Source: The Kathmandu Post
POST B BASNET
BELDANGI (JHAPA), Oct 23 - Like many of his countrymen, Hom Bahadur Dahal, 50, a Bhutanese refugee from Beldangi camp in Jhapa district, rushed to sign up for resettlement in the United States earlier this year. He felt his days of hardship were finally over.
His neighbours in the camp are now all set to fly abroad for resettlement but not Dahal. His hopes suddenly ended two months ago when he was rejected for resettlement in the United States.
"My family had opted for resettlement to begin a new life in the United States, but my application was rejected," says Dahal, a former corporal in the Bhutanese Army. However, the applications of his son's four-member family and daughter were accepted.
For Bhutanese refugees, the reason why U.S. officials rejected Dahal seems bizarre at best. The paper handed over to Dahal explaining why he was rejected reads: You are ineligible for refugee status because it has been determined that you ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in the persecution of others on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.
"You were a member of the Bhutanese Army that was involved in the persecution of ethnic Nepalese in Bhutan," Dahal quoted U.S. Homeland Security officials telling him.
"I am myself a victim of ethnic cleansing. I cannot even think of committing atrocities against my people," says Dahal. He appealed for revision of the decision, but to no avail.
According to Dahal, he had been serving in the Bhutanese army at Paru Guincha, northern Bhutan, when Nepali speakers were being evicted from Bhutan.
Three months after his parents were evicted from Bhutan in 1991, Dahal was sacked from his job and asked to either leave Bhutan within a month or face persecution.
In the chilly winter of 1992, Dahal and his family joined a refugee caravan flocking to neighboring India. A few months later, he ended up in the refugee camp in Jhapa.
He is now separated from five members of his family, including two grandsons -- five-year-old Manish and nine-month-old Anish. They are soon leaving for the U.S., leaving Dahal, his wife Lilamaya, 45, and one of his sons behind in Nepal.
The U.S. embassy here said that it does not have a policy of commenting on individual cases.
According to Ram Bhandari, a refugee activist at Beldangi, refugees have been rejected on the grounds that they made material contributions to the Bhutan People's Party (BPP) or supported the underground Bhutan Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist).
"I don't get why they reject settlement for BPP supporters as the party's youth wing - Youth Organization of Bhutan (YOB) is operating from the U.S. itself?" Bhandari said.
Bhutanese refugees say resettlement forms of some three dozen Bhutanese refugee teachers who sang revolutionary songs during Tihar festival last year have not been processed.
"Generally, we do not grant resettlement permission to individuals that have been affiliated to groups involved in acts of violence or have serious criminal convictions," said Nicole Chulick, U.S. embassy spokesperson.
According to her, about 8,400 Bhutanese refugees have been interviewed and around 20 have been refused permission to resettle in the U.S.
The U.S. had initially announced resettlement of 60,000 refugees, but said this number could increase if there is interest among refugees.
Kimberly Roberson, senior durable solutions officer at UNHCR, said the UN office cannot question why a host country has rejected resettlement of a particular person.
"Every country has its own laws," she said.
She said that those who have been rejected for resettlement by any country should tell the UNHCR about themselves and it would direct them toward resettlement in some other suitable country.
Besides the US, New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, Canada, Norway and Netherlands are also resettling Bhutanese refugees.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Not all Bhutanese can get resettled
Working to help his people, again
Source : Syracuse.com
Thursday, October 23, 2008
By Maureen Sieh
Urban affairs editor
Hari Adhikari nearly lost his life when he began advocating for the more than 100,000 Nepalese-speaking Bhutanese deported from their homes.
He was imprisoned seven times in the 1980s and early 1990s, tortured and beaten for opposing the government's decision to force his people to leave the only home they had ever known in Bhutan, a small South Asia country bordered by India and Tibet.
Adhikari next helped his people find food, shelter, health care and education in seven refugee camps in neighboring Nepal. He traveled internationally to raise awareness of their plight.
When the effort to bring his people home failed, Adhikari urged the international community to take in the refugees. The United States agreed to take 60,000 refugees.
After fighting for his people for years, Adhikari is now their man in Syracuse, the first person who greets his fellow Bhutanese when they arrive here to start a new life.
Catholic Charities, which has resettled 115 Bhutanese, hired him as a case manager after he moved here in March to help settle the refugees, many of them he knew from the camps.
More than 200 Bhutanese have arrived here, more are expected. It's the latest wave of refugees who have resettled in this region.
