Nepal sets up panels to probe war crimes

KATHMANDU: Nepal set up two commissions on Tuesday to investigate long-simmering allegations of human rights abuses and disappearances during the Himalayan nation’s decade-long civil war, a government minister said.
State forces and Maoist rebels alike have been accused of grave war-time abuses, including unlawful killings, arbitrary arrests, disappearances, rape and torture, during the years of conflict which ended under a 2006 peace agreement.
Both sides pledged to look into the crimes within six months after signing the peace deal. But subsequent governments failed to investigate the accusations, fearing doing so would derail a tenuous peace between politicians and former rebels, leaving alleged perpetrators to rise through the military and political ranks.
“This matter had been entangled for more than eight years,” law minister Narahari Acharya told reporters on Tuesday in Kathmandu after a cabinet meeting during which the panels were set up.
Acharya said a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, modelled after the one set up in South Africa after the end of apartheid, would investigate abuses committed during the conflict. A second panel, the Commission on Enforced Disappearances, would investigate the disappearances of more than 1,300 people still missing eight years after the end of the conflict.
Acharya said the panels had two years to finish their work. Last month, New York-based Human Rights Watch condemned Nepal for failing to keep promises of post-conflict justice and accountability.