wfn.org | Nepal and Bhutan: Donors Must Push for Resolution to Refugee

["Frank Imhoff" <FRANKI@elca.org>]

Nepal and Bhutan: Donors Must Push for Resolution to Refugee Crisis
International Conference Needed, UNHCR Proposal Inadequate 

GENEVA, 13 October 2003 (LWI) - Donor countries to Bhutan and
Nepal should convene an international conference to resolve the
long-standing Bhutanese refugee crisis, six leading
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) said in a joint letter.

In the letter to donor governments including Australia, Austria,
Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland Japan, Netherlands,
Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States of
America, the NGOs said that the bilateral talks between Bhutan
and Nepal had failed to deliver a solution. At the same time, the
NGOs said that a proposal put forward by Ruud Lubbers, the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), to promote local
integration in Nepal and resettlement in third countries did not
offer a solution for most of the refugees and would compromise
their right to return to their homes. 

The six NGOs - Amnesty International, Habitat International
Coalition, Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Jesuit Refugee Service,
Lutheran World Federation (LWF), and Bhutanese Refugee Support
Group - warned in the October 8 letter that UNHCR's decision to
phase out assistance for the refugee camps in southeast Nepal
would leave 100,000 Bhutanese refugees in a precarious position.

"The refugees have consistently expressed their desire to go
home," said Rachael Reilly, HRW Refugee Policy Advisor. "UNHCR's
proposal is not a solution. It does not uphold the refugees'
right to return and lets Bhutan off the hook for expelling them
in the first place."

The NGOs stressed that UNHCR's decision to phase out assistance
for the refugee camps puts the onus on the international
community to find a solution to the refugee crisis, one of the
most protracted in the world. They called on donors to convene an
international conference bringing all the stakeholders together -
including UN agencies, governments, and refugee representatives -
to find a comprehensive solution for all the refugees. Similar
frameworks were successfully developed in the 1980s and 1990s for
large refugee populations from Indochina and the Balkans. 

Over 100,000 Bhutanese refugees - an estimated one sixth of the
population of Bhutan - have been living in camps in southeast
Nepal since the early 1990s when they were arbitrarily stripped
of their nationality and forcibly expelled from Bhutan in one of
the largest ethnic expulsions in the world. The UN refugee
agency, with the help of NGOs, has been providing assistance to
the refugees since 1992.

But UNHCR has been systematically excluded from efforts by
Bhutan and Nepal to bilaterally resolve the refugee crisis over
the past ten years, and the government of Bhutan has flatly
denied the UN agency access to the country, which is normally
granted in most refugee situations. 

In June 2003, the governments of Bhutan and Nepal announced the
results of a joint screening process to identify the status of
the refugees in one of the camps and determine who could return
to Bhutan. According to the screening, less than three percent of
the refugees would be able to return to Bhutan with full
citizenship rights and tens of thousands could be rendered
stateless. NGOs rejected the process as flawed and the results as
invalid. It has also been called into question by UNHCR and other
governments. 

"UNHCR and the international community are right to reject the
deeply flawed screening process agreed between Bhutan and Nepal,"
said Peter Prove, Assistant to the LWF General Secretary for
International Affairs and Human Rights. "It is time for donor
governments to take decisive action to help resolve the refugee
crisis and bring to an end the refugees' forced exile."

The 15th round of joint ministerial talks between Bhutan and
Nepal is due to take place in Thimpu, Bhutan from October 20 to
23.
 
To read the letter to donor governments, please see:
www.lutheranworld.org/What_We_Do/OIAHR/Documentation/Letter_Bhutan_donor_govt
s_8oct03.pdf

(631 words)

(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the
Lutheran tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund (Sweden), the LWF now
has 136 member churches in 76 countries representing over 61.7
million of the 65.4 million Lutherans worldwide. The LWF acts on
behalf of its member churches in areas of common interest such as
ecumenical and interfaith relations, theology, humanitarian
assistance, human rights, communication, and the various aspects
of mission and development work. Its secretariat is located in
Geneva, Switzerland.)

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