Nepal’s Missing

The Struggle for Full Disclosure

Throughout the period between June and October this year, the issue of disappeared people has been an highly sensitive and explosive one in Nepal. Indeed, in the first week of October 2007, families of the disappeared , in their hundreds, held a picket/demonstration, marked by outrage and fury, at the gates of the Bhairanath Battalion, one of the most dreaded units of the old Royal Nepal Army (RNA). It was reported that this battalion alone has “disappeared” a very large number of people in the course of trying to wipe out the revolution in the ten-year civil war in Nepal.
Earlier this year, many supporters and sympathisers of these families had joined them in protests, demanding the government release all information on the missing thousands. This culminated in a raging torrents of mass demonstration involving thousands of people in the streets of Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal in mid-June.
How Many Disappeared in Nepal?
According to the United Nations Human Rights Commission on Nepal, betweeen 800 and 900 people were reported missing between 1996 and 2006. The International Committee of the Red Cross has a figure of over a thousand in the same period. Local human rights organisations claim a somewhat higher number.
The Society of the Families of Disappeared Citizens in Nepal (SFDC), in which the relatives of the disappeared are organised, has been closely monitoring and documenting the problems of the families related to the issue. This organisation has however revealed that between 1997 and 2005 alone, around 5,000 people have been made to disappear by the old state apparatus of Nepal and that the figures keep climbing. Indeed, since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Nepalese state, represented by seven parliamentary political parties, and the insurgent Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN[M]) was signed, and a peace process set in motion since May 2006, 69 more people have disappeared.

Who are the “disappeared”?
While a great many of those disappeared are from the peasantry, including small-scale farmers, CPN(Maoist) members and its supporters, in rural areas,
account for the biggest group of persons disappeared. People who disappeared include workers like factory-hands, truck-divers, domestic servants, farm-hands and teachers. But bus-drivers/operators, taxi-drivers, shop-keepers, house-wives and students and journalists, as well as political party activists, have also gone missing.
Background on the Subject
Nepal which is sandwiched between two giant neighbours, China to the north and surrounded by India on three sides, west, south and east, is among the poorest countries in the world. The social system that prevails is one which can best be described as semi-feudal, semi-colonial.
Semi-feudal, because the social relations of production (mainly agricultural activities) is dominated by a relatively small number of feudal landlords, especially in the narrow, but fertile southern plains (Terai), over the vast peasant majority. Small scale cultivation and animal-breeding however characterise rural economic life throughout most of Nepal. All other social relations in the country correspond to these semi-feudal socio-economic (production) relations.
Nepal has been a kingdom, an absolute monarchy with the king as the supreme commander of the Royal Nepal Army, the backbone of the old state. Hitherto, for centuries, the king had been revered by the population which has delibrately and systematically been led (by the state) to believe that he is the reincarnation of the Hindu god, Vishnu. Hitherto, this monarchy, strongly backed by powerful imperialist states, such as, the United States, states of the European Union and India, has been reproducing and reinforcing this age-old social system of Nepal, which is marked by abject poverty and terrible repression for the overwhelming majority of the people.
The extremely harsh conditions of life in Nepal are also enforced by its neighbours, especially India, which dominates its politics (through the king and the large political parties, such as, the pro-Indian Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist-Leninist, commonly known as the UML) - and economically by intense exploitation of labour, dumping of cheap consumer goods, and hence undermining the development of local capital. But the Indian state also plunders Nepal’s water resources for its energy (hydro-electric power) needs and encroaches on Nepal’s territory from time to time, thereby intimidating its people and threatening its national sovereignty in the process.
In the final analysis, as with other countries of the Third World, it is the global system of imperialism, in particular, the great powers of western Europe as well as the US and Japan, that decide on the fate of Nepal. Owing to its international (social) relations with its stronger neighbours and the imperialist powers, owing to its subordinate position hence, Nepal still suffers from colonial forms of economic exploitation and political overlordship. It can be said that colonial relations continue to persist despite its formal political independence. The country’s dominant bureaucrat capitalist class as well as the old feudal class of land-holders serve this semi-colonial relations vis-à-vis the great imperialist powers and the Indian expansiont state in the south.
Against such a backdrop, and in order to to bring an all-round social transformation, the CPN (Maoist) launched an armed-struggle in 1996, which had – and still has - the goal of overthrowing the old state of semi-feudal, semi-colonialism. This armed insurgency soon spread throughout the length and breadth of the country and intensified, developing into an all-sided people’s war, threatening not only the very existence of the old state of the monarchy, but also promising to end relations of exploitation and oppression . Local guerilla squads which later
developed into the People’s Guerrilla Army led by the CPN (M) have been spearheading this revolutionary movement. By the year 2000, it grew to become the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Today, this fighting force has seven divisions of over 31,000 strong in cantonments under a peace agreement with seven other political parties in Nepal., By the end of year 2004, 80 percent of the country had come under the sway of the revolution with the United People’s Revolutionary Council serving as local governments.
As greater numbers of people, mostly peasants in the countryside, flocked to the banner of the people’s war, the Nepali Armed Police Force, and since 2001, the RNA resorted to arresting and carrying out extra-judicial executions of peasants and local peasant leaders in ever growing numbers. A virtual reign of terror was imposed on the people.
The problem of the disappeared in Nepal is very much tied to the overall problems of a revolution in ferment - and the inevitable counter-revolution on its heels
How did Disappearances Occurr ?
While state-sponsored armed vigilantes were also involved in suppressing the revolution, and hence by extension the killings of popular leaders at local levels, in most cases, it was the police that arrested people suspected of involvement with the CPN (Maoist) or those supporting or aiding the guerrilla fighters under the leadership of the Maoist party. All too often, arrested persons were handed over to the RNA, from whence they vanished.
In most cases, the RNA tortured and secretly murdered the sympathisers/supporters of the revolutionary process and disposed of their bodies in secret places throughout Nepal. In other cases, they were, and possibly still are, imprisoned in military camps and secret locations. As mentioned earlier, secret murders and disappearances have not completely ended with the commencement of the peace process.
Many of the disappearances also took place in Kathmandu, where arrested persons from different districts of Nepal were brought to RNA military bases/camps. All-too-often when family members of arrested persons attempted to visit their relatives in police custody, they have been told to go to military camps or barracks, only to be told that the Royal Army knows nothing of their arrests or whereabouts. The state has waged a veritable a “dirty war” against the people.

