Cockroaches in the drain

So we live in the basement in our little village in the Terai. We are very close to the Indian border, which means that while I am in a generally mountainous country now I am living in a tropical climate with all that that entails in form of heat and animal life. The Bardia National is close and there the tigers, rhinos and elephants still roam.

The tropical climate also means having "cleaning crews"of lizards on Search and Destroy missions and I am always very happy to see Liz running up and down the walls and ceilings inside the basement, keeping is clean by eating flies and what ever else is to her liking. However....cockroaches also inhabiting the premises and I find it very hard to co-habit with them. Not in the least because I realize now that the close to the monsoon and the warmer it gets, the more likely they are to stay.


Cockroaches leave chemical trails in their feces as well as emitting airborne pheromones for swarming and mating. Other cockroaches will follow these trails to discover sources of food and water, and also discover where other cockroaches are hiding. Thus, cockroaches can exhibit emergent behavior,[10] in which group or swarm behavior emerges from a simple set of individual interactions.

Hmm...I guess I will just have to find a way to live peacefullt together since using the non Ahimsa method of stepping on them also sends out smells drawing their friends to the murder scene.

First FIR filed!

Glad today that the filing by our partners(and associates from ICJ) of the FIR regarding the Bardia National killings was accepted and actually filed. Needless to say, also glad that PBI were asked to accompany them to file and gave the human right defenders a larger space to operate, which is part of why we are here in Nepal in the first place. This might not sound like much(nor may it lead to much even though it potentially could now that an investigation technically is underway)but the army is to be investigated and this in itself is a small victory. No, it is actually more than a small victory taking into account the relationship formed during the conflict between the army and police and the formation of the armed police force, a separate combat unit of sorts. The concept of unified command came into effect during the conflict which, needless to say created many bonds between two otherwise separate units in the Nepali society.

The women killed in the National Park was all over the news for a couple of days, and even though the case is being investigated by three parties(the Nepali army, the Nepali government and OHCHR which already published a report)there are many rumors going around. The facts are that the army still say that the women were poachers, or that they at least mistook them for being poachers inside the park. What happend to the victims, the lowcast Dalit women is still unclear but at least there might be some hope at the horizon.

A short testamony

"He(the journalist)told us that it is very difficult for people to report threaths to the police because as soon as they leave the police station they recieve another threath, and this means that informaton must be leaking from the police itself."

The triangular alarm of the Midwest

I have now transitioned to the office of my NGO in the Midwest. Right now our Madeshi neigbours are having a small celebration. A nine day puja(religious ritual)at the hindi tempel to be more exact. This was not exactely what I expected when I talked about experiencing different religions but now I am part of it in a very practical way. Generally there is no need for an alarm in the morning. The local mosque wakes me around half past five(I like the man read-singing the prayers more than the woman but she is ok if not always on key), followed by the nearest hindu tempel followed by the trumpets in the army compound. These days though, we are now on day three,the puja is a constant backdrop of sound from early morning. The people performing and participating in the puja seem to take a rest during the day. Then the music, chanting, bhajan is a again being broadcasted across town. Wishing for a sleep in is thus not really on the agenda. But Nepalis are early risers, maybe even more so here in the countryish Terai near the Indian border. A part of Nepal also known for the fertile grounds and the ability to grow food and rear animals to sustain other regions of more hilly nature in Nepal. So, pondering the fact that I might need a little adjusting to the daily routines of people and the level of noice I am also fashinated by the different ways of organising a society where many different people live very closely together.

Derailing peace by digging up old bones?

Wilder Taylor is in town. He is secretary general of the ICJ(International Commission of Jurists)and thus an interesting guy to listen to. Buzy guy to, so it is appreciated that he came to assess the state of human rights and transitional justice in Nepal. Not an easy task. Especially since there seem to be a section in society that seem to believe that procecuting crimes of the past may derail the peace process. The past is the past and we have to move on sort of thing.

Taylor explored this by saying that in his experience this fear is common in sectors that have faced national strife and that Nepal is one of many wartorn countries where this fear has been expressed. However, experience shows that if truths are not brought to light, proper transition is never achieved. And this I find important:

Reconciliation requires forgiveness, but you also cannot forgive in an adhoc manner. The truth has to emerge and those responsible for the worst violence need to be brought to justice.

He continues;

In this country 3,000 people 'disappeared' and thousands lost there lives. People who want democracy, stability and justice cannot, in principle, be against the exercise of justice. Look at places like Bosnia, Rwanda and Cambodia, in countries they thought they could get away with impunity. Which politician can go to their people and say 'Nothing happend. Lets's move on'. It doesn't work.

And he is right. It doesn't work. Mothers, wifes, brothers, friends all want to find out what happend to relatives and close ones. At present Nepal has proposed two bills; one of disappearance and one of truth and reconciliation. None of them propose procecution of crimes committed in the past. And this is of grave concern.

Go home and be a better wife

The Nepali lady who was told to go home and be a better wife had gone to the police station to report a rape by her husband. The report was not accepted and the person telling her to go home was the officer in the district police office.

