UN condemns murder of businessman by Nepal's Maoists
Updated
Maoists under fire from international community for the murder of businessman in Nepal.
Presenter: Liam Cochrane
Speakers: Ramila Shrestha, wife of murdered businessman; Macarena Aguilar, acting spokeswoman for the UN Mission in Nepal.
COCHRANE:The mother and wife of murdered businessman Ram Hari Shrestha cry out in anguish as they sit down in front of media in Kathmandu to explain their story. Mr Shrestha owned a fast food business and also rented out a room to members of the former rebel Maoist party.
When a handgun and 26 thousand US dollars went missing, Mr Shrestha was taken away by Maoist fighters in mid-April for interrogation.
Ramila Shrestha, his wife, says the Maoists asked the family to keep quiet about the abduction and specifically ordered them not to approach Maoist chairman Prachanda about the matter. The missing gun and cash was found after three days, but a month later, the abducted businessman still hadn't appeared.
Finally, on May 16th, a division commander of the Maoist army admitted to Ramila Srestha that two of his men had tortured her husband to death and thrown his body in a river. The body has not yet been found.
SHRESTHA: My two children are asking where their father is, heaven knows what to tell them.
COCHRANE: The United Nations condemned the Maoists' actions in a statement on Monday night. Macarena Aguilar is the acting spokeswoman for the UN Mission in Nepal.
AGUILAR: Basically what we wanted to do last night is condemn the killing of Ram Hari Shrestha based on the first investigation that our arms monitors have been carriing out, during which they have had confirmation by the Maoist army that yes the killing was indeed carried out by Maoist personnel.
COCHRANE:Under the terms of Nepal's peace deal, which ended a decade-long Maoist insurgency, the rebels handed in their guns and registered 31-thousand fighters in UN supervised camps, or cantonments, across the country. Controversially, the torture of Ram Hari Shrestha which led to his death, is alleged to have taken place within a large UN-monitored camp in Chitwan district, south of Kathmandu. The UN spokeswoman explained how such an incident could have taken place right under the noses of monitors from the UN Mission in Nepal, known as UNMIN.
AGUILAR: We have to understand that these are very big areas for an amount on average of six monitors per cantonment But also the role that the government requested of UNMIN is very limited to monitoring the containers where the weapons have been stored and keeping a record of the movement of the Maoist army.
So anything that has to do with the management of the cantonments, with controlling the access into the cantonments and the security of the cantonments, it's the full responsibility of the Maoists. So there's very little the monitors could have done.
COCHRANE: The UN says it will raise concerns over the incident in their regular meetings with the Maoists and the Nepal Army, and the UN Office for Human Rights is also investigating. The Maoists have promised to cooperate with any investigations, but have also downplayed the murder as an "internal incident".
The family of Ram Hari Srestha has called for a complete shutdown of business and transport within the Kathmandu valley on Wednesday in order to pressure the government to take action. The outcry over the murder comes just weeks after the Maoist party unexpectedly swept to victory in an election.
The former rebels are currently trying to convince the losing parties to form a coalition government before May 28th.
On that day, a special constitution-writing body is due to sit for the first time and is expected to abolish Nepal's monarchy.
