âBeing Neutral is Our Biggest Crimeâ - Global Coalition to Protect ...

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X. Recommendations To the Indian central government End support to Salwa Judum; direct the Chhattisgarh state government to investigate and prosecute security forces and Salwa Judum members responsible for abuses, and provide information about missing persons • Take all necessary and appropriate measures to end unlawful Salwa Judum activities, end all government support to Salwa Judum, including the provision of weapons, and end all participation by government security forces in Salwa Judum operations, including raids and reprisals. • Take all necessary steps to ensure that government security forces abide by India’s obligations under international law and the Indian Constitution, including respect for the rights to freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention, and from torture and other mistreatment. • Consistent with its constitutional obligation to ensure state compliance with the Constitution, the Indian central government should call upon the Chhattisgarh state government to immediately investigate and prosecute individuals, including senior government officials, implicated in serious human rights abuses in Dantewada and Bijapur districts. The Indian central government should also express its willingness to conduct an investigation upon a request by the Chhattisgarh state government. • Call upon the Chhattisgarh state government to promptly make public the progress of and findings from its investigations against individuals implicated in serious human rights abuses in Dantewada and Bijapur districts. • Protect all witnesses, victims, and others who provide information for criminal prosecutions from possible reprisals, including by establishing an adequately funded witness protection program. • Immediately ensure that the Chhattisgarh government reconstitutes an effective State Human Rights Commission to pursue all complaints of human rights abuses, including abuses linked to the conflict between Naxalites, Salwa Judum, and government security forces. Ensure that the Commission 147 Human Rights Watch July 2008
uses all authority at its disposal including powers of suo motu investigation and subpoena. Protect displaced persons • Develop and implement a national policy and scheme for internally displaced persons in consultation with displaced persons, and governmental, nongovernmental, and intergovernmental organizations, and in accordance with the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (UN Guiding Principles). The policy should provide guarantees against arbitrary and unlawful displacement. It should also implement the rights of displaced persons to government assistance without discrimination, facilitate safe return where people are willing to return, ensure sustainable resettlement, and provide adequate compensation for loss of property during displacement. In the interim, • Ensure that Andhra Pradesh government officials immediately stop the destruction of IDP hamlets, illegal forced evictions, forced relocation of displaced persons, and confiscation of their property. • Permit the Andhra Pradesh government to allow displaced persons to use reserved forest areas for non-forest purposes (including as habitation). • Instruct the Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh state governments to provide displaced persons all government services, including employment guarantees or other means of sustaining a living, access to food-for-work benefits, and subsidized food rations, and issue all documents required by them to benefit from these welfare programs. • Closely monitor the progress of rehabilitation schemes being developed by the Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh state governments in order to ensure the safe return and rehabilitation of villagers who are willing to return. • Provide additional special infrastructure support to the Chhattisgarh state government to clear landmines from Dantewada and Bijapur districts in particular. “Being Neutral is Our Biggest Crime” 148
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India “Being Neutral is Our Bigge
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Copyright © 2008 Human Rights Watc
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VI. Plight of Persons Displaced by
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© 2008 John Emerson “Being Neutr
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Gram Panchayat/ Panchayat ICCPR ICE
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of villages in Bijapur and Dantewad
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Since 2006 local nongovernmental or
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Frightened, many villagers hid for
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Salwa Judum, particularly Salwa Jud
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of camp residents and other displac
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Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, People’s U
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egion between June 2005 and June 20
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through underground village committ
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health care. 17 Census data from 20
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The Naxalite problem has led to lac
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egular battalion to counter Naxalit
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NGO fact-finding teams have also ap
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The ‘Salva Judum’ movement is p
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persons also gave Human Rights Watc
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Sometimes senior police officials,
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were sick we had to go and report i
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to our village had bows and arrows,
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All able-bodied men had to particip
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them with escorts. We go with them
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there [pointing to a location about
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V. Abuses by the State Although the
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and my sister’s in the fields. My
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camps. 109 Two SPOs came forward to
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Gangi, one of the villagers, said t
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weeks [from the first visit to the
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One of the boys got beaten a lot wi
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A woman from Nendra said she saw th
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member of the fact-finding team tha
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In 2006 the Chhattisgarh government
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under Indian penal law. 163 Many NG
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independent and report because ther
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eing beaten up by Salwa Judum membe
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the country, to liberty and freedom
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electricity, adult literacy centres
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only 10 health workers to attend to
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dependent upon the state for their
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camps were started. 233 Assuming th
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Impediments to return The Chhattisg
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villagers’ access to markets maki
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1. Prior to carrying out evictions,
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our huts. About 10 forest departmen
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A volunteer with an NGO that provid
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met with further retributive measur
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Despite the court’s orders, fores
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for at least 100 days a year. 303 T
Page 101 and 102: In many places, displaced persons d
Page 103 and 104: Naxalites beat and kill villagers,
Page 105 and 106: that they rubbed small stones [grav
Page 107 and 108: Similarly, Naxalites beat and haras
Page 109 and 110: not kill my uncle. They threatened
Page 111 and 112: 100 meters. The tractor driver—an
Page 113 and 114: near the Boddiguda dam. We were abo
Page 115 and 116: Errabore camp on July 17, 2006, whe
Page 117 and 118: E. CPI (Maoist) Party statements Hu
Page 119 and 120: for this reason we are compelled to
Page 121 and 122: The Naxalites do not deny the recru
Page 123 and 124: I have seen SPOs younger than me in
Page 125 and 126: The recruitment process The nationa
Page 127 and 128: I became an SPO last year in March
Page 129 and 130: of them. My brother actually surviv
Page 131 and 132: Maraiguda stated that he was ordere
Page 133 and 134: The Chhattisgarh state government r
Page 135 and 136: ecruitment, but Naxalites pressure
Page 137 and 138: When he was part of the bal sangam
Page 139 and 140: I joined when I was 15 years old. I
Page 141 and 142: When Veka Idma was about age 12 or
Page 143 and 144: later on when I became a dalam memb
Page 145 and 146: Naxalites’ policy regarding recru
Page 147 and 148: IX. Impact of the Conflict on Educa
Page 149 and 150: other villages which do not have sc
Page 151: The ITDA project officer for Khamma
Page 155 and 156: To the Chhattisgarh state governmen
Page 157 and 158: • Release complete information, u
Page 159 and 160: • Cooperate with UNICEF and other
Page 161 and 162: HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH 350 Fifth Avenue
Page 163 and 164: ) Chhattisgarh government assists t
Page 165 and 166: protect the rights of the displaced
Page 167 and 168: HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH 350 Fifth Avenue
Page 169 and 170: government investigated any allegat
Page 171 and 172: “Being Neutral is Our Biggest Cri
Page 173 and 174: We acknowledge with gratitude the f
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