Bhutanese Refugees, 100,000 people without a country in the Himalayas

New Delhi, November 10, 2006. - The situation of over 100,000 Bhutanese refugees in UN camps in eastern Nepal is deteriorating with no sign that they can return home, from which they were expelled in 1992, and a germ seeping radicalization among young people, according to a report today warning.
The organization india Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF) gave a news conference in New Delhi a document that addresses the concerns of the refugees and the fear, shared by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), to adolescents they know no other life but choose fields violence.
"We tried to solve our problems peacefully for fifteen years, but now we are angry and we are forced to take up arms," ​​according to testimony taken in the report.
The refugees were expelled by the king of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, arguing that instability caused by his membership in the Bhutan People's Party (BPP, an acronym in English), which called democracy.
"Teens that have grown in the fields, gather and cry out to be provided weapons. It's not just a threat to Nepal and Bhutan, but also against India, "he told a representative of INSAF EFE, Utkarsh Sinha.
The expulsion of these refugees, who are ethnic Nepalese Hindu religion, but were settled in the Buddhist Bhutan for 200 years, had the complicity of India, whose territory had crossed to reach Nepal.
But now, according to India, the problem of refugees is just a bilateral issue between Nepal and Bhutan, who have held 15 rounds of unsuccessful talks on the matter.
The Foreign Minister of Nepal, KP Sharma Oli, will later this month an official visit to Thimpu, the capital of Bhutan, and has publicly stated that a solution be achieved.
But his ministry source who asked to remain anonymous can not be assumed that "the meeting expecting anything" in Thimpu.
Another source of UNHCR, which manages the camps and provide a new census in mid-month, acknowledged privately that has lost hope of repatriation.
The refugees, however, prefer to pin their hopes on the announcement of the King of Bhutan to abdicate in his son and call an election in 2008 to restore democracy in this small eastern Himalayan kingdom.
"Bhutan should repatriate and return our land. If not, we collected here or Nepal or India lets us settle in between. If they are not ready for another option, should launch seven bombs on the camps and exterminate us, "she pleads in Shiva Prasad Pokharel a poem, a refugee 80 years, was quoted as saying Nepalese" Kantipur ".
The 86,000 expelled in 1992 and 110,000 refugees are now living in seven camps. "The truth is that your situation is very bad," he told Reuters Anand Swaroop Verma, another member of the INSAF that New Delhi has brought together representatives from the fields to submit their claims.
In its report, Amnesty International warns of a possible conflict stems from a similar scenario to the Palestinians, in line with other documents of the UNHCR which was seen by Reuters, underscoring the "rising young radicals" in the camps.
According to Verma, nearly half the refugees are young "and not want to go there. They repeat that there is a problem, but nobody understands the language of peace, and may have contacts with the Maoist guerrillas in Nepal ", in the process of dialogue with the government.
In search of a solution, the UNHCR offered U.S. a month ago accommodate 60,000 of them in its territory, and similar proposals were Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
"America just wants cheap labor, Sinha criticized. The Bhutanese refugees are and just want to return to Bhutan. But India will not happen, because it is the main ally of the king of Bhutan. "

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Thematic area:

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