Editorial [ The Kathmandu Post (Nepal)]

Ailing RDBs

Four of the five Rural Development Banks (RDBs), established seven years ago with an aim at extending micro-credit at grassroots level, have technically turned insolvent. Low debt recovery, political interference, overstaffing and absence of loan provision, besides managerial weaknesses, are the major factors attributed to this sorry state of affairs. The fact is that the five RDBs set up in five regional development centres are the replica of the highly successful Grameen Bikas Bank of Bangladesh. The government introduced such banks with a hope to uplift economically backward communities in the rural area, and not to benefit a few who have misused these financial institutions. This is nothing but a major blow to the much-hyped government’s financial sector reform programme that kicked off a decade ago. Had the government introduced effective measures to prevent any financial erosion as this, these banks would have certainly fulfilled their commitments, apart from extending the micro credit to poor farmers.

The financial study conducted by the Nepal Rastra Bank underlines that until the last year’s mid-July, four of the five RDBs had accumulative losses of over 137 million rupees. The eastern regional RDB set up with the total capital of 60 million rupees had eroded 57 million rupees. Similarly, the western regional RDB manipulated its accounts, made possible by weak policies, to project profits. The mid-western and central RDBs had eroded a total of over 25 million rupees by July 2000 due to sheer negligence and irresponsibility. The term period for the management team, which ought to have comprised 8 members each, has had more than 21 members in the board of directors. And commercial banks have refused to lend additional funds for operation as a result of RDBs’ weak financial position. Mismanagement and misuse of resources are the chronic problems that started when politicians began appointing their cronies as chiefs of these banks. What is disturbing is that the trouble did not stop there, rather it worsened after lending loans to those who were near and dear to these politically appointed chiefs. Bank managers even cashed in on legal loopholes to benefit themselves at the expense of the public.

The financial insolvency of RDBs has come to light a year after the KPMG report declared the two state owned banks - the Nepal Banijya Bank and Nepal Bank Limited -"technically insovent". This has undoubtedly given us a insight, that is all too revealing, into how things work at state-run financial institutions. Neither can the public nor the private sector management work so long as there is an absence of effective mechanism and legal enforcement committee to check financial irregularities. The government has no option but to upgrade the regulatory mechanism, to make these banks free from political interference and to run them with competent staff with better loan provisions to ensure high debt recovery and efficiency in management.

Right to return under international law

By Rakesh Chhetri

The practice of forced eviction, ethnic cleansing or mass expulsion involves the involuntary removal of persons from their homes, land or habitat, directly attributable to the State. There is definitely an element of ‘force’ or coercion involved in the forced evictions. Since no ‘people’ will ever seek their voluntary mass expulsion. Forced evictions also entail demolition of the homes of evicted persons, as a form of punishment or revenge for political opinion and activities. Nepali-speaking Lhotshampas or southern Bhutanese were subjected to inhumane action, perpetrated by the government of Bhutan. The homes of hundreds of southern Bhutanese were demolished and burnt down by the government immediately after the first ever pro-human rights rallies in Bhutan. More than eighty percent of refugees were forcefully evicted by the Bhutanese government through barbaric and brutal physical measures, contrary to its claim that they were seeking voluntary emigration.

The practice of forced eviction itself constitutes a violation of universal human rights. Many additional human rights are severely violated when an forced eviction occurs. For instances, children’s right to education is infringed and evicted peoples’ right to work is breached as they lose their source of employment. The eviction damages the psychological and physical health, infringing their right to health. When families and communities in a such large scale, as in the case of the Lhotshampas, are torn apart by the forced eviction, their right to family is violated.

The evicted Lhotshampas not only lost their homes and neighbourhood in which they had invested considerable proportion of their income, but they were dispossessed of their personal possessions. The human costs of forced evictions of Lhotshampas are substantial and involves a wide range of additional negative impacts on their livelihood, safety and security of their children. Lhotshampas are facing a situation of statelessness, physical, psychological and emotional trauma, insecurity of the future of their children, loss of livelihood, problem of educating their children, loss of faith in the legal and political system of the country, tensions, increased social criminalization and so on. This is a matter that should prick the conscience of the Bhutanese government and the democratic world.

