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A group of Nepalese soldiers are to be court martialled over the massacre of Maoist rebels last August which led to the collapse of peace talks, the army said Thursday. A major and an unspecified number of his subordinates have been detained over the killing of 19 rebels in the eastern village of Doramba, in Ramechhap district, on August 17 last year, army spokesman Colonel Dipak Gurung told AFP. The incident was a major violation of a ceasefire which had been agreed between the Maoists and the government some seven months earlier and came while the two sides were engaged in a third round of peace talks in the western village of Hapure, Rolpa district. The Maoists claimed the Doramba killings had been cold-blooded executions and pulled out of the peace talks on August 27, declaring the ceasefire over. Since then, according to Gurung, some 1,534 Maoist rebels and 144 members of Nepal's security forces have been killed. "We have formed a high level court martial headed by a brigadier general to try those accused in the incident," Gurung said. The Army Human Rights Cell (AHRC) in a preliminary report concluded that the Maoists had provoked the Doramba deaths by leading two armed confrontations against a security patrol. However, investigators from the National Human Rights Commissionwent to the site and concluded that on 17 August, members of the security forces in plainclothes had raided a Maoist meeting, killing one person on the spot and rounding up 19 others. The captives were then led to a forest and, with their hands tied, summarily executed, the NHRC said. On the basis of these claims, the AHRC reopened the inquiry and submitted a fresh report. "The investigation report said the major is suspected to have shot dead some Maoists rebels after arresting them. The court martial will examine the case in accordance with the Royal Army Act," Gurung said. "The royal army is fighting against the Maoists to defend democracy in the country and in the process if sometimes the armymen commit a mistake we will correct it," he said. Maoist rebels have been fighting for a communist republic in Nepal since 1996 and the uprising has so far claimed more than 9,000 lives. All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse. Quick Links
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