Nepal assembly urged to adopt law on disappearance

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepal's special assembly, dominated by Maoist former rebels, must adopt a bill to probe the disappearances of people gone missing during a deadly civil war, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.

Both government troops and the rebels were blamed by human rights organisations for abuses like arbitrary detention, killings, torture and disappearances during the decade-long civil war that ended two years ago.

Though the main political parties including the Maoists have vowed to criminalise enforced disappearances and set up a panel to investigate hundreds of cases, no such steps have been taken.

"Disappearances were perhaps the worst aspect of a dirty and ugly war in Nepal," Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

"Yet so far no one has been held accountable."

Human rights groups say the draft of a proposed law prepared by the government was inadequate to address the problem of impunity and must be changed to meet international standards.

New York-based Human Rights Watch and the Advocacy Forum, a Nepali group, in a letter to Nepal's Constituent Assembly, urged legislators to scrutinise the bill and debate it "rigorously" to ensure it creates a system where perpetrators are held accountable.

They have also proposed measures to allow appropriate compensation to victims or their families.

More than 13,000 people were killed in the conflict.

The Maoists, who signed a peace deal in 2006, now head a coalition government charged with overseeing preparation of a new constitution expected to be ready by May 2010.