US embassy cable - 02KATHMANDU634

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 KATHMANDU 000634 
 
SIPDIS 
 
LONDON FOR POL/RIEDEL 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/28/2012 
TAGS: PHUM, PGOV, PTER, MARR, ASEC, PREL, PINR, NP, Human Rights 
SUBJECT: SUSPECTED TORTURE, EXTRA-JUDICIAL KILLING BY ROYAL 
NEPALESE ARMY 
 
Classified By: AMBASSADOR MICHAEL E. MALINOWSKI, REASONS 1.5(B),(D) 
 
1. (S) Summary.  Evidence that Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) 
personnel brutalized and killed one man they suspected of 
being a Maoist has spurred private investigations into the 
army's alleged practice of covering up the deaths of 
detainees.  Military attaches from the U.S. and U.K. 
Embassies viewed the corpse of one man who evidently had been 
shot through the head after suffering a sustained beating. 
Residents of the man's village told a team of human rights 
activists that army personnel had picked him and four others 
off the street.  The next morning his body turned up in a 
Kathmandu morgue and attracted the attention of a doctor 
affiliated with a group that works with torture victims. 
Asked by a British military attache to investigate the 
incident, a high-ranking RNA officer replied that the man had 
been shot while trying to run away.  The extent to which 
high-ranking RNA officers are aware of such incidents remains 
unclear.  End Summary. 
 
Investigations Into RNA Abuse In Kathmandu Valley 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
2. (S) The GON,s Human Rights Commission, the Center for 
Victims of Torture (CVICT) and local human rights 
organizations are investigating reports that Royal Nepalese 
Army (RNA) personnel have tortured and summarily executed 
individuals they suspect of supporting the Maoist cause.  The 
RNA has allegedly released the names of such individuals as 
having been killed in a clash with or in flight from security 
forces.  The case of one man in particular attracted the 
attention of Kathmandu-based organizations after his body 
turned up at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in the 
capital early on the morning of March 16.  A doctor who 
viewed the body upon reporting for work later that morning 
related what he saw to the head of CVICT. 
 
Signs of Beating, Gunshot Wounds 
-------------------------------- 
 
3. (S) Emboffs, in the company of British Embassy officials, 
visited the hospital March 20 and met with the doctor who 
reported the condition of the corpse to CVICT.  DATT and 
British Assistant Military Attache (AMA) then viewed the 
body, which was still in the morgue.  Afterwards, the British 
AMA described viewing an individual in his late twenties or 
early thirties with multiple blunt-trauma contusions to the 
face, shoulders, arms and hands.  The blows to the arms and 
hands were apparently inflicted while the man was sitting in 
a chair.  He had a small puncture wound in one calf and a 
mark on his neck which looked as if it had been made by a 
strip of cloth, but his skin was otherwise unbroken.  Cause 
of death was four gunshot wounds, three in the back and one 
through the head, the British military officer stated. 
(Note:  On March 27 AMA related to Poloff that he had asked 
the RNA Director of Military Operations (DMO) to investigate 
the incident.  In his reply, the DMO stated that the man had 
been shot while trying to run away.  End Note.) 
 
Villagers Report Army Sweep 
--------------------------- 
 
4. (C) Also on March 20, a fact-finding mission consisting of 
representatives of four local human rights organizations 
visited the man,s village, Saraswoti, in the Tokha area of 
Kathmandu approximately four miles from the city center. 
Villagers related that on March 15 at about 7:30 p.m. 
approximately twenty army personnel arrived at the village 
gate in two vehicles.  The soldiers took five men into 
custody; they have not been seen since.  One was Kancha 
Dangol, whose body the military attaches viewed in the 
morgue.  Dangol worked as a carpenter and day laborer, and 
had stood as a Nepali Congress Party candidate in a recent 
ward election.  Among the other four missing men were another 
carpenter, an electrician, a mechanic and a tea shop owner. 
The men,s houses were "very close to each other."  (Note: 
Press reports March 16 quoted a Defense Ministry press 
release indicating that a man from Tokha had been killed the 
previous day in a clash with security forces.) 
 
Press Coverage 
-------------- 
 
5. (S) Representatives of a consortium of human rights groups 
held a press conference March 21 to release their findings, 
but asked the media not to reveal the names of the 
organizations or individuals involved.  Members of these 
organizations expressed to Poloff a reluctance to go public 
out of a fear of retribution from security forces.  Kantipur, 
Nepal's leading vernacular daily, published a story March 22 
that related most of the groups' findings. 
 
Other Victims Suspected 
----------------------- 
 
6. (S) The head of CVICT, Bhogendra Sharma (protect), told 
Poloff and visiting DRL/PHD officer Gianni Paz that his 
organization had received reports of "fake encounters" - 
where someone had been killed in custody but the RNA reported 
the death as operational - but Dangol's case was the first 
case for which they had solid information.  If such an 
incident could happen in the capital, Sharma speculated, then 
it could happen anywhere in the country.  Sharma took pains 
to explain that his organization has had good connections 
with the army, and that he understood that the army was 
engaged in a war.  At the same time, he continued, a system 
of accountability was needed; the army must investigate 
reports of "fake encounters"; and authorities should not 
"protect" soldiers who commit atrocities, but rather punish 
them in a manner that would set an example to others.  As it 
was, the RNA was "turning a blind eye," Sharma judged. 
 
7. (C) The National People's Front (NPF), a minority 
extreme-leftist party with five seats in Parliament, filed a 
complaint with Nepal's human rights commission alleging that 
the army had killed three of their cadres in Baglung.  The 
three were arrested along with seven others.  NPF leaders 
claim that, ironically, the three had previously been 
threatened by the Maoists. 
 
Note on CVICT 
------------- 
 
8. (C) CVICT is a non-partisan NGO that works with victims of 
torture and their families.  To preserve its impartiality, 
CVICT does not issue press releases or otherwise publish 
information about its clients.  It has aided victims of both 
Maoist and state abuse.  CVICT is one of two organizations 
Post relies on most in preparing the Nepal section of the 
annual Human Rights Report.  The second organization is the 
Informal Sector Services Center (INSEC).  The head of CVICT 
has given testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations 
committee.  CVICT has received financial and materiel support 
from both the Department of State and USAID. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
9. (S) The British Assistant Military Attache concluded from 
his examination that Dangol was killed by a bullet to the 
head after sustaining a beating with a blunt object.  That 
the RNA reported Dangol's death to the press - before the 
body was examined by the CVICT doctor - and that the RNA 
later asserted that Dangol had been killed while trying to 
flee indicates that he was in their custody before he died. 
How much the RNA's top brass knows about this - and similar 
instances that have been reported to us anecdotally - remains 
unclear. 
MALINOWSKI