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SOUTH ASIA

Elusive justice for war victims
A comprehensive peace agreement. Two truth commissions. One transitional justice law. A draft law to amend the current legislation and bring justice long denied to Nepal’s war victims.
More than a decade and a half since the decade-long civil war in Nepal ended in 2006, not one of the perpetrators of crimes committed during this dark chapter in the country’s history has been brought to justice despite efforts toward this end. Now survivors fear that, if the new draft transitional justice law is passed in its current form, prosecutions would be even harder to achieve.
They have appealed to the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “to utilize the powers of (his) office” to convince the Nepalese government to amend the Act “with the full incorporation of our concerns and ensure a victim-centric and credible transitional justice process that thousands of victims finally receive the truth and justice they deserve.”
The victims wrote to Guterres through the U.N. Resident Coordinator’s Office in Kathmandu, ahead of the U.N. chief’s maiden visit to Kathmandu on Oct. 13. He is expected to discuss Nepal’s peace process with the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN).
“As a result of the absence of substantial justice, truth and reparative measures including adequate compensation, individuals affected by the conflict and their families have endured profound challenges in many aspects of their lives,” the victims said in their letter.
For 10 years, the CPN had waged a civil war with the avowed goal of abolishing the monarchy in the former Kingdom of Nepal. At the end of the insurgency, 15,000 had been killed and 1,300 had disappeared. Both the Maoist rebels and government forces were accused of torturing, abusing, and raping civilians.
Despite a 2014 comprehensive peace agreement that established two truth commissions to investigate these abuses, not a single investigation was completed, and no perpetrator was indicted.
Last March, the transitional justice bill seeking to amend the Investigation of Enforced Disappeared Persons, Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act enacted in 2014 was presented to Parliament. Rights groups flagged several contentious provisions of the draft law, which, among others, narrows down the definition of serious abuses and crimes and grants the government power to appoint the members of the transitional justice commission.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said the proposed amendment “does not fully meet the country’s domestic law or international legal obligations and will not provide justice for victims if adopted in its current form.”
SOUTHEAST ASIA

Up in arms for selling weapons to junta
Human rights groups have filed complaints with Indonesia’s national human rights commission over allegations that state-owned arms makers were selling weapons to Myanmar.
The complaint was lodged on Oct. 4 by Myanmar-based Chin Human Rights Organisation and Myanmar Accountability Project, and Indonesian rights advocate Marzuki Darusman accusing Indonesian state arms manufacturer PT Pindad, state ship maker PT PAL, and aerospace company PT Dirgantara Indonesia of supplying equipment to Myanmar.
The three firms allegedly routed the supplies through a Myanmar firm called True North, which they said was owned by a son of a minister in the junta-led government.
Violence has gripped Myanmar since the military took control of the civilian-led government two years ago. That same year, Jakarta voted in favor of a U.N. resolution calling on all member-states to stop arms dealings with the junta state.
As this year’s chair of the ASEAN, Indonesia also took the lead in calling for regional stability and urging Myanmar to adhere to the regional bloc’s Five-Point Consensus to de-escalate violence in the country.
But “the fact that defense equipment has been actively promoted after the genocidal campaign against the Rohingya and the 2021 coup is cause for serious concern and casts doubt on the Indonesian government’s willingness to comply with its obligations under international human rights law and humanitarian law,” Marzuki said in a statement.
Apart from Indonesia, arms dealers in Russia, China, Singapore, Thailand, and India were also identified as main suppliers of weapons to the Myanmar military “despite overwhelming evidence of the military’s atrocity crimes,” said Tom Andrews, U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, in a statement.
As of May 2023 the four Asian countries have supplied a combined US$600 million worth of arms and associated goods to the junta since the coup, according to Andrews’s report. The two other ASEAN member states, Singapore and Thailand, accounted for 47% of this amount. Their military deals with Myanmar run counter to the regional bloc’s appeal for an end to the bloody conflict in their neighboring state during the ASEAN Summit in Indonesia last May.
NORTHEAST ASIA

Pleas for return
It has been a decade since South Korean pastor Kim Jung-wook was arrested in Pyongyang on allegations that he was trying to set up underground churches.
This year, Seoul’s new unification minister pleaded with the North Korean government to release him and five other South Korean nationals, calling their years-long detention “illegal and inhumane.”
Apart from Kim, two other South Korean missionaries, Kim Kuk-gi and Choe Chun-gil, joining a string of missionaries that have been accused of holding banned religious rites as well as committing “anti-North Korea crimes,” such as espionage and maligning the Kim family.
“If North Korea has any understanding about human rights, it should not avoid the basic human rights issue any longer,” Koo Byoung-sam, spokesperson at the unification ministry, said in a statement issued Oct. 8.
Apart from the detainees, civil society groups expressed belief there were at least 516 South Korean citizens who were forcibly disappeared into Pyongyang. Many said this was part of hostage politics to force the South Korea government to release North Korean prisoners – or to provoke South Korea.
For its part, South Korea has been negotiating the release of these prisoners, mostly by working with other countries like the United States to pressure its neighbor.
Christian missionaries are often drawn to North Korea on the belief that they could provide humanitarian aid to its citizens and promote peace and reconciliation in the peninsula. However, Pyongyang looks unkindly upon religious activities, which it believes could foment unrest among its people.
These prisoners have been under North Korea’s custody since they were captured. There were, however, rare cases wherein Pyongyang released detained pastors.
One such case was Christian missionary Robert Park, who had voluntarily gone to North Korea on Christmas Day of 2009 on a mission to demand then Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il to release all prisoners and to step down. He was then detained and released 43 days later, but not before suffering severe sexual torture at the hands of his captors.
GLOBAL/REGIONAL

No Russia or China on human rights council
For years now, Russia and China have exercised grave rights abuses within their own territories, without any remorse. So why, rights groups ask, are they still allowed to sit in the world’s top rights council?
It’s why groups like Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) made a last-minute appeal to all U.N. member states to deny both countries seats on the U.N. Human Rights Council, which was decided through secret balloting on Oct. 10.
“No country on the Human Rights Council has an unblemished rights record,” Louis Charbonneau, UN director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “But every U.N. member nation should recognize that the council has membership standards for which Russia and China show despicable disregard.”
The 15-member council, which could mandate investigations to document investigations, is elected by a simple majority. Russia is competing against Albania and Bulgaria, which are vying for two seats in the Eastern European group. In the noncompetitive Asia bloc, China, Japan, Kuwait, and Indonesia are each running for a seat.
“While it may not be possible to prevent the China’’s election this time, a lower vote share would send a strong signal that the rest of the world has had enough,” said Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) U.K. co-chair Helena Kennedy.
Russia seeks to return to the 15-strong council in a bid to regain some international credibility after the U.N. suspended its membership over its invasion of Ukraine. An Asian diplomat who spoke to Reuters said other member-states do not want U.N. bodies “to be dominated by Western voices, not to mention overbearing attitudes.”
China’s own bid for a sixth term is hounded by allegations of its continued persecution of minority Uyghurs in the restive predominantly Muslim Xinjiang region, having secretly sentenced prominent Uyghur scholar Rahile Dawut to lifetime imprisonment.
Experts are also wary of Beijing wielding its influence anew on the council to block scrutiny into its own state abuses. In 2019, for example, when Western governments started to flag allegations of abuses against the minority Uyghurs in the predominantly Muslim Xinjiang region and in Tibet, China pushed its allies to denounce “interference in its internal affairs” and the “politicization of human rights and double standards.”
In 2022, Chinese pressure narrowly blocked a motion to acknowledge the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights report documenting evidence of crimes against humanity targetting the Uyghurs.