FOCUS: Bhutan, Nepal to hold talks on refugee dispute

Asian Political News, May 1, 2000

NEW DELHI, April 26 Kyodo

Bhutan and Nepal will intensify efforts soon to tackle a decade-old refugee problem that has soured relations between the two Himalayan kingdoms for years, according to diplomatic sources.

The two countries will hold their ninth round of ministerial talks in a few weeks to defuse the largely ignored refugee problem that has emerged as a thorn on the side of world's last Shangri-la.

Foreign ministers of the two countries will meet in Thimphu to settle the dispute involving thousands of Bhutanese refugees of Nepali origin, Lhotshampas, now living in eight camps in Nepal.

Officials of the two countries have already met twice this year to prepare the groundwork for the forthcoming talks, with both sides hoping to make a breakthrough in the crisis that started in 1988.

A joint ministerial committee was set up in 1993 to settle the issue that threatened to destabilize the tiny Himalayan kingdom.

The two sides will set up joint field verification teams of officials from both countries to identify thousands of refugees languishing in the camps of Jhapa and Moreng districts of southeastern Nepal, Bhutanese sources said.

Bhutan's suggestion at the last meeting to carry out the verification process on the basis of a list of 3000 refugees provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was turned down by Nepal.

The two countries had agreed in 1993 to classify the refugees into four groups -- Bhutanese who have been forcibly evicted, Bhutanese who emigrated, non-Bhutanese and Bhutanese who have committed criminal acts.

The sides also continue to differ over the number of refugees with Nepal claiming there are more than 95,000 while Bhutan puts the number at less than half.

Bhutan says it has yet to receive lists of refugees in the camps from Nepal, despite a request two years ago.

While Bhutan cites Nepal's political instability over the years as a stumbling block to finding a lasting solution to the dispute, Kathmandu says classification and verification of documents of refugees has always been the issue.

Nepal says there is a lack of political will to resolve the crisis while Bhutan says top priority has been given to the problem especially since King Jigme Singye Wangchuk took a step towards democracy by relinquishing some of his hereditary might in 1998.

During its first census in 1988, Bhutan found a large number of ethnic Nepalis living in southern Bhutan were illegal immigrants taking advantage of the country's free education and health facilities. As per the Bhutanese Citizenship law, only those resident in Bhutan before 1958 can be citizens.

Nepal believes the people in southern Bhutan were expelled because they were challenging the king. They also say the districts where the Lhotshampas lived were the most prosperous.

The Lhotshampas say they are victims of ethnic cleansing and accuse the Bhutanese government of torture and genocide. The refugees say they were expelled from Bhutan because of the king's campaign to change the country's demographic balance.

''The king wanted us to wear bakus (the Bhutanese national dress), to speak Drukpa and to follow the driglam namza code of conduct by which Bhutanese live even though we are Hindus,'' Narad Adhikari, a member of the Indo-Bhutan Friendship Society, said.

But Thimphu insists the people living in the refugee camps were not expelled. The king is even said to have pleaded with the Lhotshampas not to leave Bhutan.

Bhutan now argues the Lhotshampas continue to leave because they are getting $5 a day, rations and free educational opportunities through the UNHCR, which admits the standard of living is better inside the camps than outside.

But the refugees insist they were expelled and get no special privileges in the camps.

Thimphu maintains most of the refugees are frauds, but Nepal says they are victims of human rights abuses.

India has resisted efforts to get embroiled in the issue, calling it a matter that needs to be sorted out bilaterally.

But even though India claims the refugee issue is a bilateral problem to be solved between Bhutan and Nepal, Bhutanese refugees have to pass through 80 kilometers of Indian territory to reach the Nepali border and Kathmandu wants New Delhi to intervene.

Bhutanese rebels under the Indo-Bhutan Friendship Society, a forum of Bhutanese democracy supporters opposed to the king, held a first convention in New Delhi the week of April 9.

And because the meeting was attended by members of one of India's ruling coalition partners there was considerable diplomatic embarrassment for the government.

Apart from its own political rebellion, Bhutan is also worried about external threats from Indian guerrillas who have taken refuge in the Bhutanese jungles. Fleeing the Indian army, the guerrilla groups from the northeastern India's Assam State have set up bases inside Bhutan's uncontrolled borders and threaten the kingdom.

The Bhutanese and Indian foreign ministers discussed cooperation to tackle the insurgency, but unless the two countries shed their diplomatic inertia, the stalemate will continue with little respite for the thousands of homeless who live in pitiable conditions in refugee camps, says a Nepali diplomat.