Interview with OHCHR head Ian Martin

Since coming to Nepal as head of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Ian Martin faces the daunting task of trying to improve that country’s human rights record while the ongoing conflict between the royalist government of King Gyanendra and the Maoist rebels looks set to intensify. For the last 10 years, the Maoists have been waging an armed insurgency against the Nepalese government resulting in the death of over 13,000 people, including civilians, Maoists and security personnel. Almost one year on from his arrival, Martin cited the positive impact their presence was having in the Himalayan kingdom, but raised concern that the underlying political conflict that had given rise to rights violations in the first place had only deepened. In an interview with IRIN in Kathmandu, the UN human rights official highlighted some of the challenges his office faced in working to establish accountability and prevent further abuses in the mountain nation of 27 million. QUESTION: This is the largest monitoring office of the OHCHR in the world today. What is the specific purpose of your mission in Nepal? ANSWER: Yes, it is the largest United Nations human rights presence anywhere at the moment. It’s based on an agreement that the high commissioner signed with the government of Nepal in order to try to bring about an improvement in what she called the grave human rights crisis when she visited Nepal at the end of January 2005. Our job is certainly to monitor and, through the high commissioner, to report to organs of the United Nations, the Secretary-General [Kofi Annan] and the international community. But obviously not monitoring for its own sake, but monitoring in order to get the actors who have been violating human rights to safeguard victims in the future and preferably to prevent rather than to have to continue to expose abuses. Q: What is your particular strategy here? A: We’re trying to be as present as possible on the ground, which is no easy thing in a country with the terrain of Nepal. But we have field offices in four locations, including Kathmandu. We are investigating both the violations of international humanitarian law that are a product of the armed conflict between the Maoists and the state, as well as the violations of democratic rights that are part of the confrontation between the present government and major political parties, as well as much of civil society. Q: Overall, how would you describe the current situation with regard to conflict-related human rights abuses? A: At the moment that we’re speaking, it’s one that has deteriorated again. The most significant factor that for a while led to mitigation at least of abuses was four months of unilateral ceasefire by the Maoists. The secretary-general called upon the government to reciprocate that ceasefire, but the government didn’t and unfortunately the Maoists then terminated the ceasefire in early January. Now we’re back to full-scale conflict and the most active period of conflict there has probably ever been in Nepal, with the Maoists increasingly targeting urban areas, which inevitably means more populated areas. We do, however, see some signs that our presence is leading both sides to the conflict to make some further efforts to protect civilians. Inevitably with this intensification of renewed conflict, many civilians are again getting caught up in the conflict. Q: What form are these abuses taking? A: At the moment, there are not many clear examples of the deliberate targeting of non-combatant civilians - either by the Maoists or by the security forces of the state. But both sides use forms of combat which don’t conform to the principle of distinguishing between military targets and civilian targets. For example, Maoists are launching attacks in highly populated areas and making use of civilian buildings as cover. This in turn invites the security forces’ response to fire on those areas. The RNA [Royal Nepalese Army] are making use of helicopters from which they drop mortar bombs, which by definition cannot adequately distinguish between legitimate targets and civilians. Consequently, we’re seeing growing civilian casualties again in this conflict. Q: Continuing with that, the issue of missing persons in this country remains a significant one. Can you update us on what the situation is on this, as well as what specifically your office is doing to address this? A: There were very large numbers of disappearances in Nepal in 2002, 2003, and 2004. Hundreds of people disappeared, usually after having been taken into an army barracks by the RNA. There is a great deal of evidence of torture during interrogation there and either people dying under torture or deliberate executions. So disappearances are a continuing human rights violation and although the level of disappearances has gone down in 2005, not enough is being done of course to clarify the fate of those who disappeared in previous years. Families of the disappeared are increasingly demanding that accountability, so we are of course insisting on the responsibility of the state to clarify each and every case of disappearance, while at the same time trying to prevent any disappearances in the present. Q: With regard to your presence in the country, how would you describe your relations with the government and how facilitating have they been in the context of your mission? A: Our work is based on a very good agreement, and the government has committed itself to provide us with complete freedom of access, freedom of movement, the right to go into any place of detention unannounced, to interview any detainee in private, and I’m glad to say that is being respected in practice. We are able to get that access. We don’t get all the information we seek from the authorities – which they are also required in the agreement to give us – but the level of access is very good. And although the Maoists are not directly party to the agreement, they also welcomed the establishment of the office and said that they would cooperate on a similar basis. There too, we’re not having any obstruction to our ability to move around and investigate from the Maoists. Indeed, they just specifically exempted OHCHR, as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Nepal Red Cross, from the blockade on freedom of movement they recently imposed nationwide. Q: So the level of cooperation with the Maoists has been good? A: Yes, there too, we’ve established communication with different levels, with the top leaders, as well as on the more regional, local level. Of course they’re not as easily accessible as the state authorities and there is a long way to go in getting the kind of regular communication necessary, in particular in getting the responses we want from them about individual cases of killings which they are alleged to be responsible for, abductions and so on. But the fundamental attitude I believe is one of cooperation with our efforts. Q: There have been many reports of atrocities being committed on both sides of this conflict. Can you elaborate a bit more on this? A: From quite early days of the conflict, the Maoists have been extremely brutal in the way in which they pursued their insurgency. Initially, they targeted many civilians and local activists of the other political parties, teachers and others. That is something [however], they have pledged not to do in the future. They now maintain that in this phase of the conflict, they are only targeting the security forces and not targeting unarmed civilians. But there are still reports of civilians being attacked by them, but that, the leadership says, is contrary to current policy. The security forces in their response have also committed gross violations. The pattern of disappearances I described, but also the extra-judicial executions, that is the execution of Maoists or suspected Maoists, or people who are thought to have been collaborating with the Maoists are being killed rather than being arrested or taken into custody. It’s been a very terrible conflict for the ordinary rural population, caught between the two sides and accused by each of collaborating with the other. Q: This is an immensely difficult role for your office to undertake. What is your overall prognosis on the human rights situation in this country as it is now? A: The paradox is that in some ways we have been able to have a positive effect on the human rights situation in terms of the conduct of both parties to the armed conflict and yet the underlying political conflicts that give rise to the violations seem only to have deepened during the time our office has been here.