Fond Memories Remain

THE Nepalese people lost Their late Majesties King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya and other members of the Royal Family in a tragic incident just over a year ago. Tributes were paid to Their late Majesties King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya on Thursday, the tragic day according to the lunar calendar, which marked their first death anniversary. Fond memories and their contributions to the nation are what remain now. A function was organised by the King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya Memorial Foundation to reminisce the unwavering contributions of Their late Majesties in the onerous task of nation building. The people have a special liking for the late King who relinquished power and heralded a new era of multiparty democracy in the country. He respected the popular will of the people thereby paving the way for a political system that sought the participation of individual Nepalese. The views expressed at the function organised to pay tributes to Their late Majesties need to be given serious consideration especially because all of them underscored the need to fulfill the late King’s dream to see a peaceful and prosperous nation. The late King had floated the idea of regional development, a concept which contributed in integrating the nation. Nepal witnessed remarkable progress in different sectors during the late King’s reign.

The fact that late King Birendra always travelled to the far-flung villages to interact with the countrymen amply speaks of his dedication to ameliorate the masses from all forms of social menace such as disease, hunger, illiteracy and poverty. Besides, emphasising balanced development within the nation, the late King was an ardent supporter of regional development. This farsighted vision had culminated in the formation of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). The late King was a founding member of SAARC, which has been picking up momentum albeit slowly. The late Queen’s contributions were also equally praiseworthy, specially in the social and religious sectors which brought new hopes to the people. The Nepalese will always remain indebted to Their late Majesties for their steadfast commitment to bring about all round development of the nation. Tributes to Their late Majesties would remain incomplete if the people and the political leaders do not bury their differences and devote themselves to the task of building a peaceful and prosperous nation.

After Khudunabari

IT is quite easy to empathise with the sentiments of a Bhutanese organisation based in Nepal that the Bhutanese refugees are disheratened by the lack of any development in the verification process. The Bhutanese Refugee Support Group (BRSG) rightly expressed the Bhutanese refugees’ frustrations when it said in a press release Thursday that despite some progress to verify the refugees’ status, only one camp-Khudunabari-had so far been completed, with the status of the refugees of that camp still far from clear. The camp refugees were verified by a joint verification team in 2001. Six long months have passed since some 1300 refugees of the camp were identified with neither any practical measure for repatriating them nor any move by Bhutan to begin the process of verification at the rest of the camps. There are seven refugees camps where over 100,000 Nepali-speaking

refugees from southern Bhutan have been languishing for the last 11 years following the Bhutanese government’s policy of ethnic-cleansing.

As has been the usual practice with Bhutan since the refugee imbroglio started, the dilly-dallying tactic by the Thimpu government has continued even after the refugees in this first camp were verified. As it was, the verification process itself was painfully slow-so slow that at that rate it could well take years before all the refugees are verified. Of greater concern in the immediate term and something that further questions that sincerity of the Bhutanese regime is that Thimpu has continued to drag its feet following Khudunabari verification. Bhutan has refused to fix the dates to hold the 12th round of ministerial level meeting where the two sides would discuss who of the verified refugees should be repatriated. Bhutan’s blatant procrastination is camouflaged in the standard line that it was still internally discussing the results of the verification of the Khudunabari camp. It has become quite clear that Bhutan wants to play the delaying game as long as it can. Thus, evidently, human rights groups and others have a point when they say international community has to pressurise the dragon kingdom if the refugee crisis is to be solved. Under these circumstances the very least that Bhutan and Nepal should do is to announce the status of the refugees from the Khudunabari camp. But for this to happen Bhutan has to be agreeable. That does not look like a possibility unless there is international pressure on it.