Nepal Government Immunizes Massacre Leaders

A group within the Nepal government has officially immunized massacres in Nepal by signing a 22-point agreement with the leader of internationally notorious Gaur massacre Upendra Yadav. He belongs to the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF), an armed group specifically formed to physically annihilate the progressive people’s leaderships from the Terai region of Nepal. The MJF, before the Rautahat district administration of Nepal government, carried out a cold-blooded massacre of 27 unarmed people on 21 March 2007. The Nepal government police were the principal spectators of the heinous crimes. Human rights groups found rape signs as well as several women’s breasts to cut off before being killed. Human rights groups also pointed out such types of massacres could never be the task of a political party with some vision. They strongly claimed that this massacre was carried out by professional criminals. But the MJF, which always claims that it represents people, did boast of this incident and said that such an incident did happen because people preferred them instead of any other party. This gave room for thinkers and analysts to believe that the MJF is the common forum for the cruelest criminals from Nepal and India.

The MJF mainly based its political games on the sentiments of millions of the oppressed and discriminated Terai people. The monarchist state structures of Nepal have so far neglected oppressed people’s collective wellbeing though hundreds of leaders of the Terai region have established themselves as elites in cities, including Kathamandu.

The MJF is an umbrella Terai organization for various Terai groups that have a common vision of separating the region from the region.

Nepal’s coalition government Minister Ram Chandra Poudel, without consultation with other ministers representing various parties, struck a 22-point agreement with the MJF though the issue of the Gaur massacre led by the forum has not yet been settled. Had the MJF admitted to their Gaur massacre crimes, it could be a better option to let them transform into a morally responsible political force. It would be their honest intention of correcting their wrong deeds. But they have so far tried their best to justify the massacre without any sense of responsibility. This has led millions of the Terai people believe that the MJF is an organization for professional and political criminals.

Instead of arresting the MJF leaders and workers and taking legal actions against them for their open and declared involvement in the Gaur massacre, the Nepali Congress section within the Nepal government recognized it as the best partner of the Nepali Congress Party that has always been claimed to have been the messiah of democracy in Nepal. The recent 22-point agreement with the MJF has indicated the possibility of the exacerbation of contradictions in the government; as a result, the elections of the proposed Constituent Assembly in November may be affected. The Nepal government seems to be deliberately immunizing criminal groups. It has not to this day arrested or interrogated any of the openly roaming criminals involved in the Gaur massacre. Nepal’s mainstream media, politically misguided and manipulated, propagated the Gaur massacre as the clash between two armed groups. But the field reports of human rights institutions prove it was not.

The Nepal government has completely put aside the vital issue of punishing those involved in crimes against humanity.

In the meantime, the CPN (Maoist) Chairman Prachanda has made a serious objection to the 22-point agreement signed between the government negotiation team and the MJF. He terms the agreement as ‘mysterious’ and a ‘conspiracy’ because it was done without the consensus. He pointed out that his party was being aimed at in the name of this agreement.

Maoists, who are under the UN monitoring for more than a year now, still doubt that some kind of armed revenge is being prepared underground against them. This suspicion has been further heightened since the Gaur massacre in which all of the slain were either their cadres or supporters. The impunity culture being nurtured in Nepal not only mostly threatens the general public.

What is most surprising in this context is that the MJF has spoken and acted in a manner as if it was formed and assigned with a sole mission of sweeping the ex-rebels from their Terai region. If this comes true, Nepal’s peace process may be derailed again.

While the tension between the status-quoist parties and the Maoist ex-rebels is rising up not only at grassroot level but also summit level, the royalist forces backed by king’s loyal army and other monarchist leaders within the ruling parties have begun their campaigns of advocating for the preservation of feudal monarchy in the country. This will further complicate the political crisis of Nepal because more than 98 percent of the Nepalis in April 2006 rose up to the streets for 19 days and entirely rejected the feudal monarchy. But the hardcore monarchists have defied the people’s overwhelming verdict and have even threatened to raise arms against democratic forces if they feudal the feudal monarchy. The collaboration of some of the ruling parties with the monarchist forces is likely to push Nepal into a haphazard polarization that may cause further disruptions in the day-to-day lives of the Nepalis.

The ordinary masses in Nepal believe that the status-quoist and corrupt leaderships in Nepal must be removed from the mainstream politics in order to commence a healthy process of restructuring the country.

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