Nepali Times

Nepal’s 10 year conflict left 17,000 dead. It is a tragic irony of wars that the relatives of the dead are the lucky ones. The tens of thousands gravely wounded and physically handicapped can’t get jobs and have become a burden for their families. For the relatives of the 1,400 who were disappeared by both sides in the war, the conflict never ended. In the absence of closure, their indefinite bereavement drags on, they relive their grief every moment of every day.

Many of the disappeared were the main earners of now destitute families. Even those who got meager compensation from the state have spent it all on food and medicines.

It is a rule of thumb that violent conflicts leave a legacy of aggression and hostility in society for three times longer than the war lasts. A whole new generation of Nepalis has to replace today’s adults for the residual violence to completely subside and the loose ends to be tied up. As health worker Radha Poudel, who has written a book about her experience of the battle of Jumla in 2002 tells us (read the article here): “We are still in conflict, it’s just that guns are not being used. As long as people are dying of hunger the war is still going on. The underlying reasons for the conflict are still there.”

Poudel saw it all firsthand, but it is close to the view of Norwegian peace theorist Johan Galtung who said earlier this year that Nepal was in a state of ‘negative peace’. Nepalis struggle when it comes to positive non-violence through nation building and addressing the precursors to violence, he said. The injustice and exclusion that drove this country to war have not been addressed and the revolutionaries who misguidedly sought to address them through armed struggle have abandoned the cause.

In an interview, a Maoist guerrilla who joined the movement when he was 13 says he was driven by an idealistic goal of equality and justice. Navin Jirel tells us (read the article here) he still fervently believes he was doing the right thing by taking up arms to liberate an oppressed and rejected people.

Jirel has also written a book about his childhood, how he was attracted to the revolution, the disillusionment in the cantonment, and his determination to set things right without the use of violence. “There is still lots to do for the upliftment of my people,” he says. Also in this issue we carry heart-breaking stories of parents who lost their sons and daughters in the conflict. For them, time does not heal.

It doesn’t seem to matter which side did the killing or the disappearance, a mother’s pain is the same. The only difference is that some of the victims were fighting for a cause, while most of the others were caught up in a war being waged in their name and in which they wanted no part.

It should be the state’s role to ease the pain of the families of victims, to help heal. But the Nepali state today is composed of components of the former enemies and both want to forget their atrocities and move on. Ask the families of the victims and they are realistic enough to know that under the present circumstances, justice is a mirage.

But they want the truth about what happened to their relatives, why they were killed, who killed them and why. The state refuses meaningful reconciliation and is afraid of the truth. It is up to human rights groups, civil society activists, and the media to document as much as possible until the day of atonement finally comes.