Who is Responsible for Deaths and Disappearances in Nepal?
In order to confuse the issue of disappeared people in Nepal, some quarters serving the old state of the monarchy and desirous of the continuity of the old social relations that reduced Nepal to the semi-colonial society, have even claimed that the Maoists are also responsible for the disappearances since it was they who initiated the armed conflict and civil war in the first place. Some have asserted that the Maoist have also killed their opponents, and that their victims’ whereabouts are also still unknown. How true are these allegations?

While it is true that revolution involves violence – indeed war – and that very many (often unneccessary) deaths occur in social convulsions and upheavals, the CPN (M) insists that it does not “disappear” its political opponents. Moreover, this party maintains that it does not punish, certainly not execute, anyone found innocent of (violent) crimes. Its policy towards innocent and hapless civilians, “caught in the cross-fire” of civil-war has been, and still is, to strive to win their hearts over to the side of the revolution, not drive them away from it. And that is precisely how the party has been able to gain ever growing sympathy and support among the people. Moreover, all punishments meted out to those guilty of crimes against the people, are fully publicised so as to educate the masses about the nature of the revolution and counter-revolution according to the policy of the party, it insists.
Yet, there are others, including some foreign human rights groups and foreign-funded NGOs, which have sought to confound the issue by pointing to the “internally displaced persons” in the People’s War.
Who are these “internally displaced persons”? In the course of the ten-year People’s War, poverty-sricken landless tenant peasants, who have long been mercilessly exploited were inspired, and exhorted by the CPN (M), to seize property, such as land of landlords and counter-revolutionary elements.

Those from this category have all along opposed revolutionary change. And they have often informed (the police) on their insurgent peasant neighbours in the countryside. As the revolution gained in strength, these elements, finding themselves in hostile environment, fled their homes and moved to the district headquarters and the national capital. While it might be the case that many innocent people, fearing violence have also fled their homes, in most cases, it was those who took purposeful actions against the revolution, fearing retribution - revolutionary justice - who are by far the biggest component among the “internally displaced” persons. Till today, these are the most vociferous of the dislodged persons or “internal refugees” in Nepal today.
The Society of the Families of the Disappeared however states that the fact that a high percentage of those arrested by the police in different localities of the country and who were traced to Kathmandu, the national capital, have eventually become unaccountable for under RNA custody confirms beyond doubts, that it is the old state apparatus that is directly responsible for the vast number of cases of the disappeared.
In the final analysis, however, imperialism is responsible for these crimes.
Imperialism; its principal anchor states, the US and the states of the European Union (EU) in particular, not only underwrite the continued existance of the centuries-old monarchy by providing it arms and finance, but also ensures the continuity of the social system of Nepal - and hence the perpetuation of the people’s misery. Imperialist states cannot arm and protect the Nepalese state and at the same time maintain that their hands are clean of the blood of the dead, nor can they be absolved of the crimes of disappearances.
The Demands of the Families of the Disappeared
The Nepalese government headed by Girija Prasad Koirala, the head of the Nepali Congress, has consistently refused to provide information concerning disappeared persons. Hence the relatives and families of the disappeared continue to be in anguish and torment over the stonewalling of the issue by the authorities.
The people responsible for the disappearances during the People’s War are still in the government, declares a recent statement by the Society of the Families of the Disappeared. The main reasons, why the government does not release any information about the disappearances, the families insist, are that disclosure will not only thoroughly expose the RNA and the Armed Police Force before the world as mass-murders, but also give rise to increased support for the Maoists among the people, as they alone among all other parties have been consistently calling for full accountability (on the issue) and punishment for those guilty of heinous crimes against the people.
The families have also stated that since their lost relatives have made enormous sacrifices for the country they (organised in the SFDC) are ready to take strong actions against the government, including help mobilise masses of people in their millions for an ever bigger agitation, culminating in a gigantic people’s movement (known as Jana Andolan in Nepal) such as the one the world witnessed last year (April 2006).