By ICG (International Crisis Group)

The Government of Nepal is creating local civilian militias - known as Rural Volunteer Security Groups and Peace Committees - in what risks becoming an alarming escalation of its conflict with Maoist rebels. Civilian militias are likely to become an untrained, unaccountable and undisciplined armed force that worsens a conflict that has already taken almost 9,000 lives. The scheme is controversial, and the government has publicly denied that it has already started distributing weapons despite evidence that it is indeed going ahead.
If implemented, village militias are likely to have serious and long-term consequences:

- Their creation would force many villagers to take sides in the conflict - something most wish to avoid since it makes them targets for violence from both sides and tears the already worn social fabric, leaving lasting damage.

- Militias are likely to receive only minimal training, have little oversight and few controls, thus leading to a worsening of human rights problems. Massacres, abductions and illegal imprisonments are already rife in Nepal, and these problems will get worse.

- Arming untrained villagers when regular police forces are often under-armed and under-trained is counter-productive.

- Disarming and demobilising militias after conflicts is extremely difficult. Eight years after such forces were demobilised in Guatemala, many are still active as criminal groups.

- Militias tend to mutate. A number of terrorist networks have their origins in government-linked militias or underground groups including al-Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia and Turkish Hizbollah. Given Nepal's complex ethnic and social landscape, creating new armed movements is particularly ill-advised.

On 4 February 2004 one of the villages where local people had been armed, Sudama, was attacked by a large number of Maoists. ICG visited the village while researching this briefing, and a detailed description of its situation is given below. Although the attack was repelled without any reported injuries to civilians, it appears that the village was targeted because of its reputation as a pilot location for the militia program. This emphasises concerns that arming civilians is likely to lead to increased violence.

Kathmandu/Brussels, 17 February 2004

(Read complete report at www.crisisweb.org)