Bhutanese refugees have collective and inalienable rights under the international law to return to their homes and property, from which they had been forcefully evicted and uprooted by the government. No one can curtail these rights. The refugees evicted by terrorism and force must be allowed back to their homes. There are precedents of Bosnian, Kosovar and East Timorese refugees returning to their homes. The same principle of right to return must be applied to the Bhutanese refugees. The right to return, anchored in a wide range of international laws, will remain a human right and a legitimate claim for Bhutanese refugees. They must stick tenaciously to the international legal regime to exercise their right to return to land, among other rights, otherwise they will remain permanently exiled. The current state of legal limbo inflicted upon them by the government machination must be terminated and their internationally-guaranteed rights must be reaffirmed.

The right to return to one’s homeland is a universal right protected by various international laws including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country." Article 12, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states: "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country." The term "country" here denotes the place where a person has or had the right of nationality, before his departure. Before 1990, all refugees were nationals of Bhutan.

The international law prohibits Bhutan from refusing its nationality to the Lhotshampas, inhabitant of a territory (southern Bhutan) living for a long period and over which it exerts its sovereignty. It cannot refuse the entry and resident rights to Lhotshampas, having a legitimate connection to this territory. The right to nationality and return being universal human rights cannot be taken or bargained away by the government.

The exercise of the right to return to their home and original habitat has emerged as the most important challenge for the Bhutanese refugees over the last one decade. Paradoxically, while this issue has continued to bedevil the Nepalese government negotiators for a decade, it could not occupy a real place on the agenda of Bhutan. It was Bhutan’s intransigence that led the refugee groups to seek for international intervention on their plight.

Irrespective of the so-called Nepal-Bhutan Joint Verification Team’s (JVT) findings, all Bhutanese refugees have the right to return to their original home in Bhutan - since it is their original habitat. The JVT has become an institution, especially for Bhutan. However, downgrading of the core problem of refugees’ right to return by the exclusion of the international agencies like the UN Human Rights Commission, UNHCR and the INGOs in the verification process and Bhutan’s rigid posture show that real repatriation is still not on Bhutan’s agenda. A close reading of the public statements made by the King of Bhutan and various Bhutanese officials reaffirms Bhutan’s intransigence, betraying hopes of refugees and adding to the confusion.

If there were even the slightest hope that the refugees could possibly attain even a modicum of their internationally-recognized rights to return within the context of the JVT framework, such hopes have been absolutely dashed by the current verification process and the unbending attitude of the Bhutanese government.

Thus, the JVT must be replaced by an International Enquiry Commission to determine the nationality status of the refugees, their eventual repatriation and to find a just and long term solution to the problems. Only real repatriation will rectify the horrendous crime committed against the southern Bhutanese people by the government. This task of repatriation must be simplified and accelerated, without which the conflict in Bhutan would not be resolved.

Bhutan perceives the return of the refugees to their home as a threat to the ruling elite and political change- from absolute monarchy to the democratic pluralism. It is this threat that propel the ruling elite to exclude other communities by making Bhutan an exclusively Drukpa chauvinist state. But in reality, Bhutan is a multi-cultural and pluralist society, and it is premature to connect the solution to the refugee problem to the question of political change in Bhutan, at least at this juncture.

The action of Bhutanese government seems very rigid and un-strategic after its rejection of the international law. A few decades ago, the principle of complicity or impunity was a concept confined to criminal and civil law, it has today become an important part of the Bhutanese politics. It was demonstrated by the recent persecution of the Drukpa Christians and the Nyingmapa Buddhism followers Sharchhops in Bhutan. Christians are compelled either to leave their religion or to leave the country, as in the case of the Lhotshampas or the Tibetans in the early seventies. The threat of expulsion, forced eviction and denationalisation has become a convenient tool for the state to coerce and terrorize the citizens into submission. The government of Bhutan needs to understand that the refugee issue has now become an international concern. The world has become almost like a small village today, and it is difficult to conceal the truth of what is taking place in Bhutan.