In the last three months, Adhikari, 47, has put in some long hours. He made trips to the airport to pick up new families. He scrambled to find them a place to stay. He takes them to the grocery store and medical appointments.
He's also learning a lot about the American system and the amount of paperwork needed to process the refugees through the Department of Social Services, Social Security and other agencies. Last week, he traveled to Buffalo to help some of the Bhutanese families.
"I feel it is my duty as a community man, not only as a staff member, to see that our community is doing well," he said.
A familiar face
When Kazi Gautam, 27, arrived at Syracuse Hancock Airport on May 19, he was thrilled to see Adhikari's familiar face.
Adhikari took Gautam and his wife, Santi, who was pregnant with their first child, to his home on the city's North Side for a traditional Bhutanese dinner - hot curry made with chili and cheese, chicken, rice and vegetables. After dinner, Adhikari took the couple to their apartment on Elm Street.
"I was exhausted from a long distance (journey)," said Gautam, whose wife gave birth to their son, Bassan Ethan, on July 15. "When he was there to receive us, we were happy."
Kip Hargrave, director of the Catholic Charities refugee program, said he was all set to hire someone else for the job, but Adhikari came up to him one day and said, "you should hire me."
"He just knows the culture and he knows all these people because of his work on the international level," Hargrave said. "He's gone to all the different camps and he's met all the Bhutanese refugees. He knows them all and he's brought them together as a community."
An activist is born
In Bhutan, Adhikari quit his teaching job to open a footwear store.
In the mid-1980s, he took up the cause for his people when the government started a campaign to suppress the Southern Bhutanese because they were prosperous farmers. The government tried to convert the Nepalese-Bhutanese from Hinduism to Buddhism and imposed a national dress code on all ethnic groups.
Women were required to wear the kira, a thick floor-length rectangular piece of cloth wrapped around the body over a blouse and the men wore the gho, a long robe-like dress that extends to the toes.
Many of the poor villagers who sold produce in the markets couldn't afford the national dress, Adhikari said. The dress, he said, is heavy and would be too hot to walk around in the summer months when people are carrying large bags of produce on their heads.
Street vendors who wore shorts and a T-shirt were harassed, fined and jailed for failing to wear Bhutan's national dress, Adhikari said.
"You can make this compulsory for people who work in offices, why do you make it compulsory for people in the market and all public places?" he asked. "This is how I got involved in the movement of human rights for the people."
The dress code was just one of the tactics the government used to deport the Nepalese-speaking Bhutanese - descendants of Nepalese agriculturalists who migrated in the 19th century to Bhutan, a landlocked country that sits in the middle of the Himalayan Mountains.
Bhutan granted them citizenship in 1958, but the government revoked it in the early 1990s and called them "Lhotshampas" or illegal immigrants.
They had to prove their citizenship by showing 1958 tax receipts, an impossible task for most, Adhikari said. Those without tax receipts were considered second-class citizens, he said.
In 1975, the government tried to deport Adhikari's parents, but they appealed and were allowed to stay in the country.
"We have sacrificed a lot. My parents didn't want to leave everything behind. My fathers' brothers and my grandparents were given 13 days to leave the country," he said. "They're in Nepal."
During the 1990s, some families were split up - parents were considered Bhutanese, but the children were not, he said.
"Many families got this decree that they didn't pay their taxes, they made them second-class citizens," said Adhikari, whose parents were born in Bhutan. "How can members of one family be separated? We raised the issue with the king and they started arresting people, and they arrested me."
Arrests, beatings
The first time Adhikari was arrested was in 1984. He spent three days locked up in the bathroom of one of the government offices.
There would be six more arrests from 1984 to 1991. The longest time Adhikari spent in jail was 18 months. During that time, he was beaten and tortured for telling the guards that they couldn't make people cut fire wood for the army and not pay them.
"The police constable was asked to jump on my legs," Adhikari said, talking about his arrest in 1991. "The pain was so much I would cry like a goat. Some people were killed. They beat me in the back with a cane, those were the kinds of torture.
"They hanged me upside down and blood came from my nose and mouth and they still wanted me to be hanging there," he said. "They used to (say) that if we're hanged and three quarters of blood is taken from our body, you will die."
A year later, he was released after Amnesty International visited Bhutan and urged the government to release all prisoners.
After his release, the government forced Adhikari to sign a statement saying he would stop speaking against the government. Then, the police took him to the India-Bhutan border, beat him and forced him to sign another statement saying that he was voluntarily leaving the country and had taken all his belongings. The government took over his store and sold everything in it.
