In December, King Jigme Singye of Bhutan
made headlines by suddenly abdicating and handing
the throne to his Oxford-educated son, Jigme
Geshar. He has also pledged to grant some measure
of democracy to his subjects by holding elections
in 2008. The king has not, however, explained the
motivation behind his precipitate action.
This news dazzled the international
community. But Bhutanese refugees living in camps
in Nepal have not been impressed. To
Ratan Gajmer, one of their
leaders, the king's announcement was "just pulling
wool over the eyes of the international community
about democratization and election propaganda".
Pressures for change have been building up
both inside and outside Bhutan. Bhutanese citizens
have been clamoring for democracy and freedom.
Nearby Nepal is contemplating the future of its
monarchy and passing through its own democratic
transformation. The Bhutanese king appears to have
wanted to grant his people limited democracy
before they, like the Nepalis, actually take to
the streets. His plan is to introduce a guided,
two-party democracy under a new constitution that
has long been in the making.
But the king
hasn't said anything about the resolution of the
refugee problem, which belies Bhutan's promotion
of itself as a tranquil and happy kingdom.
Bhutan boasts of having a high "gross
national happiness". Many Bhutanese do not share
this opinion. They contend that a country with
one-sixth of its population living abroad as
refugees could not have a high level of happiness.
Tek Nath Rijal was once King Jigme
Singye's adviser. Jailed and tortured for nine
years for his human-rights activism, he has
chronicled in his autobiography Nirvasan
("Exile") how the king crushed an incipient
movement for democracy and human rights to tighten
his grip on power. First the government in Thimpu
restricted the Nepali community's rights to
movement and property. Then it imposed the Tibetan
ruling clan's language, dress and culture on other
communities, which constitute almost two-thirds of
Bhutan's population.
Protests broke out in
the 1980s, and Thimpu cracked down hard. The
government changed the citizenship law in 1988,
stripped the protesters of their citizenship, and
evicted them from the country. Since the majority
of the evictees were of Nepali origin, they went
to Nepal, and others followed suit under duress or
out of fear.
Today, nearly 120,000
refugees - almost one-sixth of Bhutan's population
- live in Nepal. Most live in the camps operated
by the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR). Many have lived there for 16
years. Local Nepalis blame the refugees for
depressing local wages, damaging the environment,
and promoting social ills around the camps. The
international community has begun to show donor
fatigue over their maintenance.
No
solution to this problem is yet in sight. Bhutan
has been telling its development partners that to
preserve its ethnic identity, it cannot take the
refugees back. It has been telling Nepal that a
formula should be found for refugee repatriation
and has held 15 rounds of ministerial talks since
1993 for that purpose. The only concrete
achievement of this bilateral process has been the
completion of a joint verification of refugees at
one of the 12 camps. The verification found that
more than 76% of refugees were eligible to return
without further documents or investigation. Bhutan
has evaded formal ministerial talks ever since.
The United States announced in October
that it would accept 60,000 Bhutanese refugees
from the UNHCR-administered camps over a
three-to-four-year period. Bhutanese refugees have
appreciated this humanitarian gesture. Thimpu has
heaved a sigh of relief in the mistaken belief
that the refugees would grab the US offer without
further ado. But the Bhutanese government seems to
have forgotten that the refugees who choose to
settle in the US might finance a robust
anti-monarchy campaign in Bhutan so that their
compatriots back home can enjoy some of the same
freedoms they have in their adopted land.
Local assimilation and third-country
relocation should be used as options for those
refugees who see no prospects of returning home
for long or who might face extreme risks on their
return. But assimilation or relocation should not
be selective. Selectivity tends to be detrimental
to the larger interest of refugee communities. It
often robs them of their best and brightest who
could mobilize public opinion to secure their
return and drive change in their home countries.
More broadly, repatriation should remain
the principal plank of resolving most refugee
crises. There are nearly 21 million refugees
around the world, most of them living in poor
countries. These countries cannot locally
integrate refugees without suffering major
economic setbacks and political costs. Third
countries are interested in relocating only a
fraction of that refugee population, if at all,
and often do so selectively. So local integration
and third-country relocation are not necessarily
desirable options.
External role According to a 1949 bilateral treaty, India is
responsible for Bhutan's foreign and defense
policies. India is also the first country of
asylum for these refugees, as Nepal and Bhutan do
not share common borders. But India has refused to
help find a solution to the problem, perhaps out
of fear of pushing Bhutan into China's embrace.
The refugees complain that India allows the
Bhutanese to take a trip from Bhutan to the camps
in Nepal but not back again.
A peaceful
South Asia is in the best interest of the United
States. But the region has been far from peaceful.
Countries from Afghanistan to Sri Lanka are in the
grip of conflict. The India-Pakistan confrontation
continues to cast its dark shadow over the region.
And the strategic contest between China and India,
both rising powers, remains a huge source of
discomfort. Washington has either stayed out of
South Asian problems or not tried hard enough to
make a difference. But that seems to be changing
now. The growing extremism, terrorism and
radicalization of refugees in the region seem to
have stirred the US to pay closer attention to the
subcontinent.
The US offer to accept
Bhutanese refugees has produced mixed reactions.
On one hand, some educated and skilled refugees
are happy that they will be able to chase the
American dream. On the other, the majority are
worried that a selective relocation will dash
their hope to return home and build a democratic
society in Bhutan. Also, Nepal will still be left
to manage an ongoing problem. It will have to deal
with the remaining half of the refugees until
other countries step forward to relocate them. And
it must contend with the influx of new refugees
lured by the prospects of third-country
relocation.
King Jigme Singye has stepped
away from his monarchical perch without resolving
the refugee crisis he created. With its newfound
weight in New Delhi after the recent US-India
nuclear deal, Washington should lean on India to
use its influence with Bhutan to pave the way for
the repatriation of refugees before they, out of
frustration, turn into a serious threat to peace
and security. This solution will allow the
refugees to return home in dignity, weaken the
monarchy's grip on power, and advance democratic
values and institutions in Bhutan.
Murari Sharma, former ambassador
of Nepal to the United Nations, has co-authored
the book Reinventing the United Nations,
due out this month. He was actively involved in
Nepal-Bhutan negotiations on refugees.
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