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BHUTAN: Refugees face
further set back
4 October, 2000
The future of almost 100,000 refugees living in camps in eastern Nepal was
dealt another blow this week after the Bhutanese government rejected a UN
formula by which their eligibility for inclusion in a future voluntary
repatriation program would be determined, Amnesty International said today.
Bhutan and Nepal started negotiations to solve the problem of the people in
the refugee camps in November 1992. Since then, nine ministerial-level meetings
between both countries have taken place.
At the last meeting in May 2000, both countries reported "substantial
progress" towards a solution. The stumbling block was how to verify the
documents of the people in the refugee camps. Nepal maintained that verification
should be done by heads of family and that the status of the head would
automatically determine the status of the rest of the family. Bhutan has
insisted that individuals over the age of 18 should be verified individually.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) subsequently put forward a formula aimed at bridging both positions. The
UNHCR compromise formula suggested that the unit of verification would be the
nuclear family, including unmarried young people up to the age of 25, and
elderly relatives. Nepal has accepted this formula. The Bhutan government
however has turned it down.
"The Bhutan government's decision will delay a solution to the problem
even further. It is imperative that both governments recommit themselves to
finding a solution which will uphold the rights of the refugees, including their
right to return to their own country," Amnesty International said.
Background Since late 1990, almost 100,000 Nepali-speaking people have fled
or were evicted from southern Bhutan to refugee camps in Nepal, or were born in
exile to refugee parents. The causes of exile remain deeply contested.
The refugees claim they are victims of human rights violations and
discrimination by the Bhutan government's "one nation, one people"
policy introduced in the late 1980s based on the traditions of the northern
Bhutanese. The Bhutanese government maintains that the people in the refugee
camps are illegal immigrants from Nepal who had overstayed their contracts in
Bhutan, or Bhutanese who left the country voluntarily and thus are deemed to
have renounced their nationality under Bhutan's citizenship law.
Amnesty International last month published a report "Bhutan:
Nationality, Expulsion, Statelessness and the Right to Return" which
outlines the application of international human rights standards in relation to
these issues and examines various country situations and repatriation programs.
The prime aim of this document is to assist in bringing about a solution to the
situation of the Bhutanese refugees, but it is hoped that it may also be of use
to other governments trying to find solutions to similar protracted refugee
crises around the world.
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