| April 5, 2002
Hon. Sher Bahadur Deuba
Prime Minister
Government of Nepal
Kathmandu, NEPAL
Via Fax: 977 416 016
Dear Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba:
I am writing on behalf of Forefront, a global network of human rights defenders in more than thirty countries, to express serious concern about a report by the Kathmandu Post on April 3, 2002 that Home Minister Khum Bahadur Khadka has accused Backward Society Education (BASE) of supporting Maoist rebels and threatened to remove its legal registration as a non-governmental organization.
This condemnation comes on the heels of serious physical assaults against three offices of BASE in Kailali District by the same rebel group that the government is accusing BASE of supporting, in which one office was burned to the ground and most of their materials and equipment were destroyed.
BASE is one of the oldest organizations in Nepal, and has played a vital role in informal education and humanitarian assistance to former Kamaiyas who are receiving little or no support from the government. Forefront organized a delegation to Nepal in February of 2001 with a representative of former US President Jimmy Carter and BASE, to assess the conditions of former bonded laborers in the West and advocate for increased government action to rehabilitate Kamaiyas, who had been living in squalid conditions in camps for more than eight months at that time. We believe that providing education, training, housing and other basic needs to marginalized populations is essential to lasting peace and democracy in Nepal, and are dismayed by these denunciations by the government.
We are also deeply disturbed that these attacks are part of a broader crackdown on civil society organizations in Nepal under the State of Emergency. It is critical that the important work of civil society organizations such as BASE, many of which are filling the gap in social services, education, and humanitarian assistance for Nepal's poor, marginalized minorities that the government has not been able to fulfill, can continue.
We ask that you take every necessary step to:
Protect and support the work of civil society organizations, particularly during the State of Emergency;
Retract threats of removing BASE's legal status; and
Support BASE's ongoing efforts to rehabilitate the freed bonded laborers and other marginalised people as the best road to peace.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Lesley Carson
Forefront
777 7th Avenue, New York, NY
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