Refugees seek US intervention

By DR D N S DHAKAL

Appropriately, it should have been the role of the Indian Government. For reasons unknown India
is unwilling to come forward to mediate the Bhutanese refugee issue despite its enormous clout
over the ruling elite in Thimphu and its binding responsibility based on the Indo-Bhutan Treaty of
1949. Nepal had clearly stated from the beginning that it would approach for India’s assistance if
the Bhutanese refugee problem in Nepal could not be resolved through bilateral talks. Nepal gave
up its effort when the latter ignored the call of then Nepalese Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala
who said in 1998 that ‘the Bhutanese refugee issue is a tri-lateral problem, requiring India’s
involvement in finding the lasting solution. Since then, HMG Nepal has turned to international
assistance for resolution of this decade old problem.

No one disagrees that over 100,000 Bhutanese refugees have become victims of circumstance in
Bhutan. Earlier the Royal Government was not even willing to accept that there are any
Bhutanese people in the camps. Its position was ‘The UNHCR organized camps in Jhapa and
Morang districts of eastern Nepal was feeding poor Nepali people from north eastern India or from
within the Kingdom of Nepal’, thereby questioning the integrity of the reputed international
organization and HMG Nepal. Now with the verification of over 12,000 individuals at Khudunabari
camp by the Joint Verification Team commissioned by the governments of Bhutan and Nepal, the
Bhutanese identity of these innocent people is well established. This result is primarily due to the
initiative of the United States of America in December 2000, when Karl Inderfurth and Julia Taft,
two Assistant Secretaries of State, visited Thimphu and Kathmandu, to persuade the two
governments to commission the process of verifying the refugees.

Now the hurdle to repatriation is the issue of categorization. Way back in 1993, when Bhutan was
refusing to acknowledge the presence of any Bhutanese nationals in the camps, HMG Nepal
acceded to the demand of the Royal Government to categorize the refugees into four groups: (1)
Bhutanese forcibly evicted, (2) Bhutanese who emigrated, (3) Non-Bhutanese people, and (4)
Bhutanese with criminal records in its attempt to bring Bhutan to the negotiating table. Neither of
the two parties revealed their intentions in agreeing to such a framework, nor did they expect the
issue to drag so long because of this agreement. Perhaps, Nepal’s view was: whether a refugee
signed a so-called voluntary migration form, fled country for the fear of persecution, or committed
criminal acts in Bhutan—they are all Bhutanese and the concern of the Royal Government. Nepal
revealed this thinking in December 2001 during the Secretarial Level Technical Meet in
Kathmandu for the categorization of about 12,500 individuals verified from Khudunabari camp.

The meet ended without conclusive results: Nepal, demanding that ‘Bhutan allow its citizens,
irrespective of the categories to which they belong, to return with honour and dignity’, and Bhutan
sticking to the need for so-called harmonization of position of each country on each of the
categories. It is widely believed that Bhutan is hoping to disown through this process a large
chunk of Bhutanese people, particularly those who signed the so-called voluntary migration form,
and the land of the refugees has already been allotted to people form north or east Bhutan.

The US is not new to the Bhutan problem. Robin Raphael, Assistant Secretary of State, was one
of the first dignitaries to visit the Bhutanese refugee camps in the early 1990s. The State
Department Reports on the Human Rights situation in Bhutan have been critical of the policies of
the Royal Government, and they carry detailed descriptions of the techniques used by the Royal
Government to create the refugee exodus from Bhutan. In the early 1990’s, the US was alone
among the western countries to speak about human rights violation in Bhutan. Only after the
official visit of Madame Sadako Ogata, did there occur a change in the attitude of donor countries
to Bhutan. Almost all the major donor partners assembled at the 7th Round Table Meeting held in
Thimphu in November 2000 voiced the need to correct Bhutan’s discriminatory policies towards
people of Nepali ethnicity and advised the Royal Government to draw a time-bound program for
reintegration of Bhutanese refugees residing in the UNHCR organised camps in eastern Nepal.

These days US involvement is increasingly becoming a critical input in the resolution of all
contentious issues. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world community at large had
expected a peace dividend, wherein the lone superpower was expected to toe the line of a
benevolent dictator, demanding fairness and justice to hapless and marginalized peoples, and
facilitating release of resources engaged in military build-ups. Understandably, in the case of
Bhutanese refugees, the US has no interest besides humanitarian concern. This is an opportunity
for the super power to reinforce its principled stand that it will not tolerate uncivilized behaviour
towards any people, be it in the United States of America or in the remotest part of the eastern
Himalayas.