Continuing the fight
In Nepal, he got involved in a human rights group that advocated for the Bhutanese people and worked with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, which managed the camps.
He started classes to offer refugees computer training, teach them weaving and tailoring. He helped enroll children in school.
In between his human rights advocacy work, Adhikari organized peace marches to Bhutan in 1995 and 1996. About 35,000 people participated in the marches.
When those efforts failed, he began pushing for refugee resettlement in 2002.
Not everyone was pleased with the resettlement idea. Adhikari was threatened and beaten by an armed rebel group that wanted the refugees to stay in Nepal to help mount an uprising against the Bhutanese government.
"I was thinking I couldn't do much more for the people to establish peace and a democratic culture in Bhutan," Adhikari said. "The camp is not a secure place for people to live."
Adhikari stressed that he was committed to finding a peaceful solution to the refugee problem. On May 27, 2007, he was at a meeting when rebels blew up his hut in the camp and beat his parents.
A May 29, 2007, article in The Times of India reported that "a mob of refugees attacked Adhikari" and set fire to the camp office as well as a police station."
"My family had to leave the camp," said Adhikari, who last September received the Ambassador for Peace Award from the Universal Peace Federation, an international organization which works to foster world peace and freedom. "They believed that if they kill me, nobody will be talking about resettlement."
Syracuse: a new home
On March 4, Adhikari arrived in Syracuse with his wife, Uma, and their two teenage children, Heman, 17, and Leena, 15. Three months later, his parents, a brother and two sisters arrived.
Adhikari was still looking for a job when he found out about the vacancy for a case manager at Catholic Charities refugee program.
He used to volunteer and paid attention to what the case managers did. He applied for the job because he thought it would be a natural fit.
As more families arrived, Adhikari has gathered them on Saturday mornings at Rose Hill Park on Lodi Street to meet new families, talk about their adjustment and learn about American life.
He runs the Saturday meeting the same way he ran meetings in the refugee camps. He gives people a lot of helpful information, but he also lectures them about the importance of helping each other and working hard to succeed in America.
But he's worried about the refugees' future because of the economy. Refugee resettlement agencies are trying to help people find jobs, but it's not easy, he said.
"Everyone is saying the U.S. economy is down. This is not going to help the refugees that are coming," Adhikari said. "Come on, do something that brings the economy up. These are people who will be contributing to the society. We're hardworking people, peaceful people."
Maureen Sieh can be reached at msieh@syracuse.com or 470-2159.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Demand for repatriation
Kathmandu, October 21: A group of exiled Bhutanese led by chairman of Human Rights Organization of Bhutan S. B. Subba submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister of Nepal Pushpa Kamal Dahal Monday urging the Nepalese government to take up efforts for repatriation.In a memorandum submitted to PM Dahal, the group claimed resettlement to third countries was against the international standards which caused confusion on some exile Bhutanese who are ‘not farsighted’ and Nepalese diplomats.
The memorandum stated that resettlement has brought negative impact in camp life such as weakening security situation, family split, suicide, decreasing interests on student towards education among others.
However, there have not been any reports of suicidal cases in the camps since the resettlement process began.
The group demanded suspension of resettlement process unless Bhutan clearly states it position, organize a round table meeting among Nepal, Bhutan, India and representatives of the exiled Bhutanese and formation of a special committee to look after the issue among many. Bhutan News Service
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Non-Druks seek to resettle in West
BELDANGI (JHAPA), Oct 17 - Facilitating settlement in western countries of Nepali nationals posing as Bhutanese refugees who no longer live in camps has become a lucrative business for some here lately, police said.
On Sunday, police arrested Amrita Darji, 30, a Bhutanese refugee in Beldangi, Jhapa, on a charge of forgery. She has confessed to police she received Rs 100,000 in initial payment for helping one Mukti Dahal, a Nepali national, fill a resettlement form, posing as her missing brother Raha Darji.
''Of the Rs 225,000 promised her, she had received Rs 100,000," said Inspector Mahesh Bista of the Armed Police Force at Beldangi. Dahal and two other Bhutanese accomplices -- Kiran Gurung and Bikram Gurung -- are still at large.
Some western countries including the United States are resettling the Bhutanese refugees. So far, 5,000 have been resettled, mostly in the United States, while 57,000 have applied for resettlement.
Inspector Bista said that a powerful racket seems to be involved in this business. "But very little can be said with certainty until Kiran and Bikram Gurung are arrested," said Inspector Bista. "From this [Darji's] arrest, we understand this type of activity is going on secretly in the refugee camps," he added.
