NEPAL: Focus on IDPs

KATMANDU, 16 February (IRIN) - Hari Prasad Gautam is too old to find a
regular job, working instead as a wage labourer in a brick factory or
construction site in the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu. But the 70-year
old
is now too weak and his health is deteriorating.

Two years ago, he was shot and attacked by Maoist militants who left
him
for dead in remote Lohanpur village in Ramechhap district, 150 km east
of
the capital. His only crime was not being able to pay the US $500
demanded
of him by the rebels. The local police saved him by airlifting him to
Kathmandu where he was hospitalised for almost six months.

"It still hurts a lot," Gautam told IRIN, showing the scars on his
chest
and legs. "I don't know how long I will survive," he added, looking
worriedly at his 65-year old wife, Bed Maya. Until last year, he had
received about $40 in monthly assistance from the government, but that
too
has stopped, leaving Gautam and his wife with no choice but to go door
to
door begging for food and clothes.

According to a study by the Community Study and Welfare Centre (CSWC),
an
NGO advocating the issue of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in
Nepal,
over the last nine years of Maoist insurgency against the state
somewhere
between 350,000 to 400,000 Nepalese have been displaced from their
villages.

Although the majority of IDPs have migrated to India or fled to urban
centres and district headquarters of Nepal, over 60,000 villagers such
as
Gautam and Bed Maya take refuge in the capital. Most survive on a
meagre
income from working as wage labourers, domestic servants, stone
grinders,
brick porters and dish washers in small hotels.

So impoverished is the group, however, that many are forced to work
just
for their food, while a large number of girls and women are subject to
sexual exploitation and abuse at the hands of their employers in
restaurants, hotels and households.

"It was a mistake to come to the capital. There is nothing here for
us,"
52-year-old Buddhi Singh Bista told IRIN. Bista fled his village,
Debasthal of Salyan district, 200 km west of Nepal, with his 13 family
members after the Maoists seized his land and home.

He was asked to leave the village as he was unable to pay a "donation"
of
$1,500. All his family members are scattered in the country. He lives
in
Kathmandu with his wife and two teenage daughters, all of whom have
started to sleep outside in a bus park. "We were living in a rented
house
but now we've run out of cash. I have nothing to sell now," said Bista,
who was feeding his family and renting a home with the cash raised from
selling his wife's jewellery.

And while Bista had hoped to start a new life in the capital after
receiving compensation from the state, that too looks unlikely. He has
been knocking on the doors of the Home Ministry for the past five years
but as he has not been able to prove he was displaced by the Maoists,
he
has not received a penny.

The authorities require all the papers from the local police station in
his village but Bista doesn't have the money or the courage to travel
back
home. In 1998, the government had promised that it would compensate
families whose relatives were killed or had lost their property to the
rebels so they could start a new life. Until now, however, only a few
families with political links with the previous government led by the
Nepali Congress (NC) party and the Nepal Communist Party (UML) have
been
able to get full compensation.

"Most the families are living like beggars and starving," said Gopal
Tamauli of the Maoist Victims' Association (MVA) who was shot and
stabbed
by a group of militants after refusing to join their party in the Banke
district in the far west of Nepal, one of the worst rebel hit areas.
MVA
was formed by a group of IDPs to help each other but many were scared
to
join the association after the rebels in Kathmandu shot dead the MVA
leader, Ganesh Chiluwal, last year in his office, located in the centre
of
the capital.

COMPENSATION

"The government did try to take an initiative to help the IDPs but the
problem was that it failed to have clear plans and the budget was
insufficient," Dilli Ram Dhakal, an IDP specialist, told IRIN. "The
first
step it should have taken was to focus on providing relief materials
and
not just distributing money," Dhakal added.

Initially, the government established the Victims of Conflict Fund
under
which IDP families were entitled to nearly $1.3 per day but the problem
was that many failed to provide proof that they were in fact IDPs and
hence were excluded from state support. In 2004, the government
announced
that it had distributed nearly $56,000 to the families but IDP
activists
report that the fund was so haphazardly distributed that the money did
not
reach most of the IDPs.

"As far as I know, less than 50 people received about $20," said
Tamauli
from the victims' group MVA. The government finally formed a task force
to
provide relief to IDPs after a 20-day hunger strike by members of the
MVA
but the project has already failed to do anything.

"The IDPs face a humanitarian crisis and now the international
community
should offer some support to the suffering IDPs," remarked Dhakal. "We
had
so many seminars and pressurised the international organisations but
none
have taken any initiative so far," he claimed.

NO CLEAR PICTURE

One of the key obstacles for international relief agencies to support
the
IDPs in Nepal is that there is still no accurate picture or estimate of
their numbers. Their population keeps fluctuating as most IDPs have
been
migrating to India for work. There is also a lack of a specific
national
policy about the IDPs.

"Nepal is still not a party to the international refugee treaty. We
need a
guiding principle on how to effectively deal with the IDP issue in the
country," Dhaniram Sapkota, a protection officer of the National Human
Rights Commission (NHRC), told IRIN. There should be a provision to
provide the safe return of the IDPs and help them with psycho-social
treatment, education and health facilities in areas where they are
based,
he added.

Meanwhile, as the member of the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human
Rights Institutions, the NHRC is working with the forum to start a
pilot
project to help IDPs throughout the country.

"We can also learn from other countries, especially Sri Lanka that has
experience in dealing with IDPs. This is a very serious issue and we
are
working on it," Yagya Adhikari, head of the protection division of the
NHRC, which is already working closely with the World Food Programme
(WFP)
and the Red Cross Society to provide interim relief for displaced
families, told IRIN.

The two relief agencies are already involved in providing blankets and
food for IDPs sheltered in the camps set up by the government in
Nepalganj
and Surkhet in west Nepal, which house some of the largest numbers of
IDPs.

"There is a need for programmes to protect and assist the IDPs by the
UN
and international agencies in the spirit of guidelines on internal
displacement. The problem is getting acute and no more time should be
wasted," suggested Dhakal. The UN guidelines launched in 1998 serve as
an
international instrument to guide governments in providing assistance
and
protection to IDPs.

The guidelines clearly state that "international humanitarian
organisations and other appropriate actors have the right to offer
their
services in support of the internally displaced. Such an offer shall
not
be regarded as an unfriendly act or interference in a state's internal
affairs."

Based on this, Kathmandu has already asked for the UN's support in this
regard. The UN Coordination Unit (UNCT) in Nepal is also planning an
initiative for humanitarian assistance of the IDPs.

"Although their numbers vary greatly, there is a growing number of IDPs
in
urban centres and district headquarters. And at the moment we are still
gathering information about the IDPs and the assistance they need,"
Victoria Lund, IDP adviser of the UNCT, told IRIN. Nepal need
protection
and support programmes for them, she added.

A 2004 report by the IDP Project, run by Norwegian Refugee Council,
sharply criticised the international relief organisations for not
providing enough support to IDPs in Nepal. "Many UN agencies and
international NGOs have been in Nepal for numerous years providing
development-oriented assistance, but almost none provide humanitarian
relief or target their assistance to IDPs," the report maintained.







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