Charlie Devereux's report
"Bhutan's Outsiders in a Limbo" has been published
today by Charlie Devereux and opendemocracy.net
under a Creative Commons licence. It would be of
immense interest to anyone who focusses on Bhutan,
Nepal and northeast of India.
LONDON, April 20, 2006:
Charlie Devereux is a freelance journalist and photographer, and a contributing writer to Hotshoe magazine. He has worked at openDemocracy and at Trolley Books. In December 2005 he was involved in a PhotoVoice project on Bhutanese refugees in Nepal.
Seniors World Chronicle carries only brief extracts from that report, portions which concern the plight of thousands of elders from Bhutan who now live in seven refugee camps located in Jhapa and Morang districts in southeast Nepal. Harsh conditions are endured by this primarily Hindu-minority ethnic group known in Bhutan as Lhotshampas. Beldangi II Extension is one of these refugee camps run by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Bhutanese refugees – currently numbering 105,000 –have lived in such camps for some fifteen years. The hope of repatriation as an attainable goal evaporated with the collapse in 2003 of a citizenship-verification pilot project aimed at resolving the issue.
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Background
Lhotshampas (southerners) make up about a quarter of Bhutan's population. They settled as farmers in the southern lowlands in the late 19th century, many with an express invitation from Bhutan, which needed labourers to help clear its malaria-infested jungles. It was only in 1958 that Lhotshampas were officially accorded Bhutanese nationality. Policy changes came in 1970s and 1980s and requirements for Bhutanese citizenship were tightened. Through a census conducted only in the south, many Lhotshampas' status as citizens was challenged. Their sense of discrimination led to politicisation and protest and in subsequent years there were reports of property confiscation and deportation of (many) Lhoshampas.
Bhutanese Senior Citizens at India-Nepal Border
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The emphasis is beginning to move away from repatriation toward some – even any – kind of settlement. One proposal is that the same rights be ascribed to the refugees as to the 20,000 Tibetan refugees resident in Nepal, who have been allowed to integrate and work legally.
The NGOs still operating in the camps have begun to feel the squeeze of UNHCR's budget cuts. ...A hunger strike staged by the elders of the camps in January only exacerbated the refugees' frustration, given that little is reported of activities inside the facilities.
Rumours have spread that Maoists have penetrated the camps in attempts to recruit disaffected youth. The bombing of the World Food Programme building in Damak, in eastern Nepal, on March 2 suggests that the Maoists' and the refugees' worlds could converge....
Concludes Charlie Devereux:
Bhutan’s assertion that many of the expelled Lhotshampas were dissidents and terrorists is, at the very least, overblown; the reality is rather of a peaceful people being subjected to extreme pressures and provocation. But the danger is that if there is no easing of the Lhotshampas’ plight, such anathemas may in some cases turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Bhutanese Senior Citizens at India-Nepal Border
________________________________________________________
The emphasis is beginning to move away from repatriation toward some – even any – kind of settlement. One proposal is that the same rights be ascribed to the refugees as to the 20,000 Tibetan refugees resident in Nepal, who have been allowed to integrate and work legally.
The NGOs still operating in the camps have begun to feel the squeeze of UNHCR's budget cuts. ...A hunger strike staged by the elders of the camps in January only exacerbated the refugees' frustration, given that little is reported of activities inside the facilities.
Rumours have spread that Maoists have penetrated the camps in attempts to recruit disaffected youth. The bombing of the World Food Programme building in Damak, in eastern Nepal, on March 2 suggests that the Maoists' and the refugees' worlds could converge....
Concludes Charlie Devereux:
Bhutan’s assertion that many of the expelled Lhotshampas were dissidents and terrorists is, at the very least, overblown; the reality is rather of a peaceful people being subjected to extreme pressures and provocation. But the danger is that if there is no easing of the Lhotshampas’ plight, such anathemas may in some cases turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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