Conflict-engendered Widows
Small Expectations
- Anju Chhetri
“We always keep hoping
that someone will come to support us. You are the fourth group that has
come to see and understand our condition. Whoever come to us, we expect
that they will render some help for our children’s education,” says
Krishna BC, a mother of five children.
On March 20, 2003, early
in the morning, the state security forces arrested nine people of Chhing
village located in Syalapakha-3, Rukum from their own homes accusing
them of being the Maoists. The security forces took the alleged Maoists
to Kaildeu village, shot them dead and threw their bodies on the bank of
a small river nearby. This incident at once made eight women of the same
village widow. Among the people murdered, one was Krishna’s husband Tek
Bahadur BC who was a school teacher. Three and a half years have passed
since the incident. All the widows have their own house in the village
and their life is going on somehow, however, each of them has a worry
about whether they could provide education to their children or not.
More than 13 thousand
people have died during the decade of violent conflict. It is speculated
that at least six thousand women have become widows due to the conflict.
But, how many children the widows have, not even a guess has been made
in this regard. Till date, the group that has acquired compensation,
relief and facility from the state comprises only the families of state
security personnel and the families whose members were killed by the
Maoists. The common people whose family members were killed by the state
security forces for being a Maoist or in a cross-fire do not have any
access to the relief provided by the state. Therefore, Krishna did not
belong to the group that was entitled to get immediate relief from the
state because her husband, an alleged Maoist, was killed by the state
security forces; though she believes that he was not a Maoist.
Now, as the state is
moving forward in the peace process, a voice has been raised that the
people who will come to the center of the state-power should make it
their foremost responsibility to provide justice to thousands of widows
like Krishna and their children who suffered from indirect violence
caused by either the state or the insurgents. Pampha Bhusal, a central
committee member of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), explaining
the party’s plan on providing relief to the people victimized by the
state, which is to come to effect after her party joins the Interim
Government, expresses her commitment, “Immediately after our party joins
the Interim Government we will provide much more relief and facilities
than the old regime to our people whose family members became martyr or
were made to disappear in the war or who had suffered mutilation. We
will make an arrangement for the livelihood of their families and their
children’s education.”
Expressing commitment in
favor of sufferers is appreciable. However, some leaders at the central
level have not made earnest efforts to understand the fragility of the
situation. Therefore, they should not utter biased statement like ‘we
will provide much more relief and facility than the old regime to our
people’
Even after the Maoists
join the interim government, the program for relief and rehabilitation
has to come by the common agreement between all parties representing in
the government. Therefore, instead of saying ‘our’ and ‘their’
sufferers, today’s need is to become conscientious of providing justice
to all the sufferers of the conflict. During the wartime, the
compensation, relief and facility provided then by the government to the
women whose husbands were killed by the insurgents was not reasonable.
The state, so far, has
been providing compensation, relief and facility to the sufferers of
conflict through the Ganesh Man Peace Campaign under the Ministry of
Home. In due course, the compensation of 7 hundred 50 thousand rupees
has been provided to each wife or family of the security personnel who
lost their life in the war or clash. The provisions for the arrangement
of the pension and salary for the army, armed police and civil police
are different. The families of the security personnel who were entrusted
for safeguarding the state and controlling the violent acts of the
insurgents have attained compensation and relief sufficient for running
a family of simple Nepali standard. However, due to the pain caused by
the untimely death of dear ones, the relief enough though to run a
family has not given happiness to them.
The families of the
ordinary people and political activists who were killed by the Maoists
have been given 1 hundred 50 thousand rupees each as a relief and
compensation. There is a provision of giving scholarship to the children
of all those who have been bereaved by the Maoists. However, the
scholarship has not been distributed in a systematic way. Only the
children of those who are vociferous and have connections with the
authorities have been able to get the scholarship. This scholarship
distributed under a program of the Ganesh Man Peace Campaign was given
to 1,002 students last year, and in the year before that, it was given
to 997 students.
