Bhutan's untenable stance

Bhutan’s political and diplomatic acumen must be admired. The Bhutanese authorities that come to Nepal, though visibly reluctantly, to continue the bilateral negotiations with Nepal on the refugee issue have every time extracted political benefits more than they had expected prior to their departure from Thimpu. Thanks the "luxurious" and the "undiplomatic" Nepali diplomats seated at the Shital Nivas that the Bhutanese officials have been exploiting the Nepali weaknesses to the hilt. The tragedy has been that our diplomats who fail every time to push their case forcefully will not and perhaps never accept or for that matter admit their weaknesses. Thus there should be no wonder that these "highly skilled career diplomats" accepted to assimilate a good number of refugees in Nepal. If they were career diplomats, they should have rejected the pressure that would have come from the then political leadership. But they did not do so. Question then arises under whose pressure the government and the bureaucracy accepted to take a good number of refugees in Nepal by allowing them to apply for the Nepali citizenship is a matter that has been boggling the minds of the informed citizenry here. Which force on earth pressed the government and thus the bureaucracy to go in for this anti-national decision must be investigated. A weak Nepali brain, as it has been so since 1990, can’t jump on to this decision which by all angles is an anti-national overture. Presumably, there should have been some alien brain that intervened at time of the last negotiation and apparently put pressure on this weak country to heed to its "new formulae" or else face grave consequences.

Bhutan and her authorities must be congratulated for their extra diplomatic skills that has allowed them to bargain with Nepal as if the refugees were made the refugees not by her but by Nepal—the country which has been forced to house the One Hundred Thousand plus destitute since all along the early days of the 1990s. It is then no wonder again that the Bhutanese national assembly, a rubber stamp many believe within and without, only last week point blank suggested the King Jigmey regime not to allow the Bhutanese to return to Bhutan, the place from where they had been forcefully evicted and since then languished in Nepal’s hellish camps for well over a decade or so.

The Bhutanese national assembly, many again believe, did so on some one’s dictates inside Bhutan which in the eyes of the international observers is not only derogatory but outrageous too.

The tragedy has been that Nepal fails every time while negotiating with Bhutan at a time when the former unconditionally enjoys the sympathies and support from the civilized world that definitely includes, the United States, friends from the developed West including Germany and the entire European Union members who in one way or the other remain friendly both to Nepal and Bhutan and constitute their major donors.

The Bhutanese national assembly has not only insulted Nepal but has also sown the seeds of a broader conflict that apparently is in the minds of the Bhutanese refugees who have been put in the second category. The JVT report that was criticized not only by the lone super power this time but also invited reservations from Germany and the rest of the EU members for having lacked consistencies and transparency has also been rejected by the Bhutanese who have been summarily denied their entry into Bhutan.

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