US embassy cable - 03KATHMANDU1805

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, Human Rights 
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. 
 
---------------------- 
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