Bhutanese refugee crisis
Youth Organization of Bhutan | 21.01.2003 12:42
Bhutan a small landlocked Himalayan Kingdom in south Asia is at present is in great political and humanitarian crisis. The country's one sixth of the total population was forcefully evicted by the Royal Government of Bhutan for raising voice in support of Human Rights and Democracy in the country in 1990.
YOB submitted memorandum to the international communities, UN bodies, US state Department, Foreign office of all the major EU countries, almost all the international donors agencies working in Bhutan like (DANIDA, SNV, HELVETAS, UNDP etc) Amnesty International, Human Rights watch, European Commissioner for external affairs and its delegates at New Delhi, all the diplomatic missions of the EU and USA based in New Delhi appealing for their intervention to resolve the Bhutanese refugee crisis at the earliest.
Bhutan a small landlocked Himalayan Kingdom in south Asia is at present is in great political and humanitarian crisis. The country's one sixth of the total population was forcefully evicted by the Royal Government of Bhutan for raising voice in support of Human Rights and Democracy in the country in 1990. Since then they are living in various refugee camps in eastern part of Nepal. Bhutan does not have a written constitution and the king rules the country according to the whims. There is no democracy and rule of law in the country. Freedom of speech, expression, speech, opinion, association, religion and any other democratic freedoms are not at all prevalent in the country. Though in theory Bhutan has signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but in practice it is never followed.
Bhutanese living in the southern part of the country popularly known as “Lhotshampas" which constitutes around 43% of the total population are denied the right to citizenship and were declared most of them as non national after so many years of being bonafide citizens. Their language was banned in the country's educational institutions and their costumes are forbidden to wear in all public places. The King forcefully implement “one nation one people policy” according to which all ethnic groups of the country are compelled to wear Gho and Kira (dress worn by Bhutanese ruling elite living in western part of the country to which the king belongs to). Dzongkha (king's language) was made compulsory in all the educational institutions. Religions other then the Buddhist was made unlawful and people from other religions are strictly forbidden to observe their festivals and others cultural activities, instead they force to join in their religious
nstitutions and are compelled to left its own which is against the others principle. Students from southern and northern Bhutan are not given an equal opportunity to compete in the various competitive examinations and are made victims. In the above background more then a hundred thousand people living in the southern part of Bhutan came to the street peacefully demanding Human Rights and Justice in Sept. 1990. They were mercilessly crushed by the royal Bhutan army and police. Many of the peaceful demonstrators were killed and almost all were thrown into exile by using a notorious law of the country called TSA-WA-SUM. According to this law any Bhutanese citizen who goes against the King, Government and the country will be liable to get death penalty. Thus there created the problem of Bhutanese refugee crisis in Nepal since 1991. Many talks between Bhutan and Nepal government to solve this crisis could not bear any fruit.
Bhutan a small landlocked Himalayan Kingdom in south Asia is at present is in great political and humanitarian crisis. The country's one sixth of the total population was forcefully evicted by the Royal Government of Bhutan for raising voice in support of Human Rights and Democracy in the country in 1990. Since then they are living in various refugee camps in eastern part of Nepal. Bhutan does not have a written constitution and the king rules the country according to the whims. There is no democracy and rule of law in the country. Freedom of speech, expression, speech, opinion, association, religion and any other democratic freedoms are not at all prevalent in the country. Though in theory Bhutan has signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but in practice it is never followed.
Bhutanese living in the southern part of the country popularly known as “Lhotshampas" which constitutes around 43% of the total population are denied the right to citizenship and were declared most of them as non national after so many years of being bonafide citizens. Their language was banned in the country's educational institutions and their costumes are forbidden to wear in all public places. The King forcefully implement “one nation one people policy” according to which all ethnic groups of the country are compelled to wear Gho and Kira (dress worn by Bhutanese ruling elite living in western part of the country to which the king belongs to). Dzongkha (king's language) was made compulsory in all the educational institutions. Religions other then the Buddhist was made unlawful and people from other religions are strictly forbidden to observe their festivals and others cultural activities, instead they force to join in their religious
nstitutions and are compelled to left its own which is against the others principle. Students from southern and northern Bhutan are not given an equal opportunity to compete in the various competitive examinations and are made victims. In the above background more then a hundred thousand people living in the southern part of Bhutan came to the street peacefully demanding Human Rights and Justice in Sept. 1990. They were mercilessly crushed by the royal Bhutan army and police. Many of the peaceful demonstrators were killed and almost all were thrown into exile by using a notorious law of the country called TSA-WA-SUM. According to this law any Bhutanese citizen who goes against the King, Government and the country will be liable to get death penalty. Thus there created the problem of Bhutanese refugee crisis in Nepal since 1991. Many talks between Bhutan and Nepal government to solve this crisis could not bear any fruit.
Youth Organization of Bhutan
e-mail:
yob@ntc.net.np
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21.01.2003 12:49
to form a Joint Verification Team (JVT) during their 11th round of talks to
start the work of verifying the refugee in the camp. Thus they completed the
work of verification of around 12000 refugees living in one camp called
Khujunabari camp. But after the year of the completion of the verification also
they are not taken back to their country as agreed by the concerned governments.
JVT was dismantled and they could not again meet to start the work of
verification of the remaining 90,000 refugees living in six other camps. The
result of the verification was also not published forget about the issue of
taking back the verified people to their country.
