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Crimes against humanity won’t be tolerated: PM Oli
Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has said the government would not spare anyone involved in crimes against humanity on the name of conflict. Speaking at the launching of the book titled ‘Awataran’ of media person Shuva Shankar Kandel in the Capital on Sunday, PM Oli asserted, “There can be no impunity for perpetrators of crimes against humanity.”Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has said the government would not spare anyone involved in crimes against humanity on the name of conflict. Speaking at the launching of the book titled ‘Awataran’ of media person Shuva Shankar Kandel in the Capital on Sunday, PM Oli asserted, “There can be no impunity for perpetrators of crimes against humanity.”
Oli, who also co-chairs the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP), assured that any outstanding issues of the peace process would be resolved soon. “I have told the international forces not to worry as the remnants of the peace process would be completed soon,” he said.
Dismissing suggestions that the monarchy could make its return in some form, PM Oli said that was not possible as the leaders of the country had brought the changes in a systematic way.
Amid mounting criticism over government’s poor performance, Oli claimed that his government had accomplished a lot of things related to federalism since coming to power.
“There was no proper hall for the federal parliament. We managed places for all provincial assemblies, ministries and other necessary infrastructure within seven months,” he said, adding that the government drafted necessary laws. “The country’s economy has been improving now.”
Speaking on the occasion, NCP Co-chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal narrated how he had initiated the handover of combatants’ weapons in April 2012. He also assessed that forging unification between the communist forces and Maoist party’s decision to send their cadres to the cantonments during the peace process were the right decisions made at the right time.
“After visiting the cantonments, I urged the then prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala to convene a meeting with the leaders at Baluwatar. He ordered the Nepali Army to seize the weapons from the cantonments,” Dahal said, adding that even a delay of a single day could have cost lives of hundreds of the combatants at the time. Roughly 3,500 weapons of the former combatants were kept in containers across seven camps under the watch of an all-party mechanism. “I was aware of the fact that the incident would split our party, but I still took the risk,” Dahal said.
As soon as the Nepal Army captured the weapons, the Mohan Baidya-led faction organised a press meet where they claimed the party had ‘surrendered’, leading to the party’s eventual split.
Citing examples of his major decisions before the movement in 1990, the former prime minister Dahal spent much time clarifying that his party had never been against the parliamentary system. He said he had taken various decisions to stop violent movement and the one to join the parliamentary elections that saw Janamorcha emerge as the third largest party in Parliament before the party decided to took up arms against the state in 1996. Dahal also clarified that he raised the evolution of his party as the “commentators of the book Ramesh Nath Pandey and Prof Krishna Khanal portrayed the Maoist party as having surrendered to the parliamentary system”.
Reminiscing the contribution and courageous efforts of late leader Koirala in advancing the peace process in the country, Dahal admitted of committing some grave mistakes during and before the peace process. “Girija Prasad Koirala must have been elected the President of the country. It turned to be a grave mistake that he was not made so,” he said.
Nepali Congress leader Shekhar Koirala had a differing view with PM Oli’s statement about the peace process in the country.
He claimed that the incumbent government, despite holding a two-thirds majority, failed to ensure good governance in the country.