\n Nepal on Thursday extended the mandates for two commissions tasked with probing crimes committed during the bloody civil war, hours before a deadline was due to lapse without a single case being investigated.\n<\/p>\n
\n The commissions had been given two years to look into the murders, rapes and forced disappearances perpetrated by government forces and Maoist rebels during the decade-long conflict, which ended in 2006.\n<\/p>\n
\n Their mandates were to expire at midnight Thursday, leaving thousands of victims in limbo, but in an eleventh-hour decision Kathmandu agreed to extend the investigation period.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The term of the two commissions have been extended by a year,\" Information Minister Surendra Kumar Karki told AFP following a cabinet meeting.\n<\/p>\n
\n Critics fear the extension is insufficient to hear the tens of thousands of complaints filed by victims seeking justice and answers about the fate of their loved ones.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We don't think a year is enough to investigate the 58,000 petitions we received,\" Surya Gurung, the head of the commission into war-time abuses, told AFP in a recent interview.\n<\/p>\n
\n Not a single case was investigated during the two-year mandate, with critics blaming a lack of funds and political inertia.\n<\/p>\n
\n The government was criticised for not granting the commissions the legal powers afforded under international law to prosecute war crimes, or repealing a provision granting amnesty to perpetrators.\n<\/p>\n
\n A narrow legal window for reporting rape in Nepal also effectively bars the prosecution of sexual crimes perpetrated during the civil war.\n<\/p>\n
\n Rights groups say these limitations protect war-era figures still occupying positions in military and political ranks, and stifle investigations.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"An extension alone is not enough. Legal changes are needed for us to truly work and fulfil our objectives,\" said Lokendra Mallick, the chairman of the commission into war-time disappearances.\n<\/p>\n
\n More than 17,000 people were killed, 1,300 disappeared and thousands displaced during the civil war, which ended with a peace deal between Maoist insurgents and government forces.\n<\/p>\n
\n The pact also heralded the end of the Hindu monarchy, which fell two years later as the former rebels swept to victory in Nepal's first post-war national elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nepal on Thursday extended the mandates for two commissions tasked with probing crimes committed during the bloody civil war, hours before a deadline was due to lapse without a single case being investigated. The commissions had been given two years to look into the murders, rapes and forced disappearances perpetrated by government forces and Maoist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-32017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n