Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Dateline

Niraj Aryal

The nationally and internationally ignored tale of the frustrated Bhutanese expelled from their own territory, is to take a different turn this time. The 16th round of bilateral talks slated for 22nd and 23rd November is surely not expected to bring smiles back to those who are living in an agony in an alien land since last unfortunate sixteen years.

In the mean time, the perturbed youths sighting the result of the bilateral talks in advance have started propagating their views for gradually gravitating towards arms options. "Armed struggle is the only alternative for every one of us now," an English language daily quoted a Bhutanese youth as saying. The newspaper also quotes another refugee as saying the armed option is "compulsion" for them.

For the youths, the patience seems to be over as they are resorting to the arms option, but this does not mean road to all peaceful solutions is closed. There is reason to be frustrated though, after fifteen rounds of bilateral talks between the governments yet there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

"There is not always a light in the end of the tunnel", commented a Bhutanese youth who is moving now and then from Jhapa to Kathmandu since last fifteen years. He remembers he was five when his family was forced to leave his homeland and forcefully put into an Indian container near Indo-Bhutanese territory by the Indian officials finally to arrive in his ancestral land.

Reports have it that the refugees have threatened to destabilize already vulnerable northeastern India if the Indian government continued to ignore them in their efforts for legal repatriation. "If Bhutanese refugees take up arms, India's north-east will be the center of turmoil, and the Indian Ministry of External Affairs will be held responsible for this", indicated some reports.

This is not enough, news reports also indicate that a party named Communist Party of Bhutan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) is already in existence which has also constituted a "Military Commission" to wage an arm struggle against the current King Jigmey's regime. This move is said to be supported by the COMPOSA (Coordination Committee of Parties and Organizations in South Asia). In its statement, the COMPOSA said that, "In Bhutan, the budding Maoist Movement has courageously taken up the task of mobilizing the masses for revolution."Now the Bhutanese refugees have started to see the Indian government as the real villain, they are becoming aggressive against India," said a report jointly published by some civil society groups in India, Nepal and Bhutan who are to submit their report to the Indian President shortly.

Some countries in the developed West though have come up with lucrative offers but then yet most of the Refugees would wish to return to their own homeland.

Nevertheless, this lucrative offer made first by the US and some other countries have divided the opinions amongst the refugees themselves. Question thus arises: will the US advance such propositions to other refugees languishing in different parts of the globe in a way that she has devised for the Bhutanese refugees here? Or is it that the US does not want to annoy India for obvious political and economic reasons.

"For those refugees who would not make their home in the developed west, arms option is the only suitable alternative", added a Bhutanese youth talking to this scribe referring to the Maoist case in Nepal which ultimately achieved power after a decade long rebellion.