Refugees from Bhutan get first ID cards in Nepal's camps

Source: UNHCR

The government of Nepal and the UN refugee agency on Monday started a massive operation to distribute identity cards to the refugees from Bhutan living in seven camps in eastern Nepal, a move that will improve protection and assistance for some 108,000 registered refugees.

Issued by the Nepalese government, the photo ID cards are a follow up to the refugee population census that was conducted with UNHCR support in the camps from November 2006 to May 2007. All registered refugees aged 16 years and above will receive the free-of-charge cards.

The first cards were distributed on Monday in Sanischare camp in Morang district. A huge crowd of all ages gathered in the camp's playground to witness the watershed event.

"Although Nepal is not signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, it has been hosting refugees for decades on its soil," said Umesh Mainali, the home secretary of Nepal's Ministry of Home Affairs. "The government of Nepal will always work for the right of refugees and the first step in this is the issuance of identity cards to the refugees in the camps. To have an identity document is the right of the refugees."

Abraham Abraham, UNHCR's representative in Nepal, added: "ID cards are an important protection tool, because the most basic element of refugee protection is to prove one's identity in order to be able to readily access protection and assistance services. The cards would also ensure efficient and accountable distribution as well as better monitoring of assistance, in that it reaches the right person."

Gajman Gurung was one of the first refugees to get the ID card in Sanischare camp. "I am happy that at least now I have an identity, although it is as a refugee. It is going to assist in my protection as well as that of my family," he said.

"I know that the ID card will be very useful to me and my family," said Nar Bahadur Sarki, a father of two in the camp. "The good thing is that my wife and each of my children have their own identity card. It is particularly helpful for my son who goes to college outside the camp. The card will facilitate his movement in and out of the camp."

The ID cards will be issued on a camp-by-camp basis over the next few months. Registered refugees living outside the camps will receive their cards once the camp distribution is completed.

By Nini Gurung
In Sanischare camp, Nepal

Aussie team to interview refugees

Source: Kantipuronline

Australia which is part of the six-nation 'core group' for resettling Bhutanese refugees in their

lands is sending a team of officials this week to interview refugees for the purpose.

"A team is visiting this week to interview refugees," Graeme Lade, Australia's Ambassador to Nepal told the Post here on Sunday. "They will be heading to Damak for the interview."

Ambassador Lade said about 225 refugees would be interviewed by Australian officials. The United States government has already begun the process of interviewing interested refugees.

Besides Australia, the United States, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Norway are members of the Core Working Group on Bhutanese Refugees in Nepal. Except Norway, the members of the group have expressed interest to resettle refugees over the years. The United States alone has said it would resettle tens of thousands of refugees. There are over 108,000 refugees in the seven camps in eastern Nepal, most living there since 1993 after allegedly being evicted by the Bhutanese government in the late 80s and early 90s.

‘175 refugees applying every day’

Meanwhile, outgoing Representative of UNHCR in Nepal, Abraham Abraham said on Monday about 175 refugees are applying for resettlement every day. In the past two weeks, 14,000 refugees have evinced interest in resettlement.

Abraham who is going to Canada as UNHCR Representative will be replaced by Daisy Dell. Dell is deputy director at

the Asia and the Pacific Bureau of the UN refugee agency. She is expected to arrive in Kathmandu next month.

30 people sentenced for planning seditious activities

Source: Kuenselonline

After five months of exhaustive court proceedings, 30 people, who had joined the Communist Party of Bhutan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) based in Nepal, were sentenced to prison terms ranging from five to nine years for conspiring to carry out subversive activities against Bhutan.

According to officials of the Samtse district court, the accused were sentenced in accordance with the provisions of the National Security Act of Bhutan, 1992, and the Penal Code of Bhutan, 2004. The court had found that, using a religious façade called the Srijana Sanskrit Sangathan, the group had held several meetings to discuss Maoist ideology and to collect money and food grain for the Communist Party of Bhutan. People who attended the meetings were made to fill up membership forms, a court official said.

Seditious meetings were conducted in Katarey and Ugyentse in Samtse, during which the participants planned to recruit local people, set up camps in the forest for the terrorists belonging to the Communist Party of Bhutan, and to train locals in the use of weapons and explosives to start an armed rebellion against the government.

