of 19 detainees in Royal Nepal
Army (RNA) custody in Ramechhap District on August 17.
According to Kedar Prasad Poudyal, Secretary at the NHRC, the
report, which compiles the findings of a five-person
independent panel of inquiry appointed by the NHRC, contains

evidence that the RNA summarily executed the 19. Although
the Government of Nepal (GON) has not yet offered an official
response to the report, the RNA's human rights cell has
announced that it will reopen its investigation into the
incident. (As conveyed Ref A, the RNA's earlier
investigation had exonerated the unit involved of any
wrongdoing.)


3. (SBU) The Ramechhap incident had attracted almost
immediate attention both because of its timing--the same day
that GON representatives and Maoist insurgents were holding
their third round of negotiations--and front-page allegations
of extrajudicial killings from a well-established local human
rights group with representatives in the area. According to
the NGO's allegations, the RNA had surrounded a house in
Doramba, Ramechhap District, in which a Maoist meeting was
taking place. (The homeowner was apparently not himself a
Maoist, but had had the bad luck to have his house
commandeered by the insurgents.) Local villagers told the
NGO that shooting broke out from the back of the house,
although no one was sure who initiated it, and one person
inside the house was killed. The RNA then reportedly rounded
up 19 people inside the house, including the homeowner and
his son, and marched them off to another location several
hours away. The head of the NGO told poloff that villagers
in the second location had observed the RNA leading a large
group of prisoners, including two women, into the forest.
The villagers said they then heard a number of gunshots in
rapid succession. When they reached the site after some
time, the villagers found 18 bodies, only one of which was a
woman's corpse.


4. (C) In response to these allegations, the RNA conducted
its own inquiry (Ref A). The RNA's report echoes the first
part of the NGO's version--that soldiers, acting on a tip,
surrounded a house in Doramba in which a Maoist meeting was
taking place. According to the RNA, Maoists in the house
threw socket bombs at the troops, who responded with
overwhelming force, killing five occupants. No prisoners
were reported taken and no injuries or caualties were
reported on the RNA side. The RNA reported retrieving one
rifle from the site. As the unit was on its way back to
base, it was reportedly ambushed by Maoists. According th
the RNA account, the unit again responded with overwhelming
force, taking no prisoners and sustaining no casualties, but
killing 12 Maoists and recovering two pistols.
--------------
IMPARTIAL PANEL
--------------


5. (C) Drawing on a "crisis management" fund provided by the
British, Danish and Norwegian governments (and, we suspect,
nudged by the British Embassy),the NHRC appointed a
five-person independent panel of inquiry to look into the
incident and reconcile the varying accounts. The NHRC, which
has been plagued by accusations of incompetence, corruption,
and partisanship, apparently took special pains to ensure
that the members of the panel could not be similarly faulted.
The team included two long-time Embassy contacts (an eminent
journalist/editor and a former attorney general),as well as
a former Supreme Court justice, an international human rights
law expert, and a doctor skilled in forensic medicine. Kanak
Dixit, the editor who sat on the panel, told us that panel
members made an exhaustive effort to ascertain the facts of
the incident, including taking sworn testimony from local
villagers, and exhuming, examining and photographing the 18
bodies (apparently one corpse had been cremated before the
investigation). The report is well balanced and
painstakingly documented, he asserted, and represents an
unprecedented effort by the NHRC to research an otherwise
sensational case in a professional, dispassionate manner.
The scope of the RNA inquiry, on the other hand, had been
limited to the far-off district headquarters, he charged,
adding that no RNA investigators had set foot on the site
where the bodies remain.


6. (C) On September 10 the Ambassador expressed to
Prabhakar S.J.B. Rana, the King's business partner and
confidant, USG concern at the allegations and urged the GON
to examine the report seriously. On September 15 poloff met
with Kedar Prasad Poudyal, Secretary of the NHRC, to discuss
the report. (Although the NHRC has issued a press release
faulting the RNA for summarily executing the prisoners, the
report itself has not been released to the public.) Poudyal
said the NHRC is unlikely to publish the findings out of
concern for the safety of the eyewitnesses named in the
report. He confirmed that, in addition to collecting
testimony from witnesses that paralleled the original report
from the human rights NGO, the panel had examined the
corpses, and the doctor had found evidence of head injuries
consistent with gun shots fired at close range. He indicated
that at least one of the corpses had its hands tied behind
its back. The NHRC report urges the GON to reopen the
investigation into the killings and to pursue appropriate
disciplinary action against the perpetrators.

--------------
COMMENT
--------------


7. (C) Critics of the NHRC generally have no lack of
ammunition with which to attack an organization whose
politicization and bureaucratic ineptitude in the past have
rendered it unreliable, ineffective and largely incapable of
performing its constitutionally mandated responsibility of
monitoring human rights violations. With the appointment of
this panel, the NHRC appears to have made a good-faith effort
to overcome these deficiencies. We hope this investigation
sets a standard that the NHRC will copy in the future. In
the face of forensic evidence, including photographs,
contradicting its account of an ambush, the RNA will have
little choice but to reopen its cursory investigation. The
publicity already surrounding the event, coupled with the
impeccable reputations of the panel members who compiled the
report, make it difficult for the GON to ignore or repudiate
the findings. We will continue to urge the GON to
demonstrate its commitment to human rights and the rule of
law by taking all necessary and appropriate action--including
possible prosecution of anyone found guilty of violations.



MALINOWSKI