Event

War Crime

War Crime
Dir. Gopal Shivakoti (Nepal 2017)
Feature Documentary
Run Time 1Hour 4min
Friday May 25th 9:30 pm
5 Euro
ARCAM

During the 10-year conflict (1996-2006) in Nepal, Maoists recruited children as spies, cooks, porters and even frontline guerrillas.

After the signing of a comprehensive peace accord (in 2006) between the Maoists and Nepal government, Maoist combatants and weapons were brought into the UN-supervised camps (in 2007) where 4008 combatants were classified as being minors and or new recruits.

But the Maoist leadership delayed their release for 3 years so they could bargain for bigger rehabilitation packages.

As a result, child soldiers were released (in 2010) only when they had grown into young adults. By then, their rehabilitation had become much more complicated.

They were not given proper rehabilitation packages or integrated into society.

10 years after the conflict ended, the Nepal government and the party they were ready to die for have forgotten them.
The former Maoist child soldiers are now in their 20s fighting for survival and against social stigma.

This is a really interesting doc, and summarizes exactly what the limitations of liberal freedom are. They victims are going through the same problem freed slaves had in the US -without reparation (redistribution of private property) and they find themselves almost in as just a precarious situation as they were before.
JB