Some of the accused, including two Class XII students, had gone to the refugee camps in eastern Nepal to attend briefing sessions on “Political and Ideology Training” conducted by the cadres of the Communist Party of Bhutan, the Nepal Maoist and Communist Party of Nepal, Bhutan Peoples’ Party, Druk National Congress, and Bhutan Gorkha National Liberation Front. The Communist comrades briefed them on the collection of arms.

According to the court statement, some of the defendants were found guilty of aiding and abetting the ngolops, and forming secret groups like Pragathisel Sanskriti Pariwars, Srijana Sanskriti Pariwars and Saipatri Sanskriti Pariwars to strengthen the Communist Party of Bhutan in its seditious activities against the Tsa-Wa-Sum.

Two women cadres from the camps in Nepal had met 13 of the accused at the Indian border town of Luksan in Jalpaiguri district, West Bengal, and instructed them to form a separate women’s group to start a door to door awareness campaign of Communist ideology, to recruit party workers at the community level and to be prepared to undertake training in arms and explosives.

The Royal Bhutan Police believe that their main aim was to nurture and expand the Communist Party cadre so that they could set up camps inside Bhutan in collusion with the Maoist cadres of Nepal and ultimately start an armed rebellion against the government.

The Communist party of Bhutan is closely associated with the Maoist Party of Nepal. The Bhutan Tiger Force, which is the militant wing of the Communist Party of Bhutan, was responsible for planting several explosive devices in Phuentsholing town this year.

All the convicts were apprehended by the Royal Bhutan Police in Samtse in May and June this year and the cases were forwarded to the dzongkhag court on June 29. Police recovered detonators and other materials used for making improvised explosive devices, membership forms of the Communist Party of Bhutan and All Bhutan Revolutionary Student Union, note-books containing revolutionary lyrics and coded membership lists, coded names and addresses of donors and five numbers of Nepali textbooks on Communist Party from the group.

According to the court, a few of the convicted are appealing against their sentences, while most have confessed to their crimes and are appealing for pardon.

Refugee camps to remain: Abraham

Source: Kantipuronline.com

Representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Nepal, Abraham Abraham, has said that UNHCR will not pull out of the Bhutanese refugee camps but will continue working for those not opting for third country resettlement.

"Refugees who don't want third country settlement will continue receiving assistance as long as we receive aid from donors," said Abraham talking to the Post on Friday.

"Every single refugee counts for the UNHCR. We are recommending third country settlement only because there is no (immediate and feasible) solution to the refugee problem," he said.

Expressing concern over misinformation in the refugee camps, Abraham said, "It absolutely depends on individual choice. You can even board the plane and come back out saying you now want to stay behind," he added.

Abraham also said that the resettlement may go on for six or seven years depending on the response from the refugees and it is up to the refugees themselves to choose if and when they want to go to third countries.

The UNHCR representative refuted allegations that the government's failure to issue exit permits for the refugees is delaying the resettlement process. "The matter has been discussed at higher levels. It is already an agreed matter," he said.

He further said there would be no discrimination against those suffering from communicable diseases. They will receive medical treatment first so

that they don't transmit

disease to others during the journey, he said. "HIV positives too are eligible for resettlement," he said.

On the fate of the refugees in the third country, Abraham said government officials and non-government agencies would receive them in the new country and they will get residence, education and all sorts of care, as well as help in finding jobs. "And you can also choose to go back to Bhutan any time when the situation there gets better," he said.

Abraham, among other things, also clarified that enough care has been taken not to split refugee families. "We want the families to be together. We won't split them."

He confirmed that the first batch of refugees would be resettled in the USA by the end of January.

There are over 100,000 Bhutanese refugees languishing in the seven UNHCR-run camps in Morang and Jhapa districts ever since they were evicted from Bhutan in the1980s and early 1990s. The UN body is currently working to resettle them in Australia, the United States and other Western countries.

Resettlement condom can explode

Source: Kathmandu Post

BY SOM N SUBEDY

One of the hottest topics among the Bhutanese refugees in the camps nowadays is the resettlement offer made by the United States and the core group countries. Much has been said and written in favor and against the proposal by various personalities. Being a second-generation Bhutanese refugee, I tried to analyze the much-hyped resettlement offer objectively. And to my surprise, I found it to be very similar to a condom—a much-advertised product for modern living which helps to keep unwanted misery away, but you have to be careful how you use it.

