Nepalese people's aspirations remain unfulfilled: Prachanda

More than 16,000 people were killed and nearly 1,300 disappeared and thousands more were displaced during the decade-long insurgency.

Kathmandu, Nov 20 Nepalese people's aspirations remain unfulfilled despite the country making important achievements in politics in the past decade, Prime Minister Prachanda today said as the nation marked the 10th anniversary of the peace deal that ended the brutal Maoist insurgency.

"Fundamental and qualitative changes have been noticed in the on-going peace process over the last ten years period," Prachanda told state-run Nepal television marking the 10th anniversary of the peace process.

"The country has turned into a republic from the monarchy and a federal system has been adopted from a unitary system over ten years, which is not an ordinary phenomena," he said.

"All these were the outcomes of the peace accord and the peace process," he said.

However, the dream of fulfilling the aspirations of the Nepalese people remained unfulfilled, he admitted. "Now our focus will be to change the life of the people," the Prime Minister said.

"We have signed peace agreement, successfully merged two armies, managed arms, promulgated constitution through Constituent Assembly ...and also completed many tasks relating to building the country, which makes the past decade full of important achievements," he said.

Prachanda also admitted that there has been some delay in delivering justice to war crime victims due to the long political transition witnessed by the country, but expressed hope that it will be resolved soon as some positive outcomes have already started coming in this regard.

More than 16,000 people were killed and nearly 1,300 disappeared and thousands more were displaced during the decade-long insurgency.

Ten years after the signing of the peace accord, successive Nepali governments have failed to deliver on their central human rights promises, New York-based Human Rights Watch said.

The international community, and particularly the United Nations, should press the government to fulfil its pledges as victims wait in vain for information about missing family members and accountability for crimes committed during the war, it said.

Nepal’s political parties formed an alliance, and together with the Maoists, made a commitment to democracy and human rights under the 2006 peace deal.

One of the key undertakings under the peace accord was to investigate and bring to justice those responsible for human rights violations committed during the war.

Yet, all the political parties appear to have forgotten those promises, and the victims’ families are still waiting, it added.

In addition to accountability for wartime cases, HRW noted that many other obligations under the peace agreement remain unfulfilled.

The pledge to end discrimination based on gender, caste, class, ethnicity, and membership in other marginalised groups remains deeply contested, and power continues to rest among traditional elites.

PTI