A UN rights agency investigating arrests and continuing disappearances of individuals in Nepal has unearthed a secret detention camp run by the army where hundreds of prisoners were systematically tortured, sexually abused and later killed.A palace belonging to the hereditary Rana prime ministers, which was converted into army barracks in Maharajgunj in the capital, became the site of secret camps where prisoners were kept permanently blindfolded and handcuffed.
On Friday, when Nepal's new government headed by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala resumed peace talks with the Maoist guerrillas, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released the report of its investigation into the arbitrary detention, torture and disappearances between 2003 and 2004.
Two army battalions, the Bhairabnath and Yuddha Bhairab battalions - named after the god of war - were responsible for most of the atrocities, the investigation found. Significantly, the Bhairabnath battalion was commanded by Lt Col Raju Basnet, brother of Col Kiran Bahadur Basnet, who was assassinated in August 2003 after an uneasy truce between the government and the Maoists fell apart.
Suspected Maoists or those accused of helping the rebels were held in secret places in the sprawling, walled grounds of the barracks. Besides a mass detention area, an open area covered with stones and glass shards under a tin roof, a garage and a squash court were also converted into makeshift prisons.
The detainees, including women, were stripped forcibly, severely beaten up, given electric shocks and submerged in an urn into which the guards urinated regularly. They were also sexually abused and threatened with execution, according to the report.
Besides the systematic torture during interrogation, they were subjected to arbitrary torture by the guards or army officials under the influence of alcohol or hashish.
Prisoners learnt to recognise army men and fellow prisoners from their code names and voices and those being tortured from their screams. A witness told the UN agency: "I remember someone was screaming in the tents nearby once... When someone was being tortured, the other detainees would whisper to each other, trying to identify the person. I remember that people whispered his name: Budi Lama. I remember his screams."
Budi Lama is still missing, along with 48 others. The OHCHR believes they were executed and that the number of people killed is significantly higher.
When detainees became unconscious during torture, army medical personnel revived them for further "interrogation". Though the medical personnel knew the cause of the injuries, they did not protest or complain to the authorities. Some even urged the patients to confess.
During visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross and OHCHR officials, the prisoners were hidden in a bunker or high-security tents. The army and the government consistently denied knowing anything about them.
The OHCHR has forwarded its report to Koirala and Army Chief Gen Pyar Jung Thapa and is asking for an inquiry. Instead of the army custom of trying soldiers and officers in a closed army court, it wants the offenders to be tried in a civilian court.
Besides the army personnel involved, the atrocities were committed either at the order of or with the knowledge of the army chief, the director-general of military operations, director of military intelligence and commander of the 10th Brigade, of which the two battalions were a part.
Surya Bahadur Thapa and Sher Bahadur Deuba were the premiers at the time the detentions, torture and disappearances were at their height.
While Surya Bahadur Thapa has been marginalised in Nepal's changed political scenario, Deuba heads the Nepali Congress (Democratic) party, which is a member of Nepal's seven-party ruling alliance.
Though a commission asked the new government to suspend Gen Pyar Jung Thapa for the army's role in atrocities during a mass movement last month, he still continues to head the Nepal Army.
(IANS)
