The TRC has set a 60-day deadline for registering complaints. The TRC expects to receive at least 40,000 complaints from the victims or their families

At long last, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has started receiving complaints since Sunday from the victims of human rights violations committed by the State security forces or the Maoist combatants during the decade-long insurgency that has ravaged the country. It is nine years since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed between the State and the then CPN-Maoist, ending the bloody conflict and starting a political transition that will be fully complete with the implementation of the present Constitution promulgated by the elected Constituent Assembly. On the first day, 125, complaints were registered. The TRC has set a 60-day deadline for registering complaints. The TRC expects to receive at least 40,000 complaints from the victims or their families.

Because of the clashes of interests between interested sides, including the political parties which were in power at different times of the period and the Maoist party, the commission had not been formed until about a year ago, though the CPA had provided that it would be formed within six months. And when the commission was formed, criticism came from various important quarters, such as the judiciary and international organizations that the commission had been diluted to leave room for the perpetrators of serious crimes to escape unpunished or with much lighter punishment, and in essence that the commission did not conform to widely accepted international standards. However, many have accepted this commission, along with the closely related Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappeared Persons, on the grounds that something was better than nothing. The TRC has shown signs of life only after one year of its formation for lack of its regulations and logistics.

Many of the victims are uneducated or even illiterate. That is why, as is reported by TRC Chair Surya Kiran Gurung, they have come to the TRC office with their tales of woe requesting the officials to prepare written statements on their behalf. Those kind of victims will increase in number. It has also become necessary to amend the TRC and certain other related laws according to the court’s verdict. If the laws are not amended within the 60 days set for complaint registration, the work of the TRC will be further delayed. For example, amendments are required to define serious crimes and offences of serious nature to pave the way for the TRC to start and complete its investigation into the complaints. Moreover, the present statute of limitation for filing rape cases is just 35 days under the Civil Code, and to enable the war-era rape victims to file their cases, a suitable amendment is urgently required. Victims or their families might ask for reparations, for action against the guilty or something else too. After the investigation is complete, their wrongs will have to be redressed and reconciliation made, thus helping to heal the wounds of war. But on its hands the TRC has a lack of time, funds and manpower to investigate all complaints thoroughly and come to proper conclusions. But the government and the major political parties should make every-thing available without delay for the TRC to function smoothly even within the present limitations.

Polio eradication

A new polio vaccine – Bivalent Oral Polio – has been introduced to replace Trivalent Oral Polio which had been in use till date. The new vaccine has been in use in 155 countries plagued by three wild polio viruses. Officials have said no old vaccine would be used in the country. Bivalent Oral Polio will be administered for the treatment of Type 1 and 3 as the Type 2 polio virus has been eradicated from the world and even from Nepal. As the new polio vaccine has been rolled out the old one will be withdrawn from all public and private drug stores.

As the government worked rigorously in close coordination with WHO, UNICEF and Rotary International Nepal was declared a polio-free country in 2014. It was in 2010 when only one polio case was recorded in Mahottarai. And since then, no cases of polio virus have been detected across the country. This is a success story for Nepal, and it has been able to achieve the goal of eradicating the disease that disables a person once infected by it. Other countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, both members of SAARC bloc, should also learn lessons from Nepal. Both the countries are still struggling to eradicate the disease.