Monthly Archives: March 2010

Women and Society: Nepal vs India

Posted on March 14, 2010 by | 12 Comments

Nepal has already seen/done some of the things that are happening in India today

Click here to read on the OpEd page of today’s TKP

By Dinesh Wagle

Following the latest happenings in Indian politics and society is a kind of déjà vu experience for many Nepali people. The upper house of the Indian parliament last week passed a bill that provides 33 percent reservation for women in the parliament (Lok Sabha) and state assemblies. We already have that in action. The Delhi High Court last year decriminalised gay sex. Our Supreme Court did that at least two years before any court in India acted upon it. And we have at least one openly gay MP in Nepal who appears on the pages of The New York Times and Time. Who in Nepal could believe that an Indian newspaper recently reported the plan of the Delhi Police to hire women in its traffic police department?

Even in fighting, or compromising for that matter, we seem to be ahead of our Indian comrades. They are talking about possible talks between the state and the Maoist rebels. One side is asking for a halt to the violence, the other is demanding an end to the armed operation against them. One side has proposed the names of mediators while the other side has mutely frowned upon that move. The press here is also reporting an alleged rift in the top Maoist leadership. We reported about all these things a long time ago. We have lived through offers of talks, several rounds of talks, their breaking, rifts in the leadership and all. We have been there, done that. Continue reading →

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Posted in Eye on India, Nepali Society

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Human Rights in Nepal: from American eyes

Posted on March 12, 2010 by | 1 Comment

The U.S. Department of State released its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices on Thursday, March 11th in Washington, DC. The congressionally mandated reports cover internationally recognized individual, civil, political, and worker rights, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Releasing the report in Washington D.C., Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “Human rights may be timeless, but our efforts to protect them must be grounded in the here and now. New technologies have proven useful both to oppressors and to those who struggle to expose the failures and the cowardice of the oppressors. And global challenges of our time – like food security and climate change; pandemic disease; economic crises; and violent extremism – impact the enjoyment of human rights today, and shape the global political context in which we must advance human rights over the long term.”

Some highlights of the 2009 Report for Nepal are listed below:

- Impunity for human rights violators, threats against the media, arbitrary arrest, and lengthy pretrial detention were serious problems.

- Maoist militias engaged in arbitrary and unlawful use of lethal force and abduction. Violence, extortion, and intimidation continued throughout the year. Numerous armed groups, largely in the Terai region in the lowland area near the Indian border, attacked civilians, government officials, members of particular ethnic groups, each other, or Maoist militias. Continue reading →

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Posted in Nepali Society

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A study of DDR and SSR in Nepal (ii)

Posted on March 11, 2010 by | 2 Comments

Click here for the first part of this article.

By Bishnu Pathak and Devendra Uprety

7. Community-Police Relation (CPR)

When we talk about SSR in Nepal, it is essential to briefly introduce CPR, which is taken as the prime component of security institutions in post–conflict period. The organizational structure of Nepal Police was designed by an officer of the Indian police commission who had come to Nepal in 2009 BS as police advisor (Rai, 2008). The Nepal Police, in tern, inherently influenced by colonial structure of India39 that put the whole police structure under the grip of a small elites group, who do not bother about people’s need. Instead, instead try to maintain their power by whatever means possible. The grip of high-caste group is so strong that the police have failed to acquire faith and support from grass root and marginalized people. The marginalized and non-elite have always complained about the discrimination and based approach of the state towards them.

Nepal Police is established to maintain, law and order and security in the country. The first Rana prime minister Jung Bhadur Rana first set up the police structure to maintain social security and established law and order in society. He set up three polices stations in Birathnager, two in sapateri and one in Mohotarai and all of them headed by lieutenants [Nepal Praharaiko Itihas (The History of Nepal Police)]. After the downfall of Rana regimes in 1951, the police headquarter was established to be headed by the Inspector General of Police (IGP). However, Nepal Police was instituted in 1952 primarily consisting of the Mukti Sena the than ex-combatants of Nepali congress with a basic motto of ‘truth, service and security’. For this reason, it was intended to strengthen community-police relation despite several deficiencies prevailing within the system. However, following the royal coup of 1960, Nepal Police began to serve the interests of zonal commissioners.40 With the enactment of the Police Act in 1955, the foundations for the modern civil police force were created. Continue reading →

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A study of DDR and SSR in Nepal

Posted on March 8, 2010 by | 3 Comments

Preliminary sociological observation of Disarmament Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) and Security Sector Reform (SSR) in Nepal.

By Bishnu Pathak and Devendra Uprety

1. Setting

Security Sector Reform (SSR) is a continuous process to all countries and regions, including politically stable states, fragile states, and post-conflict countries. However, it is widely understood that there need to be urgent SSR priorities in countries emerging from large-scale violent conflict. Over the years, Nepalese society has undergone deep structural shift – a full decade of violent political upheaval abolished the 240 year Shah Dynasty and established a federal republic. Right now, Nepal is poised at a decisive crossroads in its transition from armed conflict to post-conflict recovery and democratic government2. Before the decade-long Maoists armed conflict, Nepal had not tolerated such an intense domestic violent crisis since the formation of the modern state. Nepal has long suffered from highly politicized security institutions. Politically, the state apparatus has been dominated by a few feudal elites who have been principally resistant to democratic reform. Particularly, the security sector has been much more complicated by nature of the long feudal-based autocratic political system.

In the long political history of Nepal, the military force was commanded by the dynastic monarchy or the hereditary Rana oligarchy. There has never been any precedent for aintaining civilian supremacy over the armed force.3 Highly use and misuse of national security agencies (army, police, and intelligence) by certain political parties for their specific ends creates further problems in the security sector. On the other side, it seems a more challenging situation in the security sector may occur in the coming days due to intense proliferation of hundreds of armed militant groups throughout the nation. The Maoists armies’ (re)integration into Nepal Army to form national army is again a major challenge to the nation. The demobilization and disarmament (DD) of the Maoists army4 under UNMIN supervision has already been completed. According to the agreement on Monitoring of the Management of Arms and Armies between the Nepal government and the Maoists on December 8, 2006, UNMIN has verified 19,602 Maoist combatants. These combatants ave been living in seven main and 21-satellite cantonments (see table) under the UNMIN’s supervision, after the completion of registration. Under Resolution 1740 (2007) UNMIN has been given the mandate to monitor the management of arms and armed personnel of the Nepal Army and the Maoist army, in line with the provisions of the Compressive Peace Agreement (CPA) and assist the parties through a Joint Monitoring Coordination Committee (JMCC) in implementing their agreement on the management of arms and armed personnel. Continue reading →

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