Bhutanese refugees are the victims of Bhutan’s brand of ethnic cleansing. The innocent
subsistence mountain farmers living in remote hamlets were summoned to the offices of district
administrators. They were threatened of dire consequences if they did not sign the so-called
voluntary migration forms, issued an ultimatum for their stay in Bhutan, and compelled to accept
at gunpoint some token compensations for the land and properties inherited through the toil and
sweat of generations. The eviction program was a carefully charted course: occasionally
government high officials, including His Majesty the King, issued statements condemning the
forcible migration. How can the Bhutanese people migrate voluntarily in thousands in a span of a
few days when the Kingdom’s 1979 Land Act stipulates that ‘Anyone who wishes to migrate
selling his/her land and property should inform the authority of his/her intention at least one year
in advance from the intended date of departure’? The so-called voluntary migration was a state organized campaign to achieve ethnic cleansing in Bhutan. It requires telling Bhutan that ten years is long enough for pretension and procrastination.

India’s involvement is necessary as a guarantee for the security of the returnees and for finding a
permanent solution for the refugees, of which about 30,000 live in India as non-registered
refugees. Rightfully, the European Parliament passed a resolution in the year 2000 stating, ‘The
Indian authorities should take full account of the humanitarian situation of Bhutanese refugees in
Nepal and should take political initiative in order to support the solution of the problem’. The
non-EU donor countries to Bhutan have expressed similar intention. There is a need for Nepal to
convince Secretary of State Colin Powell that intense US involvement is necessary at least at the
beginning, and this would not only contribute towards the success of the forthcoming bilateral
talks in Thimphu but also encourage India to decide on a decisive role for finding a lasting solution
of this political problem.

Temporary garden

By RAZEN MANANDHAR

There are lots of ways to welcome guests. Nepal has made a history in welcoming guests by
making parks. In other countries, the cabinet decides on national and international affairs, but
here ministers put their heads together to make decisions on parks. This shows how serious our
government is about welcoming guests.

Obviously, the ministers, intellectuals as well as the mediapersons gave due importance to the
creation of a garden at Tinkune on the eve of the regional jamboree. The government spent two
million rupees to make this temporary park so that the delegates may throw a glance on the
"garden landscape" while passing by it in their limousines. I bet this can break all the records
made by Mughal-e-Azam, Rajiya Sultan or Jurassic Park on making sets. Obviously, this must
have set the new record of making the most expensive temporary garden among the LDCs.

It has to be unique because this is the first open space every foreigner looks at after he lands up
in the capital. The first impression is the last impression, it is said. That is why the government
took the responsibility to decorate it. The Ministry of Physical Planning and Works took charge of
making it, perhaps thinking that it could do better than the municipality. Unfortunately, after one
whole month the construction began, and by that time delegates have already started coming in.

It had to be a unique garden. So the Ministry declared all the battalion of government planners,
designers and architects useless (unofficially though) and imported a designer with a good history
of making luxurious "traffic islands" in the city via Kathmandu Metropolitan City. The
award-winning designer decided to make the garden without grass - sounds exciting, yea? It was
a modern garden, as abstract as Vijaya Thapa’s painting.

A dozen of grown-up trees were planted overnight on an uncleared mound and "planted grass" in
three corners. Some colourful ready-made flowers, nursery plants, bricks, stones and imported
green objects filled in the gaping holes.

The lake was the unique feature of the garden. Making a lake in the middle of the capital city was
not a joke. But she did it. Filling the pit covered with plastic layers was the symbol of lake of the
20-million-park. This was not only the symbol of sea, water body, water cycle and water element
but also the symbol of the whole story behind making the garden.

Last Saturday, I took my little daughter to have a darshan of Tinkune were the unique park was made.

"What Papa? It’s nothing. I can’t see any interesting thing here," she said.

That was too much. I chided her.

"That is not an ordinary park. The designer spent the government’s 20 million rupees to create
this unique park. Each plant, mould, stone, tree, bends of soil structures has symbolic meaning,"
I said.

I then explained that everything the garden had such as moulds, water, spirals and flags had
special meanings.

"But I can’t see any thing you are explaining. Do you think I am a fool?"

"Hush. The government is putting up a hoarding board near the park so that the people would
understand the meaning of each plant the designer planted in the park."

"Then why on earth did they demolish it?"

"Very simple. They want to build another, or perhaps more expensive, temporary garden on it."

Media and book promotion

By PRATYOUSH ONTA

It has become something of a cliche to say that Nepal is a land of illiterates. The literature on our
development as a society is replete with references to percentages of our population who can
and, by inference, cannot read. While there are many conflicting views on just what percentage of
our population is literate, there seems to be general agreement that about half of the Nepali
population still cannot read. That, no doubt, is a major challenge for us as a society.

