Conflict victims on Friday unveiled their advocacy paper on reparation and submitted it to the government. Reparation is one of four important pillar of transitional justice and yet the government has not made any substantial effort to redress the atrocities committed against innocent civilians by both the Maoist insurgents and the government troops throught a decade-long war.

The government inaction had led the Conflict Victims Common Platform (CVCP), an umbrella body of 13 organisations advocating for justice of war-era victims, to prepare the paper with the support from different human rights organisations.

The CVCP submitted the paper to Minister for Law and Justice Sher Bahadur Tamang and the representatives of two transitional justice bodies amid a programme in the Capital on Friday.

The paper says that the conflict victims should be taken into consideration while addressing the reparation needs of thousands of people who suffered during the insurgency.

So far, the government has provided only Rs 1 million to the families of the deceased and disappered persons. 

The CVCP has demanded the government to take immediate steps to ensure the most urgent needs of victims, implement and ensure adequate, effective and prompt reparation programmes, and ensure the victims participation in all efforts the government takes for them.

“Reparation has been taken as prerogative of the state in the lack of realisation that it is the right of the victims and the state is obliged to them,” said CVCP Chairman Suman Adhikari.

The advocacy paper highlights the common reparation needs to all people affected by the conflict, as well as case-specific indemnity based on the nature of war crimes suffered.

 Providing identity cards, short and long-term finical assistance and social allowance; ensuring reservation in government service to at least one member of the victim’s family; offering free education, healthcare; and carrying out rehabilitation programme are also among the demands made by the conflict victims.

They have also sought public acknowledgement and apology by the state and the concerned political leadership, construction of memorials and the marking the day the Comprehensive Peace Accord was signed as national day for dignity and memory. 

“The government is aware and sensitive towards providing reparation and concluding the transitional justice process at earliest possible,” said Minister Tamang.

He claimed that works were in progress to revise the existing laws of transitional justice bodies in line with the international standard as directed by the Supreme Court.

Andre Paquet, the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC)head of mission to Nepal, said the transitional justice process should be guided with the principle of  ‘forgive but not forget.”