[Reader-list] 18 year old Reena Rasaili of Nepal...

[avinash kumar]

Dear Friends,

I am senidng this piece which has reached me through a friend. I am 
deliberately not attaching the gruesome photographs as I have posted it 
on www.sacw.net as well. Those who are interested in photographs can 
check out the same.

avinash


Dear All,
I am forwarding a message from a friend in Nepal which gives a close
up view of the war against the Maoist rebels being waged by the Royal
Nepal Army. Forward this to friends and colleagues who may/will be
interested in knowing disseminating information regarding the
situation in Nepal. At the end ofthe mail I have attached a part of
the message sent by this friend, edited as per instructions.
Please do not kill this mail... forward it for information as much of
this information is being supressed by teh Nepal Government and is not
available in the media.
aniket.

steel yourself and read on....
=========================================================

The case of Reena Rasaili, Devi Sunwar, Maina Sunwar and their
family...including Bimala B.K.

Aniket, the attached picture is of a dalit girl who was raped and beaten
and battered after being pulled out from her bed and her house at
midnight by a group of drunken king's soldiers (shahi nepali sena) in
mufti. There were about twenty soldiers. They had her for five hours.
They locked the rest of the family inside the house. The family could
hear the eighteen-year-girl's moans and shrieks and pleas and whimpers
all through the five hours (midnight to 5 am). At five am there was
silence. And then three gunshots. Then silence. The girl had been tied
to a tree and shot in three places. The soldiers pulled her down, and
kindly covered their handiwork with her shawl. Then they left. The
little brother of the young girl came out and saw the body covered by a
shawl. He called the rest of the family. The girl's aunt, a CPN UML
activist, somewhat brave, pulled open the shawl, and this is what she
saw. They informed a human rights lawyer, who came the next day from
Ktm. There are no roads/railways, so it took the lawyers time to reach.
They took the photos. Told the family to keep the body in situ since
it's evidence and not to touch anything. The family did as told. Back in
Ktm, not a single journalist or doctor was willing to go and do the
needful (post-mortem, further investigation). The two lawyers are under
death threat. They are followed by the army all the time. They cannot
register a case since there is no medical evidence of rape, though it
seems evident.

The army then went to the aunt's house and picked up her daughter, who
has disappeared, and is presumably dead. All within five days, Devi,
witnessed (heard) the rape and beating and murder of her niece and had
to cope with the fact of her daughter Maina, having disappeared.

Maina was identified by Bimala B.K. dalit female, related to Maina and
Reena. Bimala had been in army custody for twenty days. For six days she
was tortured mercilessly. Then on the seventh day, her eyes were tied
and she was gang raped. Repeatedly. On the twentieth day of her
detention, she was made to wear police uniform. The army who accompanied
her were in civvies. She identified Devi's house and called out Maina,
who was then arrested, detained, and that's the last the father saw of
the fifteen-year-old girl.

The aunt was witness. Now the entire family, extended, is in refugee
status in Ktm. They can't sleep, they can't eat. They are seriously
psychologically affected. There is no security for anyone. Why was this
done to the family? Because two members, children, joined the Maoists.
This is what is done by way of counterinsurgency. There have been no
battles. There are only encounters.
And next morning radio Nepal reported that a terrorist, Reena Raisali
(photo), was shot dead in an encounter.

This is one case of a family: two girls dead, rape, extrajudicial
killing, torture, displacement, illegal detention, disappearance, mental
torture, dalit...how much can the human form and mind endure?

There is no proof against the army. They cannot be taken to court. They
will have their own court martial, which is closed to the public. And
they take the decision. Who will testify against them? Does anyone dare
to? What justice will anyone get? Who is safe in Nepal? What is the
nature of this people's war and the counter-insurgency it invites?
Do something...

Keep these photos carefully and safely. They are of Reena Raisali, aged
18, village Pokhari Chauri, district Kavre, Nepal. Date: Night of 12-13
February.