Condoms and the resettlement offer are both temporary things, but there is one vital difference between the two. The former is a use-and-throw item, while the latter, once taken (used), cannot be chucked away. The Bhutanese refugees need to be clear about the resettlement plan even though it comes in a very attractive and alluring package like a condom.

Inside the camps, condoms are distributed free of cost in places like health centers, the Youth Friendly Center, Bhutanese Refugee Women Forum and other outlets. In the same fashion, resettlement forms have been placed in the camps for free distribution to all.

Both are used for protection from angst—one from disease and unwanted pregnancy, and the other has been publicized as providing relief from the anguish of a refugee's life. UNHCR and the core group countries are working hard to convince the refugees to accept their offer by showing them a "dream garden" of Western nations. They make it sound like once the refugees reach the destination decided by these countries, the agony of living in the cramped camps will be over. But the poor refugees are not yet ready to accept their talk fully, because they see no guarantee of their unanswered questions being resolved. Will Jigme Singye Wangchuck be let off scot-free in spite of his inhumane action? If not, who will guarantee that he will be made to stand a fair trail? What will happen to our properties that we were compelled to abandon because of the draconian measures taken by the despotic regime? Will the core group countries guarantee that another exodus of refugees will not happen as a result of the motivation that the resettlement offer may provide to the tinpot despot?

Therefore, the refugees, particularly the senior citizens, are not very much convinced by the calisthenics of UNHCR and the core group countries—as condoms at times burst and put the users in trouble in spite of the guarantees made by their manufacturers.

The refugees are apprehensive that the resettlement condom may explode in the process. This would throw them into unprecedented chaos. This is the kind of unfortunate situation that they fear.

Although there are several parallels one can see between a condom and the resettlement offer, there is a conspicuous difference. The refugees are not told who pays whom and what amount. But all the accounts are debited in the name of the refugees who have been selected to relocate in third countries. This suggests that the ethnic cleansing carried out by the tyrannical regime of Jigme Singye Wangchuck is acceptable.

AMDA has been distributing both male and female condoms in the refugee camps. The US and UNHCR are distributing only one type of condom, that is, resettlement forms but no repatriation forms. Should it not be a priority concern for the core group countries and UNHCR that the refugees be repatriated to their birthplace under the principles of human rights and democracy which they talk so much about?

When condoms were introduced in the refugee camps in the early 1990s, the inmates refused to use the device because they were shy and also because it got in the way during intercourse. They waited for the health staff and educated refugees to use it first. In the present case too, the refugees are waiting for the educated and knowledgeable among them to sign up for resettlement first.

Another reason they are reluctant to fill up the forms is that there is no guarantee they will be leaving for another country. If their applications are rejected, they become vulnerable to reprisals from groups opposed to the resettlement plan.

Just as one uses condoms in private and refrains from showing them in public, UNHCR, the US and the IOM are treating the resettlement process like a secret operation. Nobody knows how many have applied, who they are, how many of them have been called for an interview, what the interview is like and why one is selected when another is not. There are a host of such questions that the refugees want answered, but everything has been kept under wraps in the name of security.

Another side of the resettlement plan is that it may be extended to Tibetan refugees too and thus bring great embarrassment to China. If China does not reproach US Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey's statement, it would appear that China supports the hidden interest of the US to resettle Tibetan refugees in the US. Nobody knows how the Government of Nepal will take that.

The way Hari Bangaley, former member of Bhutan's National Assembly, used the resettlement condom in the refugee camps for his and UNHCR's interest is widely viewed as one of the reasons behind the opposition to resettlement. He tried to blow the resettlement condom out of proportion and showed it to the refugees, blaming all those who would not agree with him. But Bangaley's condom exploded with a big bang with the loss of the lives of two innocent refugee youths.

Today, he is not in a position to say sorry for his disastrous act. All those who want to use the resettlement condom must pause and think that it cannot be thrown away after use. After you use it you are stuck to it and no one knows what the future holds in store.

(The writer is a Bhutanese refugee.)