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Kathmandu Thursday December 13, 2001 Marga 28 2058.
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Fingers still
crossed
The Joint Verification Team
(JVT), which was formed last March to separate out Bhutanese from non-Bhutanese is soon
completing this verification process at the Khudunabari refugee camp. The camp consists of
1,963 families and over 95 percent of them have produced evidence of Bhutanese
nationality. After completion of the verification both sides are expected to meet again to
vet on a case by case basis the documents in the possession of the verified refugees. Any
differences of opinion will be referred to the joint ministerial level meeting scheduled
to be held sometime in February next year. The secretary level meeting held in Kathmandu
last November had ended inconclusively as both sides stuck to their stances on the
question of categorization. But it is too early to predict whether the Druk regime will
really take back its citizens who have been languishing in the seven UNHRC-run camps in
eastern Nepal since 1991. The Bhutanese foreign minister mentioned about a month back that
Bhutan would not take back any refugees with criminal records, which is rather odd.
Criminal records or not, Bhutanese people are a Bhutanese responsibility. The BJP
government in India for its part has always been quick to characterize the Bhutanese
refugee problem as a strictly bilateral one between Nepal and Bhutan even though these
refugees have entered Nepal through Indian territory. Had the Indian government refrained
from overstating its case, the repatriation process might have been smoother altogether.
Bhutan had forcibly evicted the
Lhotshampas under its archaic laws in the name of protecting a cultural identity. India is
well aware of the ins and outs of the whole issue and any continuation of its studied
indifference may well mean the repatriation process will never actually materialize. This
will be a disaster for the refugees themselves as well as for their Nepalese hosts. Last
August Finance Minister Dr Ram Sharan Mahat said publicly that the refugees would be
returning to their own country by December. He said this after joint ministerial level
talks. Royal Nepalese Ambassador to Bhutan Dr Bhek Bahadur Thapa reiterated the same
optimism last October at the Reporters Club. At the time it sounded almost too good to be
true and it still does given that the verification process has taken six months to
complete at just one camp. If the JVT takes so long to verify the Khudunabari camp, it
will take at least seven years to complete the remaining six. The government should never
have taken the refugee problem lightly nor, in hindsight, agreed to the four-fold
categorization of the refugees. Many of the points being made here have been made before
in this space. But they are worth stating again in view of the importance that attaches to
them. It is also worth stating that we should keep our fingers crossed until passage of
the refugees back to Bhutan and home actually takes place. |