The dance of filing a First Information Report

Filing a report in my country is pretty straight forward. I have a complaint of some sort, I go down to the police station and leave the details or make a statement. I might be irritated that I have to wait a bit, but in general it is pretty straight forward. Not so in Nepal.

PBI-Nepal has a partnership with local human rights defenders(HRDs). We do a variety of things but one very practical aspect of our work is(per request as is always the case)is accompanying them to police staions to file reports related to issues and crimes committed primarily during the conflict between the maoists and the Nepali state that left between 13 000-17 000 people dead, many still missing and many tortured and abused.

Ok, this is what often happends in practice. We meet the HRDs and while our mandate which clearly states that we are a non-partisan organisation that do not interfer in the work of the partner, we are clearly supportive in their right to investigate alledged human rights crimes and have a right to ask the local authorites to help bring justice to the victims. Therefor we put on our vests and walk with the HRDs when they attempt to file their first FIR(First Information Report),because according to us as well as analysis done by local UN organs such as UNMIN, UNOCHA,UNHCR and intentional and national human right organisations the treaths these laywers are receiving are at the level that they can potentially be killed. For filing a report...

The reasons might need some explanation. The people being mentioned in these reports are sometimes high politicias. Or highly ranked police or military men(or women). They might be local people that are now in a postion of power and do not want to be investigate and brought to trial or they might simple be the local rich entrepreneur that has paid off the staff in the local police station.

So, off we go to together. We wait outside while our partners attemp to file the actual paper FIR. Which in theory means that it needs to be investigated, warrants issued leading up to a possible trial and sentence. Often they are denied. To exemplify, our partners tried to use December 10 last year, Human Rights Day to file these first reports all over Nepal and in ALL(not just some, but ALL cases) they were not received. The reason given was often be that the superior officer wasn't in the office so very sorry but...

The next step is often to go to the Appellate or Supreme court, asking for an order to be issued to the specific officer or station. A mandamus is the correct legal term. Sometimes the court refuses. Sometimes the file is still not files. So the HRDs start again, back to the high court, new mandamus. Maybe the FIRs are actually filed. But not investigated. As has been mentioned before, not ONE single case related to human rights abuse has so far been processed and received a sentence. Not one.

If I am only for myself...

Why is PBI in Nepal?

Mandate for organisations usually makes for a dry read. Still, if you are interested in the process of making ideals alive by working with human rights you need to at least know the boundaries of our work. Thus;

PBI-Nepal Project Mandate

To work with and for Civil Society Activism and Human Rights Defenders to increase their protection and maintain or expand the political space available to their work in favour of peace and human rights in Nepal.

Pursuant to this mandate, the Nepal Project works on:

1. Help maintain a peaceful space in which civil society can operate and grow so that it can play a major role in building sustainable peace and adressing structural violence.

2. Model nonviolence and promote nonviolent conflict resolution.

3. Foster social and political dialogue and reconciliation.

4. Promote international understanding of the confict in Nepal and to facilitate connections between Nepali organizations and the rest of the world.

5. Empower civil society so as to reduce, and eventally end, the need for a PBI presence.

Big words, sustainable peace, structural violence, reconciliation, empower civil society. During the next year I will fill them with meaning and discuss them in detail from the PBI context as they are in my opinion so much more interesting when practically applied.

A million tourists to Nepal

Four days ago the 'Visit nepal year' started with a massive parade in the center of Kathmandu. The target is set at a million visitors 2011 but many of us are sceptical. Yesterday Arum Simhaniya, the third media person in a less than two months was killed. According to local sources Simhaniya, who was on the board of directors of the media group publishing the daily paper Janakpur Today, was shot at close range and died on the spot. Journalist Uma Sing, working in the same media group for Radio today was stabbed to death on January 11. And media entrepreneur Jamin Shahs recent killing makes, however unrelated these crimes might turn out to be, a disturbingly high number of killed people working in journalism.

Add to this todays report from OHCHR Nepal reporting to the Human Rights Council in Geneva that the Nepali government's continued disregard towards issues of impunity and political development have pushed the peace process into an increasingly fragile state. The report which is sceduled to be presented at the Council on the 24 of March warns that the government and political parties are ignoring human rights issues and have failed to implement the vast majority of recommmendations made by the Commission. It further says that cooperation between human rights investigations, including those by OHCHR into conflict-related violations remains poor. And adds that "to date, not a singel perpetrator of major human rights violatios or abuses committe during the conflcit has been comvicted".

Meanwhile, deputy Priminister Koirala adressed the Human Rights Council at UNHRC in Geneva yesterday. Koirala adressed the government efforts to promote and protect human rights as well as Nepal's continued commitment to human rights.

While his speach might be mostly rethorical and not correspond with the OHCHR report it might show that there is an intention to put umounity higher up on the political agenda. This being possible,it is at the moment somewhat hard to reconcile the fact that the legal process of bringing perpetrators(from all sides)to justice is so slow. After all the peace agreement was signed four years ago.

So Visit Nepal Year might be an excellent and ambitious idea on paper for a war torn country with a unique scenary and culture, but it might be just a bit too soon.

Praying, playing, eating and celebrating at Kopan

Chönga chupa festival at Kopan buddhist monastery