According to Ram Bhandari, a former camp management official at Beldangi Camp -2, both the camp management committee and the Refugee Coordination Unit (RCU) set up by the government have to certify a person as a Bhutanese refugee before a resettlement form is processed.
RCU official Khem Raj Khanal and Beldagi Camp-2 management committee secretary Narad Mani Sanyasi denied having certified Dahal as a Bhutanese refugee.
When asked about this, Bimal Khatri, UNHCR public relations officer at Damak, said police are investigating the case and the truth will come to light only after the investigation is wrapped up.
Darji's case is not an isolated one in the refugee camps, according to Ram Bhandari.
Only five months ago, when Pasang Lama, 32, of Beldangi Camp-2 returned to Nepal after spending two years in a monastery in Sikkim, he was shocked to see the photo of an unknown person in the resettlement form filled in his name.
According to him, around 1,000 Bhutanese refugees have gone missing from the seven UNHCR-run refugee camps. He said some of them had joined the Maoist insurgency in Nepal and others were settled in remote parts of Nepal and India.
Over 108,000 Bhutanese refugees have been living in the seven UNHCR-run refugee camps in Jhapa and Morang districts after being evicted from Bhutan in the 1990s.
Nepalese expelled from Bhutan head for US to seek new life
The 36 hours of flights from Nepal’s capital Kathmandu to New York was the first international flying experience for the refugees
IN Zurich’s gleaming airport, Bhutanese refugee Dambari Kumari Adhikari was exhausted but amazed. “Look at this place,” she said as she gazed in wonder at the neat roads and sleek modern buildings outside the transit terminal. “I doubt Nepal could ever be a tenth of this place.”
The 56-year-old ethnic-Nepali refugee was on her way to start a new life in the United States after more than a decade living in a hut with her family of five adults and three children. Along with 31 other refugees, Adhikari was embarking on a unique resettlement programme with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). She is one of more than 100,000 refugees of Nepalese origin who left Bhutan in the early 1990s and have been living in United Nations refugee camps in southern Nepal ever since.
“I felt I had to leave Bhutan because I was scared for the safety of my family,” said Adhikari who was a widow when she fled, walking six days to Nepal through India in 1991. Despite her dearest wishes Adhikari is not allowed back to Bhutan, so she has chosen to make a new start in the US.
“I would rather go to America than stay in camps for the rest of my life where I have already ruined my children’s future,” said Adhikari, as she travelled to the US with two of her five adult children. “At least in the States, they can have a second chance.”
The 36 hours of flights from Nepal’s capital Kathmandu to New York was the first international flying experience for all the refugees.
Dressed in traditional bright red sari and with a Buddha necklace around her neck, Adhikari carried a tattered white bag covered in IOM stickers. “I am more nervous than happy right now. I have no idea how my life in the United States is going to be,” she said. “I speak no English and I am too old to learn any new tricks.” Adhikari was joining her two sons and a daughter who have already been resettled in Seattle and found jobs.
“I am just so glad and lucky I will be around my family. I have no one left in Nepal,” she said.The US might be the land of opportunity, but “for an old woman like me, the opportunities will be limted,” she said.
Whatever the challenges in starting anew, Adhikari is convinced she has made the right choice. “Camp life was hard and primitive. We had two rooms for a family of five adults and three children. Water, electricity and toilets were luxuries,” she said. After being evicted from eastern Bhutan, Adhikari raised her family alone in Nepal’s Goldhap refugee camp, one of seven UN settlements. “It’s hard raising a family in a refugee camp,” she said. “My children have no citizenship, no money and few opportunities.”
The US and six other countries have agreed to take at least 60,000 Bhutanese refugees, and after endless negotiations between Nepal and Bhutan, Nepal has allowed the refugees to head abroad.
“The decision by the government of Nepal to allow Bhutanese to leave the country is like a good dowry gift for a daughter getting married,” said Adhikari as she clutched a plastic bag with her documentation to enter the US. On the flight from Zurich to New York, Adhikari began missing dal-bhat, Nepalese rice and lentils with pickles and when told by the flight attendant that only European food was available, she made a face and turned the food down. “Why is all the food so sweet? Do they put sugar in everything?” she said.
“I’ve only been away for 24 hours and I have already started missing Nepalese food. How can I live without rice and lentils?” As she touched down in her new home, she looked at her 23-year-old daughter and sighed with relief. “We refugees suffered too much. Everyone has their day and I believe our day has come,” she said. afp
