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Kathmandu Wednesday November 07, 2001 Kartik 22, 2058.
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Take it seriously
The three-day secretary level meeting between
Nepal and Bhutan on how to verify and categorise the Bhutanese refugees, as agreed between
the two countries last March, began yesterday in the capital. The next ministerial level
meeting will take place in Thimphu soon after the Joint Verification Team (JVT) completes
the verification at the Khudunabari camp, a camp that consists of 12,000 families. So far,
JVT has verified over 9,500 families. With such pace, it will take at least seven years to
complete the verification at the seven camps, leave aside the categorisation. But it is
too early to predict whether Bhutan will really take back its refugees, languishing in
seven different UNHCR-run camps in eastern Nepal since 1991. In the Indian media, the
Bhutanese foreign minister mentioned some weeks ago that Bhutan would not take back those
refugees having criminal records. Besides, India has not agreed officially to help the
repatriation of Bhutanese refugees since these refugees entered Nepal through the Indian
territory. Bhutan has forcibly evicted its citizens by imposing its archaic laws on
minorities. Bhutan undermined the human rights and imposed dictatorial laws on the
minorities, citing the need for protecting its cultural or ethnic identity. But the
international community is aware of the fact that Bhutan has yet to ensure its citizens
the freedoms of expression and press constitutionally. Any dictatorial law considered
suitable to the ruling clan will cost the Druk regime more than the repatriation efforts
undertaken by the international community.
It is to be hoped that JVT, which has begun to
distinguish Bhutanese refugees from non-Bhutanese since April, may complete the
verification at the Khudunabari camp by the end of this year. The next step to
repatriation is the "categorisation" that will put the refugees into four
groups. This kind of classification will certainly create both state and stateless
citizens despite their evidence of Bhutanese nationality. Ninety-five percent of the
identified refugees living at the Khudunabari camp have evidence to support their claim.
The Druk regime cannot disagree to agree to this fact. This apart, the remaining five
percent, who were forcibly evicted from Bhutan, do not have any evidence of their
nationality. Will such people, who are also Bhutanese living at the UNHCR-run camps, be
made stateless citizens? Bhutan cannot undermine human rights when it has agreed to be
part of the international community. Neither can it delay the repatriation process by
citing archaic laws, nor has it any right to reject the refugees who have enough evidence
to prove their nationality. The Bhutanese refugee issue is one of the many pressing
problems in Nepal that can in no way be taken casually.
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