South Asia has been a home to over a million refugees. It is also one of the highest per capita refugee generators in the world. The issue of the refugees, rather than becoming the central human dimension of the South Asian region, was unfortunately relegated to a humanitarian-charitable issue better left to the host country or the UNHCR. Bhutanese refugee issue is a South Asian problem and the governments in the region must help them resettle in their original habitat rather than waiting for international intervention.

(The author is a Bhutanese political analyst)

From the eyes of a Peepal tree

By Sushil Lamsal

I’m an omniscient peepal tree, and yet at times I am bewildered to find things that should have been quite familiar to me.

When I was 500 years old, Fulwanti (she belonged to the 100th generation of the Kamatapuri Koch) in my village gave birth to a child, the dark Budharu. And just three weeks later, her mistress, (what’s her name?), gave birth to the fair little stupid Shambhu. No doubt, the Zamindar’s son had the proverbial golden spoon in his mouth when born, whereas poor Budharu was often deprived of even mother’s milk. She never rested a day after the delivery. Odd? Or even?

In spite of the social divide that separated them, Budharu and Shambhu went to the same school. Together they stole the raw, green mangoes from Bubulal’s big mango orchard during the early monsoon; together they swam in the dirty water pool. Together they ran up to Galagalia and Panitanki to buy the fire crackers during Tihar. Those good old days when they smeared mud in each other’s faces during the Siruwa!

At seven, both began to walk unwillingly to the village school (the only one then) with their mothers bidding them goodbye with tears in their eyes. Which reminds me of Maithili Sharan Gupta, that Hinduistani bard who was a great friend of mine: "Oh lady, it’s your eternal story; tears in your sari and water in your eyes." And as soon as they returned home from school, both of them ran into Rajbanshi’s hut-because Shambhu’s parents were away from home at work- and ate Murai and Bhaji very enthusiastically. And that despite the fact Shambhu was a son of the village Zamindar.

And so it happened after a few years that while Budharu passed SLC in first division and began to teach in the same school, Shambhu, who got second division, was sent to Kathmandu to pursue legal studies.

How vividly I remember the day when Shambhu returned home with his legal degree. Plus the good news that he had started practice already. There was a feast, next day, to celebrate the occasion. (I was not invited, of course, but those who attended said that Budharu was so happy at his friend’s arrival that he had tears in his eyes!)

And now I’m 540 years old. How very brief like the beautiful moonlit nights. Today, I can see Shambhu's son, Kittu, very well from my perch in the village square surfing the net and chatting with his girlfriend (And he’s only ten, mind it.) . Budharu’s son, on the other hand, has not even started to go to school. What if he had started? What would he have learned? I can see quite clearly from here that the teachers in the village school are chatting among themselves. They, of course, know nothing of net chatting.

And you may say that this isn’t rare; it’s only too normal. If the day is hot, the school is closed. Closed because it’s hot. And another closure if it rains or if there is a teachers’ meeting or a pooja in the headmaster’s house.

I’m a peepal tree - omniscient and wise - and yet am extremely bewildered at times. Will those good old days be realised ever again? Those nostalgic days when the poor and the rich alike went to the same school?

One day in the life of private ambassador

By Kenneth B Shaw

That was that. But how was one to carry on an intelligible conversation without knowing whom one was conversing with. V decided to ask as straight a question as his demeanour would allow: "Tell me, frankly, if I am mistaken as to the person I thought I was talking to then whom am I really talking to." Half in anticipation and half in eagerness, he stood up as upright as his suit would allow and said: "Private Ralf of the amphibian corps reporting, Sir," The VVIP was aware he had a diplomatic corps in his country but an amphibian corps - that was impossible. Or was it? Or was he kept in the dark? Or was he being warned of an amphibious landing? Cautiously he asked: "What is your corps strength?" "There are seven of us Sir. The ambassadors of USA, UK, Denmark, Norway, EU and RR of WB and IMF." Relieved, V joked: "Don’t you think calling yourselves the amphibian corps a little odd. I find it amusing." "Sir, whatever we do, we do with a detailed analysis of the intelligence available to us. The spy plane operating over the South China Sea has recorded and analyzed the PM’s speech and ‘molens volens’ he seems to have some amphibian traits. When he opens a trade union congress, he says let the red-haired boss handle the trade and you do the unioning; inaugurating an airlines association assembly he asks them to allow Frau Deutschland to hold all the lines while they take to the air; giving directives he is reported to have told his ministers that he shall open the cabin for them to draw the net; and in the course of a speech he claimed the Birat form amidst the minion of the nagar.

