Federal Consultations on Reparation and Reconciliation in Nepal

Under Supporting Nepal’s Transitional Justice Process through Reconciliation and Restorative
Justice (TJRJ) project, Nepal Forum for Restorative Justice (NFRJ) organized a federal
consultation meeting on the reconciliation framework of Nepal’s transitional justice on September 24, 2023 in Kathmandu.

The objective of the meeting was to gather insights, feedback and suggestions on the outline of
reconciliation framework from the relevant stakeholders. A total of 21 participants (11 male and
10 female) representing various stakeholders (government officials, conflict victims, conflict
victims led organizations representatives and representatives from CSOs working with and for
conflict victims. 

As the meeting started, all the participants of the event hold a minute of silence in
honor of the martyrs of the people’s war and all forms of movement in Nepal.
Following this, Mr. Ram Tiwari gave a presentation on the background of Nepal’s TJ and
discussed general misunderstanding related to reconciliation of Nepal. He also highlighted the
fact that of the four pillars of transitional justice (truth telling, prosecution, reparation and
institutional reforms) not all four pillars were given equal priority in the process. Because of this,
neither other pillars of TJ reached to any point nor effective reparation to victims were made.
And since time has elapsed after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Accord, it is time that
we prioritize reparations and reconciliation as others will take time.

The program had panel discussions from the victims, CSOs and government agencies.

In the first panel discussion the panelists were Suman Adhikari, representing Conflict Victims
Common Platform (CVCP), Gopal Bahadur Shah, representing Conflict Victims National
Alliance (CVNA), Ms. Sushila Chaudhary representing National Network of Families of
Disappeared (NEFAD) and Mr. Surendra Khatri representing National Network of Disabled
Conflict Victims (NNDCV). All the panelists’ insights their views on the reparation and
reconciliation on Nepal’s Transitional Justice Process. They all focused their issues on the role of
the government. During the discussion, the panelists quoted that NFRJ should create a common
agenda on the reparation and reconciliation with the help of a conflict victim network. A
common agenda should reach out in all three tiers of the government. NFRJ should take a lead to
make policies on reparation and reconciliation. Some provinces had made reparation and
reconciliation policies but we do not know if that policies are implemented or not. Due to lack of
proper policies and guidelines the victims should not able to get reparation support even the
provincial government has allocated the budget.

The second panel consisted of panelists from the CSOs working with and for the conflict victims.
Ms. Susan Risal representing Nagarik Aawaz (NA), Ms. Biju Kandel representing The Story
Kitchen and Ms. Upasana Rana representing Women for Human Rights (WHR). All the panelists
focused on role and responsibilities of the CSOs in the context of reparation and reconciliation
on Nepal’s transitional justice process. Their activities have already been focusing on the
reconciliation and some reparative measures with and for the victims and there was a highlight
that the CSOs in general should have focused on reparation while works for prosecution were
ongoing largely.

In the same way third panel discussion started and the panelists were Nabaraj Acharya
representing Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP) and Mr.
Dipak Thapa representing Nepal Human Rights Commission (NHRC). Both panelists presented
their own organizations’ works on the reparation and reconciliation in Nepal’s transitional justice
process. During his presentation, Mr Dipak Thapa said that the NHRC has been working as a
watchdog in the overall transitional process of Nepal and it has seen areas where reparation can
lead reconciliation. Likewise, the other panelist Acharya mentioned that it has given five areas of
work for reparation and reconciliation for conflict victims. In its recommendations, the focus has
been on both financial and non-financial (symbolic) compensations including memorialization
and this can be done at both provincial and local levels in addition to the federal levels.