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Tibetans lose Nepal as safe
haven
By Damakant Jayshi
KATHMANDU - Kelsang, 22, says that he left his
monastery in Tibet after "Chinese officials asked us to
denounce the revered Dalai Lama and introduced practices
in our religion that were not acceptable to us". He
later decided to escape from Tibet, going south to
Nepal, as did other Tibetans interviewed by IPS, such as
teenage girls Metho and Penkye and three men apart from
Kelsang - 22-year-old Sonam, 27-year-old Adaie and
33-year-old Karma.
All except Sonam and Kelsang
arrived in Nepal in May, and Karma says that he had to
travel for more than two months through mountainous
passes before arriving in the Nepali capital. Like many
others before them, these Tibetans expected to be safe
in the Himalayan kingdom before crossing the open border
to go further south to India, where the Dalai Lama runs
a government-in-exile.
But now they are at a
loss over what lies ahead for those planning to escape
Tibet. To the shock of Tibetans and anger among many, 18
Tibetans who crossed the border to Nepal on their way to
India were caught by Nepali police and turned over to
Chinese officials at the weekend.
China has
claimed sovereignty over Tibet since it sent in troops
in 1951. But Tibet remains home to a restive population,
including groups that want to separate from China and
say that Beijing is trying to stamp out Tibetan culture
and religion. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet after a failed
uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.
Since the
weekend turnover of the Tibetans, foreign governments
and rights groups have expressed concern over the action
of Nepal, located between giant neighbors China to the
north and India toward the south. In an interview,
Wangchuk Tsering, a representative of the Dalai Lama in
Nepal, said Kathmandu had breached a 1989 "verbal
agreement" under which it would turn over Tibetan asylum
seekers to the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR). Under this agreement, the Tibetans
were then sent to third countries, mainly India, said
Tsering. His office, however, is not recognized by the
Nepalese government.
The 18 Tibetans deported
were among a group of 21 who arrived in Nepal on April
15. They were caught by Nepalese police at Thankot, a
checkpoint just 10 kilometers from the main center of
Kathmandu and handed over to the Department of
Immigration. This was not unusual as sometimes the
police do nab some refugees - but they were never
deported. Until Saturday, that is. The 18 Tibetans were
first kept in the Immigration Department's custody from
April 17 to May 29 before being handed over to Chinese
embassy officials on May 31 - despite appeals from the
25,000-strong Tibetan community in Nepal and the UNHCR.
The remaining three in the group are children, two girls
and a boy, who were handed over to the UNHCR.
The Nepalese government maintains that there has
been no shift in policy towards "escaping Tibetans", and
Foreign Affairs Minister Narenda Bikram Shah says that
Kathmandu remains "sensitive" to them. But activists say
that the deportation harms Nepal's role as a haven for
refugees from neighboring places like Tibet and Bhutan.
Cheng Ji, chief of the political and press
section at the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu, said that
the 18, "who are Chinese citizens, basically", will be
tried under "our own Chinese law" for illegally crossing
the international border and coming to Nepal.
Criticism was especially bitter because the
Tibetan community in Nepal, with the Dalai Lama's office
in Kathmandu taking the lead, had been collecting the
amount that the immigration department said the group
needed to pay - 8,000 rupees (US$105) per head - or face
a 10-month jail term for illegally crossing into Nepal.
Tsering claimed that even this fine was unheard of in
the past, saying that every year 2,000 to 2,500 Tibetans
make good the escape across mountain passes to Nepal.
Speaking to local press, Tsering appealed to
Nepal's government - which in recent years has had more
economic, business and tourism ties with China though it
has traditionally been closer to India - "not to repeat
the incident".
Gopal Krishna Siwakoti, executive
director of INHURED International, a human rights body,
blasted the move: "This has been done under Chinese
pressure." Siwakoti demanded immediate ratification by
Nepal of the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status
of Refugees and its 1967 additional protocol. The UNHCR
has termed the deportation a breach of international
refugee law.
(Inter Press Service)
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