However, an equally daunting task is to promote books and a culture of reading amongst those
Nepalis who can in fact read, that is more than a crore Nepalis (and there are more of them in
India and elsewhere). Given that number, it is theoretically clear that the publishing industry
related to Nepali language publications ought to be much larger in size than what it is today. I do
not know about the situation amongst the Nepali-speaking Indian population, but inside Nepal, the
publishers do not show much confidence in non-textbook items. They often point to the fact that
apart from a book or two each year, most Nepali language books do not sell well and it takes
years to sell a print-run of 1000 copies. Hence it is no surprise that most commercial publishers
do not include non-textbook books in their publication roster.

There is much that needs to be done to improve the status quo. At the end of the conference on
the book publishing industry in Nepal organized by the National Booksellers and Publishers’
Association of Nepal (NBPAN) in December 1998, two sets of resolutions were passed. The first
set urged the government to carry out various actions to promote the publishing industry in Nepal,
including the establishment of an autonomous National Book Development Council. The second
urged NBPAN itself to do various things including the establishment of a National Book
Publishing Trust, a trade school (where skills related to the publishing industry would be
imparted), and regular organization of book fairs and forums to exhibit and discuss books. The
resolutions also urged NBPAN to publish low-priced editions of books (for the student population)
and contribute toward the establishment of libraries around the country.

It is a tragedy that in the three years that have passed, neither the government nor NBPAN has
done much to see that those resolutions were implemented. We can leave the government aside
for now but the laziness of NBPAN can not be excused. In a program organized at Martin
Chautari in August 2001, one office holder of NBPAN himself lamented the fact that the
organization had not been able to do much in the intervening years. In response to that complaint,
NBPAN’s general secretary Madhab Maharjan listed several things his organization was trying to
do. Nevertheless the fact remains that while individual publishing houses and booksellers who are
the chief members of NBPAN seem to have done well in the past three years, the organization
itself does not even have an adequate office to operate from. That is a telling evidence of the lack
of commitment of our publishers to the collective task of promoting books in Nepal.

The fact that members of our media love to write articles on the kind and price of wigs worn by
some of our most famous big-screen actors but have seldom looked into the dynamics of the
publishing industry (apart from quoting cliche from losers in the publishing and writing
communities) is a sad commentary on just how non pro-active our media outlets are regarding the
promotion of books in Nepal. The number of tame news reports about book launches and
occasional book introductions or reviews in our print media has increased. But they are not done
as part of a pro-active agenda of book production on the part of our media institutions. If we are to
be satisfied by this increased volume of tame coverage then there is no need for soul-searching.
Otherwise media intuitions need to review their own record in promoting a culture of reading in
Nepal.

The most successful newspaper in our media history, Kantipur, does not even carry a book review
page almost 10 years into its existence. Its former editor Yogesh Upadhya told me more than
once that he was envious of the work I and my colleagues were doing in the form of the Review of
Books in The Kathmandu Post. But he rejected our offer to produce a similar thing in his
newspaper. Kantipur’s current editor, Yubaraj Ghimire, told us that while our idea was great, he
would like to produce a review page as an in-house activity.

Himal Khabarpatrika, Nepal’s most successful newsmagazine has not been able to graduate from
a single book introduction page almost four years into its existence. Its publisher, Kanak Mani
Dixit, never loses an opportunity to lecture media persons about creativity. But even when he has
been involved in his personal capacity to promote the production of good books, neither Himal
Khabarpatrika (of which Dixit was the chief editor during 1999-2000) nor any other publications of
Himalmedia have shown regular commitment to promote good-length book reviews related to
Nepal-related or Nepali language books.

Himal Khabarpatrika’s editor Rajendra Dahal has told me that most of the books he receives for
reviews are actually not of the quality that deserve reviews and that there is a dearth of good
reviewers. Even if both of these claims were true, it still remains the case that if Himal were to
carry critical reviews of bad books, they would eventually contribute to bettering the quality of
books and the publishing industry in its entirety. Having been part of a review-generating group for
six years now, I think that the claim that there is a dearth of good reviewers is exaggerated.

To begin with, in its in-house columnist C K Lal, Himalmedia has one of our best and fearsome
book reviewers whose one single review (published in this page) was once sufficient to dismantle
the professorial ambitions of an architect hack masquerading as a conservationist and urban
planner! Dahal could certainly ask Lal to skip some of his, sometimes repetitious, political
commentary and urge him to write book reviews in Nepali like they have never been written before.
Lal could do it and there are others who are almost as capable. Independent radio stations should
also get into the act and as I argued two years ago (12 November 1999), there is much they could
do to promote books in Nepal.

The bottom line is that our media needs to abandon losers’ attitude towards book promotion and
become a lot more pro-active. Is anyone listening?