The Asian Human Rights Urgent Appeal is pasted below. It does not even
begin to capture the insanity.
****



NEPAL: Three young persons shot dead by security personnel and a girl
among the victims were gang-raped before being killed in Pokahari
Chauri-4, Kavre District

URGENT ACTION URGENT ACTION URGENT ACTION URGENT ACTION URGENT ACTION

ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION - URGENT APPEALS PROGRAM

23 February 2004

---------------------------------------------------------------------
UA-22-2004: NEPAL: Three young persons shot dead by security personnel
and a girl among the victims was gang-raped before being killed in
Pokahari Chauri-4, Kavre District

NEPAL: Extra-judicial killings; Gang rape; Torture; Forced
disappearance
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from
a reliable source of extra-judicial killings of two young girls and one
young boy, Reena Rasaili (18), Subhadra Chaulagain (17) and Tasi Lama,
by security personnel in Pokahari Chauri-4, Kavre District in Nepal on
13 February 2004. It is alleged that Reena Rasaili was gang-raped for
about five hours by a group of security force before being killed.
After the incident the perpetrators started to threaten the witnesses
in order to cover up the case. Already, a 15-year-old girl named Maina
Sunuwar, a daughter of the eyewitness of the killing of Reena Rasaili,
has been arrested by security personnel and remains disappeared since
17 February 2004.

In Nepal, the arbitrary arrests, torture, forced disappearance and
extra-judicial killings of individuals have become widespread after the
armed conflict between the Nepalese authorities and the rebel Communist
Party of Nepal (CPN) (Maoist) forces became violent since the breakdown
of a cease-fire on 27 August 2003. Many extra-judicial killing cases
have been reported from Nepal, and the country had one of the highest
rates of disappearance in the world last year.

AHRC urges you to call for the impartial and immediate investigation on
these cases and punishment of perpetrators by writing letters to the
government of Nepal. Please also request the government to provide the
protection to the witnesses while the investigation is going on.

Urgent Appeals Desk
Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)
------------------------------------------------------

DETAILED INFORMATION:

The plainclothes army forces shot two young girls, named Reena Rasaili
and Subhadra Chaulagain, between midnight of 12 and dawn of 13 February
2004 in the in Pokahari Chauri-4 village, Kavre District in Nepal. It
is alleged that a group of security personnel also raped Reena before
shooting her. There was a report about another extra-judicial killing
of a young boy named Tasi Lama, who lives in the same village by
security personnel on that same day.

Several family members and relatives of the victims were also tortured.
However, the next day (13 February), the national radio broadcasted
news stating that the security forces killed three Maoist named Reena
Rasaili, Subhadra Chaulagain and Tasi Lama during the encounter with
the Maoist rebels. Pokahari Chauri-4 village is a very remote area
without access to the city and its hospitals, and is located forty-five
kilometers away from Dolalghat and almost 150 kilometers far from the
Kavre district headquarter.

CASE 1: Gang rape and execution of Ms. Reena Rasaili (Statement is
based on the account of the victim's father and aunt)

According to Karna Bahadur Rasaili, 53, the father of the victim of
Pokhari Chauri VDC-4, Raikar, around 10 plainclothes armed security
personnel came to his house at midnight and told him to open the door
saying that they were friends of Comrade Deepak, who is his son who had
joined the Maoist party. He did not open the door out of fear, so they
broke the door and entered the house. After searching the house, the
security personnel then pulled his daughter, Reena Rasaili from her bed
even though Reena cried, "I am not a Maoist. I am a student of grade
seven and social worker in Rural Energy Development Centre, Kavre."
About five security personnel took her to the cow-shed where other
members of the family were not allowed to go, but could hear the
crying. The rest of them went to the other neighbor's houses. The
victim's aunt, Ms. Devi Sunuwar, (37) a permanent resident of Kavrethok
VDC- 6, Kavre stated, "I did not hear any conversation between Reena
and the security personnel. I only heard her painful crying and moaning
voice from inside. It continued for almost five hours." she reported.

At around 5:00 am the security personnel took Reena out from the cattle
shed and brought her 100 meters northwest from there. Then, the
victim's father and the family members heard three or four rounds of
firing. They could not go outside due to fear, and the security
personnel left the house. In the morning, they found the body of Reena
totally naked in the west side of their house. As her clothes including
the undergarment were totally displaced, it appeared that she was raped
before the killing. Reena sustained bullet injuries on her head, breast
and eyes. She had injuries and scratches on her stomach and chest.

Separately, the security personnel took Mr. Murali, a brother in law of
Ms. Devi Sunuwar who was sleeping at the same house, somewhere and
later he appeared with a severe injury caused by brutal assault.

