Posted by: sYaKuuRiolAKU_nchImb April 25, 2009
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| Maoists committing grave violations: UN chief | |
| REPUBLICA
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said the ruling Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) is one of 56 parties committing grave violations against children.  Ban’s report released in New York on Thursday has featured UCPN (Maoist)’s name alongside the likes of the Taliban in Afghanistan and al-Qaida in Iraq, among other prominent armed groups operating in Sudan, Congo, Myanmar, Somalia, Chad, Burundi and Sri Lanka, among others. The 15-member UN Security Council will carry out an open debate on the report, which has also enlisted Maoists in the list of 19 persistent violators, on April 29. In order to halt violations and ensure greater protection of children in conflict situations, Secretary-General Ban has recommended targeted measures by the Security Council against repeat violators. “Accountability for perpetrators will create a sense of justice for the victims and it will also have a deterrent effect. Persistent violators have to realize that their crimes will not remain unpunished,†a statement issued by the UN Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) quoted Coomaraswamy as saying. Secretary-General Ban has also mentioned about an unkept promise of Prime Minister and Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal to release 2,973 children from the cantonments by the end of February 2009. PM Dahal had made the promise during his meeting with visiting Special Representative of Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, in December last year. There is no action yet on the release of the minors from Maoist cantonment sites. The report covers compliance and progress in ending six grave violations against children: recruitment and use of children; killing and maiming of children; rape and other grave sexual violence; abductions; attacks on schools and hospitals; and denial of humanitarian access to children. |