Amid growing concerns of conflict victims who have been saying they are worried about being deprived of justice, UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal said on Friday that court could drag him to court and jail him on charges of conflict-era cases. 

Dahal’s remarks come hot on the heels of a nine-point deal he has signed with the CPN-UML aiming to withdraw war-era cases from courts and offer amnesty to grave rights abuses committed during the decade-long insurgency. The UCPN (Maoist) has been demanding that war-era cases be dealt with by transitional justice bodies and not by regular courts. 

The nine-point deal, which has been opposed by national rights activists and international rights groups, has raised suspicion among conflict victims that it could rob them of their right to justice. 

Defending his party’s stance, Dahal, at an interaction, argued that cases of insurgency period should be resolved politically. “As then commander [of the Maoist army], I am responsible for every incident that took place during the conflict,” said Dahal. “If the conflict-era cases are dealt with by regular courts, they should jail me first.” 

Dahal also accused lawyers and human rights activists of making a “huge fuss” about the issue and conspiring to “derail the peace process”.

“They [lawyers and rights activists] want instability in the country so that they can thrive,” he said. “Conspiracy against former rebels to jail them for conflict-era incidents would never help settle conflict.”

Though Dahal talked about “concluding the peace process”, he stopped short of saying how the concerns of conflict victims, many of them are his own cadres also, could be addressed, especially when he has signed a deal with the UML in a bid to save the coalition and take over the government leadership. 

Rights activists Charan Prasai and Sundar Mani Dixit suggested that the Maoist party should withdraw the provisions related to war era from the nine-point pact, which they said would deny justice to conflict victims. 

Rights activists have been objecting to points 3, 5 and 7 of the nine-point deal, which pledge to amend laws to withdraw war-era cases from courts, offer clemency and legalise land transactions carried out during the conflict. 

They suggested that the Maoists should help to strengthen transitional justice bodies, which have been registering complaints from conflict victims, to conclude the peace process. 

“We want transitional justice issues to be resolved,” said Dixit. “But you are risking it by signing the deal.”