CPN Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has said he would be a global hero if he were taken to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for wartime crimes committed by the then Maoist rebels.
Welcoming the cadres of Netra Bikram Chand-led CPN into the ruling CPN at his residence in Khumaltar, Lalitpur Monday morning, he stated that he has heard he will be taken to The Hague and hung.
"The reactionaries now are bent on defaming and finishing the leaders of a party that made Nepal a federal democratic republic. There are more conspiracies and propaganda," Dahal said. "One gentleman said I should be hung for killing 13,000 persons, and jailed in The Hague. Taking me to The Hague doesn't make any difference. That would have been a matter of pride rather because the people across the world would know me at once. They would say this man was apparently for peace and justice."
He, however, expressed confidence that anybody would drag him to The Hague. He claimed that taking him to The Hague or anywhere else in the world does not make much of a difference as long as the country remains a federal democratic republic but warned that the country would be in danger if the current political system does not remain.
Human rights activists claim Dahal can be tried by the ICC under the command responsibility that assigns criminal responsibility to higher-ranking members of military for crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by their subordinates.
The commander is held responsible under command responsibility if the commander was in control of the forces, knew or should have known that the forces were committing or about to commit such crimes, and failed to take the necessary and reasonable measures within his or her power to prevent the commission of such crimes.
Dahal told the cadres leaving Chand's party that a revolution is not possible with a few persons and added that Chand himself would join the ruling CPN sooner or later. "He does not have any choice apart from coming here or getting finished."
