Revised Indo-Bhutan treaty fails to touch on refugee issue
As ever, the hopes of Bhutanese refugees living in Nepal have been shattered when their issues did not surface during the visit of Bhutan’s new King Jigme Khesar to India.
For Bhutan, most important of achievements of the first formal foreign visit of new Druk monarch, which concluded on Monday, was the revision of Indo-Bhutan friendship treaty in which India has agreed to relax its clout on the foreign policy and military matters of the tiny Himalayan Kingdom.
The debate on refugee issue in the royal-controlled National Assembly held first time after the ascent of 27 years old Khesar had raised some hope that this issue would become the subject of discussion during his India visit.
“We had hoped something would come out during Khesar’s India visit, but nothing happened,” says Thinley Penjor, chairman of the National Front for Democracy. According to him, the Bhutanese refugee community has been saddened by the fact that the Indian side looked completely remiss of repatriation issue as well as the concern about democracy and human rights situation in Bhutan.
He admits that this was also because of the refugee community’s inability to take the Indian political circle into confidence in order to exert pressure on their government to deal with the refugee crisis as a problem between Bhutan and India as well.
President of Druk National Congress Rongthong Kuenley Dorji, who has been restricted to go out of New Delhi since 1997, says, “It is strange that this topic didn’t surface during the Bhutan King’s India visit. The aloofness towards the refugee issues from both nations is astonishing.”
He further says, “The King has failed to envision peaceful future of Bhutan by not trying to address refugee impasse. I foresee instability and chaos if the refugee crisis continues of hang fire.”
President of Bhutan People’s Party Bala Ram Poudel, however, stresses that India, which claims to be the largest democracy in the world, should not wait for lobbying from the refugee side before it takes initiatives for establishment of democracy and human rights in Bhutan.
Even though the cause of refugees was put under the carpet during Khesar’s visit, refugee leaders say they are positive about the fact that Indian influence on Bhutanese foreign policy and military matters has slackened. “This is the result of our repeated assertion that the Bhutanese monarchy has been surrendering Bhutan’s authority to India,” says Poudel.
He, however, believes that revision of the treaty was signed in an inappropriate time. A new democratic government should have been entrusted with the authority to revise the treaty, Poudel says. “Bhutanese monarch is still not willing to handover the state authority to elected government,” adds he.
But Bhutanese refugee leaders are unclear as to what impact would this revision have on the national politics. Absence of political parties and pressure groups in Bhutan is what makes refugee leaders unsure about the new course of politics there after the revision of the treaty through which India has recognised Bhutan as an equal global partner.
King father Jigme Singye had earlier pledged to hand over the governing authority to elected government after the first elections are held by 2008 when the country is expected to adopt the new constitution, the first of its kind in the history of Bhutan.
Possibility of drastic review on the Indo-Bhutan friendship treaty had been pointed out as early as in 2004. However, India gave green signal for revision relaxing its influence in Bhutan’s foreign and security policy only after fourth Druk monarch Jigme Singye gave public statement last year that Bhutan would never establish diplomatic ties with any of the permanent members of the United Nations.
Refugee leaders say India’s sincerity would be proven in practice only when Indian army camps in various Bhutanese towns are called back.
Published in Nepalnews.com