US embassy cable - 03KATHMANDU351

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KATHMANDU 000351 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR DRL 
CORRECTED COPY OF KATHMANDU 0329 - TEXT MODIFIED 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM, PREL, EAID, NP, Human Rights 
SUBJECT: USG HUMAN RIGHTS STRATEGY FOR NEPAL 
 
REF: STATE 13790 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1.  In CY 02 our Mission engaged with the Government of Nepal 
(GON), the military, and members of civil society on a 
variety of fronts to advance the USG human rights agenda. 
Such programs have addressed needs in areas as diverse as 
voter education; advocacy in a democracy; trafficking in 
persons; child labor; civic education; women's political 
participation; press freedom; rehabilitation of torture 
victims; the Law of Armed Conflict;  and the investigation of 
human rights abuses by the military.  End summary. 
 
 
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STRENGTHENING DEMOCRACY/ 
WOMEN'S RIGHTS 
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2.  To address Nepal's weak democratic institutions, our 
USAID Mission has worked with the host government, civil 
society and American NGOs to bolster support for free and 
fair elections.  A two-year voter education program, funded 
at USD 609,696, trained 180 district election officials and 
1,227 civic/political leaders from 30 districts in proper 
election procedures.  The program also printed and 
distributed 50,000 voter awareness booklets with pertinent 
election laws and 70,000 voters' resource manuals.  In 
addition, 30 episodes of a radio drama on voters' rights and 
responsibilities were aired in 10 local languages.  As a 
result, district election officials, local political party 
and civic leaders, as well as general voters, benefited from 
increased awareness of election procedures. 
 
 
3.  To help support an expanded role for women in the 
electoral process, the USAID Mission has funded a two-year 
program (begun in late FY 01) in increase women's political 
participation by preparing approximately 4,000 female 
candidates for upcoming local body elections.  To date USD 
628,304 has been obligated in this program.  After local 
elections were postponed in mid-2002, implementing partners 
adapted the program to focus on preparing training materials, 
surveying women leaders to identify potential candidates, and 
conducting a needs assessment of 400 local female 
representatives.  Public Diplomacy (PD) also conducted a 
series of workshops on women's empowerment in various 
locations across the country, including some focused on 
women's participation in the media. 
 
4.  During CY 2002 the USAID Mission continued a cooperative 
agreement, begun in FY 01, to strengthen advocacy and local 
government accountability.  To date USD 689,070 has been 
obligated.  This program aims to achieve strengthened 
capacity of federations/coalitions of natural resource user 
groups and women's groups to advocate for member interests 
and increased scrutiny of government performance in the 
allocation and management of funds for local development.  To 
date, 366 lead group members have been trained, who have in 
turn trained another 593 members of forest and irrigation 
users' groups and women's groups.  The women's coalitions 
have engaged in advocacy campaigns on a wide variety of 
issues, including the dowry system; leadership training; 
employment conditions for women in hotels and restaurants; 
reservation of 25 percent of local government budgets for 
women's development; and combating witchcraft accusations. 
USAID has signed a second cooperative agreement for a similar 
three-year program, funded at USD 750,000, that will expand 
this program to additional districts in mid-western and 
far-western regions of the country. 
 
5.  To increase awareness of citizens' rights and 
responsibilities in Nepal's relatively young democracy, the 
PD section sponsored a program to develop a civic education 
curriculum for schools in at least 15 districts.  The 
curriculum has been so successfully received that the 
Ministry of Education plans to implement its use in grades 
10-12 and has asked for complementary materials for use at 
the primary school level.  In CY 02 USD 164,451 was spent on 
this program. 
 
 
6.  In March PD sponsored a lecture program on "The 
Individual Citizen and Democracy:  Rights and 
Responsibilities."  In June PD sponsored two seminars for 
members of civil society, the government, and the judiciary 
on "The Difference Between Human Rights and Citizens' Rights" 
and "Human Rights and the Rule of Law" in Kathmandu and 
Pokhara respectively. 
 
