Conflict Peace & Development

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    Transitional justice process and the narratives of the victims of enforced disappearance in Nepal
    (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Conflict, Peace and Development Studies, 2023) Sapkota, Anuja
    The ten-year-long armed conflict between the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist and the Government of Nepal ceased on November 21 st , 2006, after the underwriting of 'The Comprehensive Peace Agreement,'. The agreement emphasized the importance of establishing a transitional justice system within six months to provide an opportunity to address the grievances of those affected by more than ten years of armed conflict. The 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)' and the 'Commission on the Investigation of Disappeared Persons (CIEDP),' were established in August 2015 to help with the transitional justice process. Within six years of establishment of the two commissions, 60,000 TRC cases and 3,093 CIEDP cases were registered. In most of the peace agreements that formalized the transitional justice process, like the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2006 and the Interim Constitution in 2008, the parties to the conflict have made a commitment to address the needs of the conflict's victims. Currently, however, the entire Transitional Justice process in Nepal, is being criticized as being too top-down and state-driven, which raises the question of whether it will adopt a bottom-up approach in addressing the past to construct a more peaceful future or top-down approach as a tool to just get the peace process off the table. This research is an attempt to explore and capture the approaches of transitional justice in Nepal and the lived narratives of the families of disappeared persons in Nepal. The chapters in this thesis discuss the global to local approach of transitional justice approach through primary and secondary data collected for the research. Research adopted the qualitative approach with triangulation of interview, group discussion and narratives. The live narratives of the families of enforced disappeared persons are the focus of the study. Through the narratives, the research tries to bring out the struggle of the families, their need, the lack of trust towards the government and how important it is for them to deal with the past to create a sense of peace within themselves. The conceptual framework of this research focuses on the – ‘Dealing with the Past’ framework that encompasses four major elements: Right to Truth, Right to Justice, Right to Reparation and the Guarantee of Non-Recurrence, and its importance in dealing with the past after the atrocities or violent past to build a peaceful future. The families of enforced disappeared persons in Nepal are still in search of truth and justice from the concerned authorities and want the government to be accountable to deal with their problem with respect and sensitivity. They want transitional justice to be the utmost priority of the government without further delay.
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    Indigenous Confict Resolution Mechanism: Study of Lohorung Rai Community
    (Faculty of Conflict, Peace and Development Studies, 2021) Dahal, Mibit
    In Nepal, there has been attempt to uncover huge number of indigenous communities through academic gates, yet the numbers are not sufficient. There are more hidden mysteries than anyone can think of, given the geographical area of Nepal. The diversity in cultures and ritual application has made each group different with one another. Under the given premise, this study focused on conflict resolution practices by Lohorung Rai community. The main focus of research was to understand the procedure of conflict resolution within Lohorung Rai of Nepal. With only two literatures on Lohorung and silent about conflict resolution as of today made the task even more difficult. This confirmed that non of the primitive mechanisms exists today. The task was set with following some of the key literatures within the area of conflict resolution, culture and other social context. As perceived, it was hard to differentiate the path of inquiry. The inquiry into the research question following qualitative method adopting phenemenological approach proved supportive yet challanging. The data were collected through observation and interview and collecting stories, myths, songs, jokes, narratives and all other forms of orally transmitting ideas. Deep inquiry were done with the older generation people to evaluate the collected materials. The oral informations proved to be stock of valuable informations explaining how things were done in the past. With the informations obtained, it was clear that Lohorung people had understood conflict and conflict resolution in much better ways than one can imagine. In their own way of understanding, Lohorung community divided conflict into three structures: Intrapersonal, Interpersonal and Intergroup. The division of conflict as such was based on the parties attached to the conflict. In the same way they had already defined different mechanisms to address the problems. Use of techniques like “Sheer Uthaune” is still taken as a means to address intra-personal conflict as of today. For interpersonal and intergroup conflict, approach similar to mediations were used. But, in primitive sense, those issue addressing sessions meant more than just resolving conflict. The act of resolving conflict amongst Lohorung resembles near to that of modernday mediation practice. However, it differs in many scenario as option to resolution and reaching the consensus were less, they had to adopt either complete settelment through compensation or through friendship (meet laune) or through pardoning the person or party or even through punishments. The process of resoultion done by Lohorung community cannot be easily explained by modernday theoritical approach, specially in intrapersonal conflict.It’s role is not to narrate wrong doings but also restoring communal bond and faith within each other. It implies rituals and other platforms to aware people about the consequences and difficulties associated with it. Also, social activities were added advantage to ensure proper community participation for other actions as well. The use of rituals as platform to perform and culture to carry it to next generation was solid approach to transmit the knowledge. Yet, with difficulty in knowledge transfer due to modernization and migration, Lohorung have managed to reel off their knowledge through greater participation. The value that Lohorung Rai people within the cultural activities have is much more than what the outcome shows. The way they solve their problem by themselves and vlaue their system is complex yet can be a source for modern techniques of conflict resolution.