Thus putting forward only three point demands as:-
1. Immediate making public the result of the verified refugees.
2. Start repatriation of the verified bonafide Bhutanese from among the verified
refugee back to their country.
3. Immediate start of the verification process of the remaining 90,000 refugees
from other six camps verified refugee living in the Khujunabari camp has started
an indefinite
hunger strike since 7th January 2003 at the camp premise in Khujunabari, Jhapa,
Nepal.
The first day of the strike was participated by more then 200 prominent refugee
most of them are women. If their three point demand was not fulfilled by the
concerned authorities the refugees all over the seven camps have threatened to
join the fast unto death hunger strike.
Recent move to write a constitution in Bhutan was only a clever measure taken
to malign the international community and to lure more and more development aid.
The constituent Assembly formed by the King to write the said constitution does
not contained any representatives from the southern Bhutanese. All its members
are handpicked by the King from among his loyal civil servants. It does not
contain any constitutional experts, political scientists, professional experts
and politicians. All the political parties are in exile as King does not allow
any formation or functioning of any such political parties. So the said drafted
constitution is silent on its one sixth populations living in exile. It is not
drafted for the welfare of all sections of the Bhutanese people but to serve the
interest of only the king and his ethnic group. International community should
not allow the king to promulgate the said drafted constitution. We appeal your
high office to kindly intervene in this issue and press the Bhutan King to form
another constitution drafting committee constituting the representatives from
all the ethnic groups of the country's population.
The King has almost completed his work of resettling northern Bhutanese in the
lands owned by the refugees in the south of the country. There is no place left
for the refugee to be settled in their legally owned land in south Bhutan.
Bhutan is always wants to create ethnic problem in the Last Shangri-La by
resettling the people from other side of the country in the place of Refugee
instead to resolve the Refugee issue, Unless all the settled northern Bhutanese
are not rehabilitated no question of taking back hundred thousand Bhutanese
refugee languishing in seven refugee camps of eastern Nepal to their original
homestead with safety and security, the problem will more and more serious for
the South Asia.. So, for this we appeal your high office to play a role.
Tek Nath Rizal, the Human Rights leader and once a high profile advisor of
Bhutan king is still living a very worse life inside Bhutan after he was freed
from more then a decade of living in prison. His citizenship has been evocated,
properties distributed among the king relatives, denied free movement inside the
country and denied of any basic humanitarian facilities like medical care, food,
shelter etc. He is punished just for presenting southern Bhutanese grievances in
front of the king in 1989. Until and unless
Mr. Rizal, chairman of Bhutan's pioneer Human Rights body " Peoples Forum for
Human Rights in Bhutan (PFHRB) and also a former prisoner of conscience of AI
is not properly provided with medical treatment his ailing health may get
deteriorated. Therefore International community should kindly provide some
humanitarian assistant to
Mr. Rizal's welfare and indirectly for the welfare of all the Bhutanese people
as he is the father of Bhutanese Democracy and Human Rights movement.
The above situation shows that unless International Communities could not
come forward and put pressure on the despotic monarch of Bhutan the people
of Bhutan cannot get their rights as human being.
Therefore Youth Organization of Bhutan (YOB) which represent almost all the
Bhutanese youths who believe in Human Rights and Democracy, would like to
sought the attention of Your Excellency towards this silent sufferings of the
Bhutanese people.
People of Bhutan want your high offices to come to their rescue and free them
from such an inhuman situation. YOB pressed the international community to halt
all their funding to the Bhutan Government till it establish genuine Human
Rights and Democracy in the country and takes back all its bonafide national
living in the refugee camps in Nepal and outside with honor and dignity. It also
requested the international bodies to ask the king of Bhutan to make its newly
drafted constitution null and void and forms another drafting body that includes
true people's representatives and also the representatives from the exiled
political parties and intellectuals. Bhutan government should immediately halt
the resettlement process of the northerners and should be pressed to vacate all
the legally owned lands of the evicted Bhutanese in the south to facilitate the
early return of all the bonafide evicted Bhutanese back to their land with honor
and dignity.
The development aid provided for the development of the country and also for
the welfare of the people (of all ethnic groups) are been used only for the
welfare of the royal family and his group. Also it is used to raise the numbers
of armies and other security forces strong in order to crus the
democratic forces.
Thus YOB would like to appeal your high office to kindly put the condition
of Human Rights, Refugee and Democracy in front of the Bhutan government
before your office commit any financial assistant to the Bhutan Government
in near future. Southern Bhutanese are not at all looked after properly and
no international bodies are allowed to visit southern Bhutan during their
visit to the country. Thus we also request your office to kindly send your
high level fact finding group to southern Bhutan to find the real silent
suffering of the people there. The mission should be independent and must be
free from Bhutanese officials.
YOB also participated in "International Conference of student" at Prague, The
capital of Czech Republic (26th to 31st Oct. 2002) where our delegate address
the big gathering of international delegates and talked about the Bhutanese
refugee crisis and also about Bhutanese Movement for Human Rights and Democracy
for which YOB was formed and is working tirelessly for the establishment of
Human Rights and Democracy in Bhutan.
In another instance YOB got chance to address the diplomats and ambassadors
based in Prague and appraised about the ongoing refugee crisis and their
movement for Human Rights and Democracy in Bhutan. Thus YOB now is not only an
organization in Nepal and Bhutan but it has become an internationally known
organization
Sincerely Yours
Ram Bahadur Karki Chhetri
Press $ Publicity Secretary
Youth Organization of Bhutan
.
yob