Nine former child combatants, including Lenin Bista, founding chairperson of the Discharged People’s Liberation Army, had moved the apex court accusing the former rebels of committing war crimes by forcing minors to join military activities in contravention of international human rights laws.
On May 30, the apex court administration had refused to entertain the former child soldiers’ petition, pointing out that transitional justice mechanisms overseeing war-era cases are supposed to look into this case also. But a single bench of Justice Anand Mohan Bhattarai ordered the court staff to register the petition against Dahal and Bhattarai. A preliminary hearing on the petition is scheduled for Tuesday. The verification of former PLA combatants, which the United Nations Mission in Nepal had conducted in 2007 for integrating former rebel soldiers into the Nepali Army, had disqualified thousands of Maoist combatants, including Bista, for being minors. Of the 4,008 disqualified combatants, 2,973 turned out to be minors while the remaining 1,035 were found to have joined the Maoist ‘People’s Liberation Army’ after the first ceasefire of 26 May 2006—six months before the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the government of Nepal and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in 2006. The government had provided Rs 500,000-Rs 800,000 each to combatants opting for voluntary retirement, whereas the child soldiers had received token assistance from the United Nations.
