Incidents like arrest of Colonel Lama could repeat if transitional justice mechanisms are not set up, warns UN

UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nepal Robert Piper has said that the arrest of Nepal Army’s Colonel Kumar Lama in the UK over allegations of torture committed during decade-long Maoist insurgency and a conflict report on Nepal released by the UN Human Rights High Commissioner in Geneva some five months ago were “inter-related”.

"Though the arrest of Colonel Lama in London within three months of release of the conflict report could be just a coincidence, but in the backdrop of Nepal not abiding by minimum standards of human rights this two things are inter-related," Piper, who is returning to New York on Tuesday wrapping up his five years tenure in Nepal, told Kantipur Daily on Friday.

"Many issues raised by the conflict report on serious human rights violation and transitional justice mechanism are interrelated in many ways," Piper said.

He said the international community has been urging Nepal to set up the transitional justice mechanisms at the earliest, and cautioned that the incidents like arrest of Colonel Lama could repeat if transitional justice mechanisms were not set up.

He was of the opinion that offering blanket amnesty to the serious human rights violators as proposed in the transitional justice mechanism would be against international human rights norms and values. nepalnews.com