Nepal

human rights and children

With People’s War (PW) entering into formation of temporary base areas, the Nepal government too has been coming up with concocted lies maligning PW and its achievements. The latest one is that they are killing babies and using school children for war purposes. This is in fact a new version of the earlier anti-communist campaign during the 60s when it used to allege that communists kill all those old people who cross over 60 years! This new campaign was purposely floated when a successful raid in heavily fortified Panchkatia police post in Jajarkot district took place on June 7 this year in which there was a heavy loss on the government side. This raid exposed the blatant use of family members as human shield by the police force in the house it had forcefully occupied. This resulted into killing of some civilians along with some policemen. Amongst them some children too fell victim in the cross-firing. In order to cover its military defeat, the govt. used death of those innocent children as a means to attack the revolutionary force that they are baby killers. When the actual facts began to emerge they started with another concocted campaign, that is the ‘‘terrorists’’ are kidnapping school children and forcing them to catch guns. It is clear that they are using children as a means to scare away family members from the revolutionary Party. However, the fact is otherwise. In a massive response to recruitment call in people’s militias, the Party all over the country has been discouraging the minors (those below 18 years) from joining people’s armed forces. This has been confirmed by even those leading newspaper journalists who had recently gone to Rolpa on invitation by the local Party.

The government is cruel, indiscriminately killing anyone out of shear fear. In fact the first victim of police firing since the initiation of People’s War, was Dil Bahadur Ramtel, who was only eleven years old. His ‘‘crime’’ was that he tried to save his beloved respected headmaster of his school who was being dragged by the police force on charge of being a CPN (Maoist) sympathiser. Policemen are not only cruel to children, they are most barbaric even to unborn children and their mothers. There have been several cases of torture and

rape on pregnant women resulting into premature death of unborn children, leaving mothers bleeding profusely. Bindia Chaulagai, a young woman in an advanced stage of pregnancy, was tortured in police custody. The torture resulted in pre-mature delivery of the baby, which ultimately led to its death, followed by her own death few days later. Take the case of Sunsara Budha, wife of a Party activist, she was tortured before her two years old infant. When she did not reveal whereabouts of her husband, her child was subjected to torture, but still she did not buckle. The police then brutally killed her and left behind the injured child. In Jajarkot, a girl aged eleven was subjected to brutal oral sex by a policeman. In Salyan district 26 years old Pima Budhathoki who was six months pregnant was cruelly raped by three policemen in her house. In Rukum a 15 years old Madrika Pariar was subjected to rape by 22 policemen in police custody leaving her in death bed. Take the case of Subhadra Sapkota, Chiniya Lama, Manju Kunwar, all minors amongst the 7 cultural activists killed in Kavre, their fault was that they took to singing progressive songs. Today most of the schools in PW affected areas have been converted into police barracks thus depriving children their education. So much for their so called care for children and their blabbering of human rights of children! CPN (Maoist) on the other hand has been campaigning for free education for all children. In areas where People’s Committees are functioning, no private schools have been allowed to function while government run schools are supervised by People’s Committees. They have also removed the burden of learning archaic Sanskrit language. While they have been strictly forbidden to join people’s armed force, they have been organised under ‘‘Akhil Bal Sangathan’’, a children’s organisation which takes care of overall development of children, including their right to express their solidarity to what they consider is good. In that respect many Dil Bahadur Ramtels will continue to come forward to defend what they consider is justice. Maligning such voluntary acts as forceful recruitment in people’s armed force is to fall into psychological warfare trap directed against PW and its cause. In this regard, UN organisation like UNESCO and Human Rights Organisation like Amnesty International should be particularly careful as not to fall prey to such disinformation campaigns.