A recent development of the case:

On 17 February 2004, a group of security personnel arrested a
15-year-old schoolgirl as well as the daughter of Ms. Devi Sunuwar
(aunty of Reena Raisaili and witness of the incident).

According to the girls' father, Mr. Purna Bahadur, about 15 security
personal in civilian clothes came to his house at about 6:00 am on 17
February and asked about his wife, Devi Sunuwar, who was absent from
the house to see her mother in Pokhari Chauri VDC-4, Kavre. When they
could not find Devi Sunuwar, the security personnel arrested Maina
instead telling Purna Bahadur to bring his wife to Lamidada Army Camp
if he wants his daughter to be released. On18 February 2004, he and his
wife Devi accompanied the head master of the Bhagawati Higher Secondary
School, the chairperson of the village and another 28 village people,
to the Lamidada Army Camp, but the army authorities denied that they
had arrested and detained Maina.

http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2004/625/
========================================================
The mail from my friend, copied below, describes the situation .....
aniket...
==              ==              ==            ==
Aniket please remove all evidence that this is from me in all mails
circulated. This is highly explosive material. I am under threat (not
legally, but a stray bullet, a vehicle accident). My friends are all
in danger. But the information has to come out.

I also append something I wrote to xyz to help you understand the
level of insanity
that Ktm induces.

I was in a discussion with Pp and Pa on what to do with all this
information on this horrible set of cases. Yesterday Pp brought four
pix of one of the girls in the state in which they found her and I
knew the description, but the picture was something else. My stomach
just turned over and I was stunned. I thought that I was ready for it
all.  This is a toughening process, but it's very hard to cope with
all this ihumanity. Bestiality they say. But beasts never behave like
this. Not any single specie in the world. Only humans in and out of
uniform.

Then there was the question of the enormity of it all. And what to do,
how to go about it without putting any witness or lawyer at risk. I had
horrible nightmares. Of people in arms 'them' just opening locks and
doors and coming in and pulling vulnerable unarmed people out of their
beds and raping them, beating them, making them disappear.

I feel so sad and so angry and so helpless and so strong and so lucky
all at once. We've never had to go through this in our lives or our
families. We are so fortunate. And we are so weak. We can do nothing but
make a noise and hope that the noise, discordant, out of sync, somewhere
touches someone's heart, reaches someone's ears.

This is one or two of hundred odd cases of the rape and torture of minor
girls by the shahi nepali sena. This is the only case where they left
her body in the open. Usually they bury it or take away the evidence of
the crime. They were probably drunk and they probably got a little
scared because daylight was about to break and a camp of Maoists was not
very far from where they did their deeds.

There's no one who understands really or who can help. There's just
silence all around. What's happening in Iraq is nothing compared to
this.

Why aren't the Indians interested in this? They can't do anything
immediately about Iraq, but our friends can do something to stop this
complete degeneration of the human being in Nepal.

You know xyz, the army guys who do this aren't okay in the head. They
need to be healed. They apparently drink a lot, do these horrible
things, and then drink again. they can't sleep. They get nightmares.
Who is making them do these things? What is being put in their heads?
They aren't killing and attacking Maoists in combat. They go to those
villages which are known to have provided many Maoists, and they do
this to the family members, especially to the women, the old men and
the children. xyz, this is counter-insurgency.

What happens then inside the head of the Maoist young person whose
family has been wrecked thus and every crime against humanity
perpetrated against it? The crime goes beyond human imagination,
beyond the worst nightmare. It was real. And the family is alive. The
mother is insane. The little brother is insane. The father is insane.
His eyes fill with tears and he keeps moaning, why, why, why, why my
little girl?

The little girl who went to school, who played girly games with her
friends, the little girl who never harmed anyone, who tended the
goats, who filled the water, who was the only dalit in the village who
could read and write. What did they do to her? They hear her moans and
shrieks. They hear the gunshots in their heads. They see her
picture lying dead. Nearly naked. Battered. Who would do that to a
little girl of eighteen? Who? The body was made for loving, for making
love, for making babies, not for this. You know and I know, this
little girl was only one part of what they did to the family. They did
more, and more, and more. They disappeared her cousin, who is dead.
They smashed the family physically emotionally economically,
psychologically and mentally. All the dimensions.
**         **           **