Bhutan says all refugees are not Bhutanese

Bhutan has questioned the identity of Bhutanese refugees taking asylum in Nepal stating that all those registered in the camps are originally not Bhutanese.

Sonam Tobgay, head of the policy division of the Bhutanese Foreign Ministry, has being quoted by IRIN as saying, "It is… factually incorrect to term all the people in the camps [in eastern Nepal] Bhutanese. Bhutan cannot accept a blanket reference to all the people in the camps as being `refugees' from Bhutan."

He said Nepal and Bhutan government in 1993 agreed that there are four types of people in the refugee community.

Tobgay claimed there were only 304 Bhutanese in 1991 when Nepal called UNHCR for assistance and many, he claims further, might have taken opportunity of the porous borders. "It is a highly complex issue with its genesis in illegal immigration, in a region marked by vast population movements, porous and open borders, poverty, environmental degradation and political instability," he said.

But he also added his country was committed to finding a durable solution to the problem.

A report by UN experts on minorities in February said, "Participants in the expert consultation [in December 2007] described how in 1985, the citizenship law of Bhutan stripped an estimated 100,000 individuals of ethnic Nepali origin of their citizenship rights, a factor leading to their forced expulsion from the country."

However, Doma Tshering, Counselor of the Permanent Mission of Bhutan to the UN, has been quoted in media reports say that Bhutan was "disappointed with the selective and simplistic reproduction in the report of the Independent Expert of assertions that emerged during the so-called Expert Consultations of December 2007, of which the Royal Government was neither aware, nor invited to participate in."

Meanwhile, the world's newest democracy, Bhutan is facing a setback within the first week of its historic elections after the opposition party resigned from the parliament alleging foul play in the polls.

According to media reports, the only two members of the opposition party, People's Democratic Party (PDP), elected to the National Assembly, the lower house, resigned.

The party has filed an application at the election commission seeking investigation into the foul-play, alleging that there was last minute campaigning by the winning party through government employees who drove to villages 48 hours before the polls day.

"We feel that in a number of constituencies, the balance may have been tilted due to last-minute campaigning," media quoted Tashi Tsering, spokesman for the opposition People's Democratic Party as saying. nepalnews.com ia mar 31 08

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