Of ‘people in the camps’

As expected, Bhutan restated its ‘fake’ commitment to the donor communities during the 11th Round Table Meeting in Thimphu that it is very much concerned for resolving the Bhutanese refugee issue.

The government informed the donors at the RTM that it has asked the Nepalese government to resume bilateral talks for solution of the prolonged crisis. However, the government has not given any time frame for resume talks.

The immediate excuse for Bhutan government not to involve in bilateral talks would be unavailability of the Nepalese ministers as they concentrate more on internal instability. Under no circumstances, it is feasible that Nepalese government is likely to sit for talks immediately. Furthermore, Nepalese government has greater advantage to send refugees abroad under resettlement than repatriating them to Bhutan.

Over the last three years of resettlement, local market in Nepal financially benefitted a lot. In one of my informal survey in Beldangi camp before moving west, I found at around NRs 200,000 enter Nepal each day from abroad. This is the highest earning any local market in Nepal earns from abroad.

For years, Bhutan absconded from its responsibilities. Now, it has good excuse for failing to repatriate its citizens since Nepal will not show up strongly.

Surprisingly, it was only Danish representative and the UN assistant secretary general who spoke about status of Bhutanese in exile and efforts underway for repatriation. The seven core countries have expressed to take some 80,000 while future of other 25,000 is still in dark.

A Danish representative said, “Bhutan would also benefit from seeing this issue resolved in particular when the government has demonstrated its wider interest in the global affairs and is seeking support for its candidature for non-permanent membership of the Security Council in 2013-14. A candidature Denmark is happy to support,” he said.

The UN Assistant Secretary-General, Dr Ajay Chhibber, also expressed willingness of his good office to be used to find prompt solution of the crisis, if requested.

No wonder, the government of Bhutan, in particular, the ruling party DPT will show its greater interest towards resolving the crisis. This is just to earn some points to win next election.

2 Comments

Leave a Reply