Mission Kotwada

Major General Rookmangud Katawal had been appointed as the commander to lead the Unified Armed Forces of Nepal during Mission Kotwada by tricking the then Chief of Army Staff Pyar Jung Thapa and the then King of Nepal Gyanendra Shah. The mission was very important, as it had to ensure the successful tour of the King Gyanendra Shah. Being accompanied by another senior army officer and several other military and police personnel, he ordered mortars to be fired consecutively to scare the Maoist rebels into retreating and ceasing fire which failed. However, upon requesting air support from a nearby military unit, the mission succeeded after successive missiles fired from the helicopter forced the rebels to escape. After a two-hour march up the hill in Kotwada, the unit led by Katawal found the place deserted.^[5]

Civilian leadership should explain counter-insurgency plan

On January 20, Lt. General Katawal, Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) Chief of General Staff, told Ambassador James F. Moriarty that he was worried the government did not have a unified strategy for tackling the Maoist insurgency. Katawal reiterated that there was no purely military solution to the insurgency; the army could only create space for political negotiations. He noted that the civilian government should lead the effort to inform its citizens about Nepal's overall plan to tackle the insurgency. Katawal stressed that a civilian government had to explain to the people what the military was doing, especially why the government needed to restrict civil liberties.

Katawal had explained that the then Home Minister Kamal Thapa had tried to work with the political parties on January 19 to avert the need for a day long curfew on January 20, the day Parties planned to hold mass demonstrations in Kathmandu. Katawal noted that the government had confirmed evidence that the Maoists intended to infiltrate the Parties' demonstration; the Maoists had already brought automatic weapons into the Kathmandu Valley, and had attacked police stations in the valley. He pointed out that, during their rule, the Parties had placed restrictions on citizens for security reasons but now were unwilling to accept those restrictions. The ambassador agreed that Nepal needed a national consensus on how to address the insurgency. The ambassador told Katawal that he had met with the foreign minister, Home Minister and vice chairman to urge the government to postpone elections, reach out to the parties, and declare a cease-fire to create space for the legitimate democratic forces to discuss a counter-insurgency plan.

Katawal asserted that the Maoists skillfully exploited the lack of government vision by using the political parties themselves to create tension among the legitimate democratic forces. Katawal admitted that the Maoists' strategy had been "successful to an extent," but added that the political parties should learn from their mistake of aligning with the Maoists through the 12-point understanding. He noted the irony of the Parties linking with the Maoists: it was the Parties themselves who first labeled the Maoists as "terrorists" when the Parties were in power. Katawal believed the Parties and the Maoists had reached an agreement to pressure the King and the army. He stressed that the army had no political aims, saying that the RNA army "obey any constitutional government." Katawal stated that the parties, especially the Nepali Congress party, were beginning to feel trapped, but acknowledged that it was "hard for the Parties to back down publicly." He added it was "time for the state to take steps so political parties could come to the negotiating table." Katawal hoped that the international community could urge the leaders of the political parties "to understand the gravity of the situation" and to understand that the army was not the enemy of democracy.

He added that Nepal's monarchy and political parties have, over the past ten years, viewed the Maoist insurgency primarily as a chip to be played in their political games; at various times, each of the major Parties and the King have used the Maoists to advance their own interests vis-à-vis the other legitimate political actors. Thus, there has been no broad agreement on a counter-insurgency strategy. They had reached the stage where, Katwal added, if the legitimate democratic forces do not stand together, there is a very real risk that the Maoists will succeed in their goal of forming a totalitarian state. Katawal's readiness to assure the ambassador that the RNA had no political ambition might be an indication that the military understand that the King must reach out to the political parties in order to ensure implementation of an effective counter-insurgency plan.^{[citation needed]}

Katawal and his democratic bona fides

Since the people's movement in April, Katawal, like outgoing COAS Gen. Thapa, had been consistent in affirming his loyalty to Nepal's democratic leadership. He reaffirmed the same to embassy official in a conversation on September 19. He had appeared on several occasions before the State Affairs Committee, the parliamentary committee tasked with oversight of the Defense Ministry. The chairman of that committee told embassy official recently that he had been completely satisfied with Katawal's cooperation. Katawal reported to Prime Minister Koirala on two accounts. The PM is the commander-in-chief. The Defense Ministry (MOD) was in the process, with U.S. and U.K. assistance, of building its capacity to manage and give direction to the army. That responsibility was previously of the Palace; the Defense Ministry was only a facade.

Although the criticisms Katawal face seems to have died down in these days, a number of human rights activists and several members of Parliament mostly on the far left began raising their voices as soon as Katwal was appointed. On September 4, a group of 16 leaders of various human rights organizations sent a letter to UN Secretary General Annan denouncing the appointment of Katawal as the new COAS. The letter alleged that Katawal had been involved in "documented gross human right violations." The letter claimed that Katawal had been involved in torture, extrajudicial executions, and forced disappearances. The Informal Sector Service Center (INSEC), a leading Nepali human rights NGO, subsequently shared detailed information with the embassy about Katawal's alleged human rights abuses or those that may have occurred under his command. Only one allegation directly involved Katawal. The rest were on a chain-of-command basis.^{[citation needed]}

INSEC report

According to INSEC, Katawal allegedly threatened in April 2004 to kill a journalist who had reported on a deadly aerial attack on a school in the mid-Western region in which 7 people died and 30 people were injured. INSEC also listed 64 individual gross violations of human rights that Nepali security forces committed in the mid-Western region from December 29, 2003, to September 10, 2004, while Katawal was the regional divisional commander. The Nepal Armed Police Force and the Nepal Police were operating at that time under a unified command which was headed by the army. Katawal also faced unspecified charges of violating human rights for attempting to suppress the people's movement in April 2006. He testified to the High-Level Probe Commission against these charges early August. The commission has not yet made any of its findings public.^{[citation needed]}

No government rebuttal planned

Nepal Army sources have told post that the army has no intention of responding to the human rights allegations against Katawal. It would, in their view, be inappropriate. That task, Army sources believe, is one for the civilian leadership. Defense Secretary Upreti, the senior civil servant in the Ministry of Defense, who reports directly to PM and Defense Minister Koirala, told embassy officials on September 18 that he is unaware of any intention by his Ministry or the prime minister to address these allegations against the COAS.^{[citation needed]}

Assessing the allegations

The unspecified charges against Katawal for his role in April 2006 do not yet appear to substantiate such drastic USG action in the absence of a commission report. The most troubling accusations concern human rights abuses that occurred while Katawal was division commander in mid-Western Nepal was during the first nine months of 2004. However, Embassy sources indicate he exercised maximum restraint in conducting operations, mindful of minimizing collateral damage.

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) representatives had said on September 19, that it was generally pleased with the progress army had made in the past three years. OHCHR also shared on September 19 that it does not plan to investigate Katawal.^{[citation needed]}