First the district
administration office at the local level makes a recommendation for
scholarship grant and it is issued to the office after it is approved by
the center or the ministry in Kathmandu. In August-September, 2006, some
widows of the security personnel of Banke, Dang and Surkhet came to
Kathmandu, and surrounded the finance minister demanding scholarship for
their children. “We did not know which ministry was responsible for
making decision on scholarship grants, so we surrounded the finance
minister. But, we knew later that the Home Ministry was responsible for
issuing the grants,” complains Shova BC, the president of the
Conflict-Afflicted Single Women's Network, Banke. Those widows of the
security personnel who took pains to come to Kathmandu were able to get
scholarship grants for their children.
For the children of
conflict-afflicted families, the government has made a provision to give
scholarship grant of Rs. 5,000 per year up to class five; Rs. 12,000 per
year up to class 10; Rs. 14,000 per year up to intermediate level; and
Rs. 20,000 per year up to master level. But, the fact is that all the
conflict-afflicted children do not have an easy access to the
scholarship. Even some of the widows of security personnel were able to
get the facility only after a lenthy struggle. The children of the
common people afflicted by the conflict hardly ever have access to the
scholarship.
Since the office of The
Ganesh Man Peace Campaign has not maintained the systematic records of
the people who have acquired compensation and relief, explicit
statistics are not available on how many conflict-spawned widows have
acquired the facility. The government should keep systematic records in
this regard, and it is necessary to make a lot of improvement in the
process of distributing the relief and compensation. There are also
complaints that while distributing compensation and relief by the
concerned authorities (the relief distribution departments of the police
and the army) many of the widows of security personnel have been
insulted. This illustrates that the state and the concerned authorities
are not sensitive toward conflict-afflicted people
Group of Specific Widows
The violent conflict has
produced a large community of war-created widows of a distinctive kind
in Nepali society, and even that community also has sub-divisions. Among
these widows, everyone has her own particular experience and pains. The
widows and other family-members of those who are directly involved in
insurgency firmly believe that when the Maoists form the government,
they will make all the arrangements for them and their children. The
widows of these directly involved in the war had already anticipated
they would face problem and misery any time in their life. Therefore,
they have little complaints about the situation they are in. Since they
live in villages, they are able to make simple arrangement for their
livelihood. Some of the widows of Rolpa have sent their children to the
school being run by the Maoists in Thawang. However, the situation is
not the same in other areas.
There is a widespread
rage among the widows of those who were killed by the state just for
being ordinary supporters of the Maoists. The number of such widows
whose family has been completely destroyed, is also much larger. These
widows who were killed by the insurgents think that the insurgency was
the sole cause of their grief. They are trying to reassemble their
family broken into pieces. Moreover, they are struggling to acquire the
government scholarship for their children, hoping that some other
organisations, too, will come forward to support them.
The district offices of
the Women Development Department had distributed small amounts of relief
in 15 conflict-affected districts to some women persecuted by the
Maoists and the state in 2004-05. The non-governmental organizations
like Sathi, B Group and Rara Human and Environmental Resource
Development Venture have provided small relief and support to some
conflict-spawned widows of Banke. However, in the districts dominated by
the Maoists, organizations are hardly ever given permission to implement
any program among the conflict-spawned widows.
Whatsoever, it is, now,
expected that after the Maoists are included in the interim government,
the conflict-afflicted women will be sorted, and relief and facility
will be provided to them. The conflict-spawned widows and their families
should be assured that they are given justice by the state inasmuch as
its capacity. The people at the leadership positions, while engaging
themselves in the big political issues like restructuring of the state
and constituent assembly elections, must not forget the problems and
pains of the conflict-spawned widows and their children. An arrangement
for providing compensation, relief and facility should be made after the
classification of the conflict-spawned widows, gathering their
expectation from the state and understanding their present condition.
Only then, it will be confirmed that the state has fulfilled its
responsibility toward the conflict-spawned widows of every kind and
their children.
- Nepal Samacharpatra,
November 4,
2006, p. B |