The VVIP knew that every now and then they tend to overstep their status to indulge in this sort of Lucianic jokes. He knew he had to deal with insolence firmly, and as he did so A said with seriousness: "Sir, we wish no harm for we hold the monarchy in great esteem. We mean no offence to the PM whom we hold in high regards. If sometimes we appear a little cynical it is because of our concern for the peace and prosperity of your country. We note with regret the dichotomous nature of the government - the visible hard put in running the politics and the invisible running the country. Administration is the other of our concerns. It appears the bureaucrats here have put up surprisingly fast a spiral pyramid where nothing moves except time and money. We can hardly believe that the people here have taken us so literally as to turn the whole process of development into a hugely profitable free enterprise system with the party in power holding all the premium shares. It is very embarrassing for us to see the scale of corruption in a system we call our own. Our greatest worry is the decimation of the security structure. We simply failed to realize that a government could go so crazy on an over dose of human rights we fed as to play politics with its own security forces." Drained of emotions, A sat still. V, having absorbed the true meaning of these words, said: "I fully share your concerns but I am also aware of my responsibility and constitutional propriety. It may be better to go public and make the people aware of the consequences of what you have just told me. I would prefer the people to be electors, not simply voters. Meanwhile, take up your concerns officially with the PM and I shall urge him to give serious consideration."

Exasperated, A continued with some bitterness: "Sir, we tried. We told them to decentralize but now what they did not share voluntarily has been snatched from them by force. We told them to pretend to eat normally and we will justify it on grounds that men in public life need a diet of high caloric value. But no, they had to guzzle. We asked them to be more sensitive to the people’s needs but they turned around saying that they have to declare dividends to their cadres each month and the people can wait five years for their share when they reinvest the capital where we want them to. We asked the parties to agree on at least basic democratic norms and, to our amazement, they did on every issue except the one we suggested." V listened patiently and attentively and, after a pause, said: "Democracy is all about an elected government and government is about power. At times, arrogance of its excess can come in conflict with the bitterness of denial. That is why governance is more about trust, credibility and compromise. A deep understanding of the political culture helps to correct perceptions. If all were to extend publicly even handed and unbiased cooperation it would help immensely in setting right democratic traditions."

"Sir, there is the final matter about law and order. We regret but are not duly concerned about the government’s loss of face and space. That the police got caught in the crossfire between the asinine and the feline is unfortunate. It is the considered opinion of the EU that the government ought to have the right and the means to ensure security. If the predicament of Pinochet has sent a wrong..." He was cut short. The implication to say the least, was ‘mauvais gout’. He also understood that this was a veiled attempt to draft the army into the amphibian corps. Answering in similar vein he said: "If you wish to appoint a Jack Ketch, find a volunteer and do so. My responsibility to the people is guided by the Covenant that my forebears left in my trust and commands me to lead the army and the people together hand in hand. And by God’s grace I shall try to do so. The security of my country lies in assimilation and not elimination."

"Sir, these are indeed wise words and I thank you for them. I also want to assure you that the amphibian corps has no relation to the diplomatic corps." "Didn’t you just tell me there were a number of ambassadors in their accredited capacity. " Sir I did, but their presence there can be attributed partly to the nature of an amphisbaena." "If that is so, isn’t it a little awkward to ask a question to a head at one end and get the reply from another at the other end." "Sir I agree but I can say no more without giving the game away." "I accept that. Just tell me where the head at head’s end is." "He is in his official residence in Kamaladi and about to draft a diplomatic statement." "And I presume the head at the tail end is here to give me the military version." "Sir, that may be self-explanatory but not self-evident." Betraying a slight loss in composure, V said with finality: "It’s been nice talking to you. And before you go I shall appreciate learning the ambassador’s name in full." Without a moment’s hesitation he replied: "In the mystical ways of Kathmandu where water-lily can grow some distance away from the pond, I am half, frank as I have been, inclined to believe that his real name lies somewhere in between", and he was gone.

(Concluded)