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ANTI-TRAFFICKING/ 
CHILD LABOR 
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7.  In FY 01-02 the Mission supported anti-trafficking 
programs that included training for local government 
anti-trafficking task forces, overseas employment agency 
rights training, dissemination of information on safe 
migration, psycho-social counseling, and anti-trafficking 
network strengthening.  To date USD 900,000 has been 
obligated for these activities.  Participants included 
vulnerable women and girls, teachers and students, staff of 
transit homes for returning victims of trafficking, members 
of local government and transport workers.  USAID-funded 
programs also reviewed the SAARC Convention on Preventing and 
Combating Trafficking of Women and Children for Prostitution 
from a human rights perspective, as well as a study of 
Nepal's labor and migration laws in the context of 
trafficking and women's right to migrate.  The latter study 
found that restrictions on women's overseas employment in 
fact made it more likely that women would resort to illegal 
migration, thus making them more vulnerable to being 
trafficked.  (Note:  Legal restrictions on women's right to 
travel to the Gulf for employment have since been lifted. 
End note.)  In CY 02 the Mission also funded a program 
through UNICEF to provide computer equipment and to design a 
database for police units specifically charged with 
controlling trafficking. 
 
8.  The USG Department of Labor has committed USD 5 million 
for a comprehensive, three-year, "time-bound" program to 
eliminate the worst forms of child labor.  This program is 
being implemented through the ILO and the NGO World 
Education. 
 
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HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE INSURGENCY 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
9.  For the past seven years, Nepal has been gripped by a 
violent domestic Maoist insurgency in which nearly 7,000 
people have been killed.  After the Maoists unilaterally 
broke a ceasefire with a series of attacks on the security 
forces in November 2001, King Gyanendra, on the advice of the 
Prime Minister, mobilized the Royal Nepal Army (RNA) and 
declared a state of emergency that suspended many basic civil 
rights.  Human rights has been a central part of our 
bilateral dialogue at all levels of our interactions with the 
police, the army, and the civilian government throughout the 
year.  In June PD sponsored guest speaker lectures for 
journalists, editors, and the government on "Freedom of 
Information During a State of Emergency."  The Embassy and 
DAO have maintained an active dialogue on the subject of 
human rights with RNA commanders during CY 02, arguing that 
respect for civilian rights is a tactical necessity in 
counterinsurgency as well as a moral imperative of a 
democratic government.  Our repeated demarches demonstrably 
have influenced the human rights sensitivity of top military 
leaders. 
 
10.  Emboff and DATT met with the RNA to inquire about the 
arrests of two human rights activists and two journalists in 
March; the four were subsequently released without charge 
later in the month.  The Embassy has pursued a number of 
cases, including some apparent extrajudicial killings, with 
the RNA's human rights cell.  In one of these cases, the RNA 
has provisionally disciplined two soldiers involved.  Further 
investigation into this case was pending at year's end.  In 
CY 03 the Embassy plans to coordinate assistance to the 
respective human rights cells of the three branches of the 
security forces (RNA, civil police, Armed Police Force) with 
the British. 
 
11.  In September the Embassy's Offices of Defense 
Cooperation (ODC) and Public Diplomacy jointly sponsored the 
participation of two lecturers from the Defense Institute of 
International Legal Studies in a two-day seminar on the Law 
of Armed Conflict and Rules of Engagement for at least 20 RNA 
officers at the rank of colonel and above.  In December a 
Department of Defense Mobile Training Team exercise, funded 
through IMET, trained the RNA on civil affairs. 
 
12.  The Ambassador pressed the Prime Minister and Foreign 
Ministry officials to conclude a long-pending headquarters 
agreeement with an international INGO and to allow the INGO 
access to detainees in military barracks.  (Note:  The 
headquarters agreement was subsequently signed in January 
2003.  End note.)  By the end of the year, the INGO had been 
allowed at least one visit to a military barracks. 
 
13.  In June the USAID Mission initiated a project to 
rehabilitate torture victims and build capacity among health 
professionals that deal with torture victims.  Under a 
cooperative agreement with the Center for Victims of Torture 
(CVICT), more than 1,000 torture victims and their families 
will receive comprehensive medical and psychological care, as 
well as legal counseling.  Mobile treatment clinics also 
conduct community awareness programs to inform rural 
communities of their rights and the legal and therapeutic 
recourse available to them.  Fact-finding teams (composed of 
a doctor, a lawyer, and a journalist) investigate, document 
and report credible accounts of torture.  CVICT will train 
100 medical professionals in medico-legal aspects of 
examination, documentation, and reporting cases of torture 
and rape.  The total budget for the project is USD 600,000. 
MALINOWSKI