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Kathmandu Friday November 23, 2001 Marga 08, 2058.
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Joint agitation
Two weeks after the deadlocked secretary
level talks between Nepal and Bhutan, Bhutanese refugee leaders have decided to launch a
joint agitation for refugee repatriation. Such an agitation may eventually lead Bhutan
towards the establishment of democracy. The announcement of the joint agitation came to
light after a group of Bhutanese leaders in exile met secretly with Tek Nath Rizal. Rizal
has been living in Bhutan since he was released by the Druk regime on health grounds. The
Druk regime had imprisoned Rizal for almost a decade on the charge of propagating
anti-social views. In the face of Druk atrocities, Rizal has been fighting against the
draconian law imposed on the Lhotshampa minority. The Druk regime forcefully evicted over
one hundred thousand Lhotshampas
when they opposed that law imposed against democratic values. These Lhotshampas have been
languishing as refugees at seven different camps in eastern Nepal since 1992. Had not the
USA and the EU intervened in the refugee imbroglio, the Druk regime would not have agreed
to differentiate the Bhutanese refugees from non-Bhutanese. So far the Joint Verification
Team (JVT) formed last April has verified the refugees at Khudunabari camp. However, the
Bhutanese regime has also proposed categorization of the refugees into four groups before
the repatriation process actually begins. The Nepali side has proposed that the refugees
be classified in just two categories: Bhutanese and non-Bhutanese.
The secretary level meeting early this month was
held in Kathmandu on ways to verify the refugees and categorize those verified. Soon the
two countries will have a ministerial level meeting on the process of categorization as
agreed between Nepal and Bhutan last March. However, the Bhutanese foreign minister has
said in the Indian media that his government would not take back refugees with criminal
records. Here, the questions that arise are: Who are those people whom the Thimphu regime
calls criminals? What kinds of crimes did they commit in Bhutan before they fled their
country? Are the people who fought or are fighting for justice criminals? If Bhutan calls
such people criminals, it should be able to try them under its own law as their crimes
have presumably been committed in Bhutan. The Thimphu regime cannot consider political
demonstrations organized by a few democratic leaders in 1991 against the draconian law
imposed on a minority as anti-national and categorize such people as criminals. It took
six months for the JVT to verify 12,000 refugees. If the JVT does not speed up the pace of
verification, it will take at least seven years just to complete the verification process,
leave aside the categorization. The joint decision taken by the refugee leaders to launch
an agitation for repatriation of the refugees would not have come, had the Druk regime
agreed to differentiate the Bhutanese refugees from non-Bhutanese. Bhutan must recognize
the fact that ninety-five percent of those who have been verified so far had documents to
prove their nationality. Bhutan cannot brush aside such hard evidence citing its archaic
laws.
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