We want to see them go back: Abraham Abraham
A senior UN official has expressed disappointment over lack of progress towards resolving the 15-year-old Bhutanese refugee issue.
Addressing a ‘Face to Face programme’ organised by the Reporters’ Club in Kathmandu Monday, country director of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for Nepal, Abraham Abraham, said in 1992, we never thought that it would be such a situation 15 years down the road.
A total of 15 rounds of bilateral Ministerial Joint Committee (MJC) meetings had been concluded between Nepal and Bhutan, the last one being held in October 2003. As agreed by the MJC, a joint verification team (JVT) involving officials from Nepal and Bhutan completed verification of refugees living at Khudunabari, one of the seven refugee camps in eastern Nepal. The process, however, remains stalled after Bhutanese members of the JVT returned to their home alleging misbehaviour by some of the refugees in the camp.
The JVT concluded that over 70 percent of the residents in the Khudunabari camp were non-Bhutanese (category 2) while only 293 individuals were categorized as genuine Bhutanese (category 1). The JVT even declared around 300 people, including children who were born in the refugee camp itself, as “criminals” (category 4).
“Today we are in a situation that refugees in Khudunabari camp are very anxious for repatriation. 94 percent of the camp population appealed against the decision regarding their individual cases. This struck us very much and we appealed HMG/Nepal to consider their petition. But I don’t think there appeal has been heard,” said Abraham.
Abraham also recalled that his office had presented a “comprehensive solution, a non-paper” to the Royal Government of Bhutan and HMG/Nepal proposing a comprehensive approach to resolve the refugee issue way back in April 2003. “Today, even after more than two years, we are still waiting for the bilateral process to open, waiting for repatriation of the refugees,” he added.
The senior UN official, however, insisted that it was a bilateral process. “UNHCR and the international community, we all respect the bilateral process. We are talking about two South Asian neighbours, two mature governments. So, we don’t really interfere in the process,” he said.
While the Bhutanese refugee community is calling for giving up the bilateral process and internationalizing the refugee issue, the then minister of state for foreign affairs, Dr. Prakash Sharan Mahat, had blamed the Bhutanese side of dilly-dallying in re-starting the verification process.
Bhutan, on its part, blames frequent changes of governments in Nepal for delay in the process.
Refuting reports that the UNHCR was going to close down refugee camps in east Nepal by the end of 2005, Abraham said he had already finalized proposals for the year 2006. “We are not here to abandon the refugees. Our assistance will continue. As funds become more scarce, we have learnt how to better manage (available) resources,” he added.
Responding to a query by Nepalnews, Mr. Abraham said there are also words of strong interest from western countries to try and help to move forward with the solution of the issue, largely with the spirit of burden sharing of the problem. He, however, did not provide details on which governments were interested in resettling how many of the Bhutanese refugees in their countries.
Abraham said as of March 31st this year, a total of 105,232 refugees had been registered in seven refugee camps in east Nepal.
When asked about the closing down of Tibetan Refugee Welfare Office (TRWO) in Kathmandu in late January this year, Abraham said, “We are in the process of finding out what is the best mechanism we could have in order to have substitute to continue our support in this area….. We are looking forward to a new organisation that will register itself with HMG/Nepal and will be able to provide the same support that was provided before,” he added. nepalnews.com by May 16 05
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