Bhutanese Refugee Problem
Towards An Amicable Solution

By Uttam Maharjan

THE Bhutanese refugee problem has been festering for a decade. The problem may be considered a corollary to Bhutan’s policy of discrimination against and ethnic cleansing of Nepali-speaking southern Bhutanese, known as the Lhotsampas.

History

In 1985 AD, the Bhutanese government made discriminatory amendments to the Citizenship Act, 1958 with the sole purpose of ethnically cleansing the Lhotsampas. As a result, the Nepali-speaking Bhutanese had to flee their country in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They finally reached eastern Nepal by travelling all the way through India.

The first batch of 60 refugees came to Nepal in December 1990. The number has since swollen to about 100,000, including about 17,000 children born over the last ten years.

The Bhutanese refugees are now living in seven camps in eastern Nepal, six in Jhapa and one in Morang. They have been provided with food, clothing, lodging and other amenities like health care and education under the supervision of the UNHCR.

The ethnic policy adopted by Bhutan is in gross contravention of human rights, according to which people have an inalienable right to reside in their country without fear or terror. But the Dragon Kingdom has grossly discriminated against the Lhotsampas in favour of the Dzongka-speaking people.

More than 150 political prisoners have reportedly been languishing in various jails in Bhutan. The southern Bhutanese have been deprived of job opportunities and even the high-ranking officials have been unceremoniously dismissed. The children of such people have been prohibited from attending school in violation of their rights. What is more distressing is that the properties of the refugees have been given to other Bhutanese for their use.

With the objective of solving the refugee problem, the Nepal-Bhutan Joint Ministerial Committee was formed in 1993. Since then, 10 rounds of talks, including the recently concluded one in Kathmandu, have been held.

Nepal and Bhutan have disagreement over the classification of the refugees, which was made at the first round of talks held in 1993. The imbroglio has figured prominently during several rounds of talks.

Bhutan’s intransigent stand is that it will take back only bonafide Bhutanese, leaving the fate of other Bhutanese in the air. The other categories of refugees include emigrated Bhutanese, non-Bhutanese and criminal Bhutanese. If this happens, such Bhutanese will be stateless people just like the Jews before the creation in 1948 of Israel in the former British mandate of Palestine as a Jewish state.

The other side of the problem relates to the verification of the refugees. Way back in 1994, Nepal and Bhutan agreed to form a refugee verification team with five members from each side. Till the 10th round of talks, Bhutan had been insisting on verifying the refugees individually contrary to Nepal’s view that the refugees should be verified on the basis of family heads.

The verification of such refugee is neither logical nor viable in that land ownership and other official documents are registered in Bhutan in the name of family heads. If the Bhutanese modality of verification is adhered to, then more than 50 per cent of the refugees will be deprived of getting a chance to go back to their homeland.

In fact, Bhutan seems to have been employing dilatory tactics throughout the nine rounds of talks, giving the runaround to Nepal and the world community. However, the world community has gradually become aware of Bhutan’s ploy of dilly-dallying in solving the refugee problem.

The European Parliament has passed two strong resolutions for the solution to the problem. The UNHCR and the United States of America have also been zealous about solving the problem. It is due to world attention drawn to the problem that it has now been internationalised.

International human rights organisations and donor agencies have also exerted tremendous pressure on Bhutan. It might be due to this international pressure and a growing understanding between Nepal and Bhutan that Bhutan made a major turnabout in its stand on the refugee verification during the 10th round of talks.

The major breakthrough achieved during the talks is that Bhutan agreed to Nepal’s stand that the refugees should be verified on the basis of family heads. Bhutan has also agreed to positively consider all of their relevant documents, giving up its previous insistence on considering only citizenship and land ownership certificates.

It was agreed during the talks that the refugees sheltering in one of the seven camps would be verified beginning this month and the process would be extended to other camps in due course. For this, the Nepal-Bhutan team will inspect the refugee camps for verification.

When a family head is verified, the other members of the family will be verified. The members would include those below 25 years of age. A verification mechanism will be developed and scrutinised to facilitate verification. The refugees will also be interviewed personally.

The refugees have been demanding that they should be repatriated to their homeland with dignity, they should be classified into two groups only--Bhutanese and non-Bhutanese and Bhutan should hold talks with their leader Tek Nath Rijal. However, the success of the recent talks has made them all the more hopeful.

Hope

With the flexibility recently shown by Bhutan to the verification process, it may be hoped that it will also show goodwill towards accepting Nepal’s position on the refugee classification. After all, political will and commitment are a prerequisite for solving any problem, political or otherwise. In this regard, Bhutan really deserves praise for showing political will, paving the way for breaking the deadlock over the verification process.

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