Special Report
Exhuming Accountability
Conference on transitional justice in Southasia
23-25 January, Kathmandu | Hosted by Himal Southasian and the International Center for Transitional Justice
Nellie massacre, 1982
Across Southasia, social movements have worked to demand justice and accountability during the region’s darkest hours – involving pogroms against minorities; human-rights abuse in the context of armed conflict; abuse and impunity by entrenched economic elites; violence against Dalits, indigenous communities and migrants; violence against women; militaries operating with state-sanctioned impunity within and across borders; violations by armed opposition groups with little accountability to local communities; the global ‘war on terror’ and its perverse dynamics in the region; and forced evictions of communities by dams and mines, urban real-estate mafia, or feudal landlords.
The demand for justice is a persistent feature of the Southasian public realm. In Bangladesh, families of those killed in the Liberation War still call for acknowledgment and ‘memorialisation’. The struggle against the impunity enjoyed by the masterminds of the Gujarat carnage of 2002 continues in courts in Ahmedabad and Bombay. Victims of the excesses of the long sequence of autocratic regimes in Pakistan have been calling for fundamental institutional reform of the state. Survivors of the anti-Tamil pogrom of 1983 in Sri Lanka continue to demand accountability and reparation. At the same time, there have been atrocities which have been neglected, such as the killing of thousands in the Assamese hamlet of Nellie in 1983.
On 23-25 January, Himal Southasian organised a conference on the issue of accountability for mass atrocities carried out against citizens in the various countries and sub-regions of Southasia. Scholars and rights defenders gathered in Kathmandu to share their experiences and insights, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that excesses be investigated and addressed for the sake of justice and reconciliation, as well as to prevent future abuse. The conference was co-hosted by the International Center for Transitional Justice, supported by the International Development Research Centre, and convened by Vasuki Nesiah and Kanak Mani Dixit.
Here we present an abridged version of the presentations made at the conference by some of the participants, who are among the foremost scholars and activists dealing with accountability and impunity in the countries of Southasia. A complete transcript of the presentations and discussions will be published as a further follow-up to the “Exhuming Accountability” conference.
The pan-regional problem
by Siddharth Varadarajan
Strengthening prosecution mechanisms
by Vrinda Grover
Political consensus on impunity
by Sara Hossain
Structural issues in Nepal
by Mandira Sharma
Communalism and the courts
by Teesta Setalvad
The Nellie massacre
by Makiko Kumura
Mass crimes and gender
by Farah Naqvi
Reparations and redressal
by Nitya Ramakrishnan
Fractured region, divided people
by Nighat Sayeed Khan
The psychosocial dimension
by Gameela Samarasinghe
Human-rights commissions
by Suhas Chakma
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