The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Kathmandu has officially broached the subject of third-country resettlement for the more than one lakh Lhotshampa refugees from Bhutan, who languish in seven camps in southeastern Nepal. For the first time ever, an officiating foreign secretary of the Nepali government has concurred that the idea can be considered for certain 'vulnerable' refugees, and will be allowing UNHCR to conduct a critical census of the camp's residents.
Ever since the Lhotshampa were discovered on the banks of the Mai River by a UNHCR official back in 1991, these refugees have been afforded international protection. Whereas other previous Nepali-speaking evictees from Burma and Meghalaya had to fend for themselves, the unpoliticised peasantry driven out by the government of King Jigme Singye Wangchuk of Druk Yul have been provided food and shelter through the support of the UNHCR and the World Food Programme, supported by various governments and INGOs such as the Lutheran World Federation. But the support has begun to dip in recent years, with education of refugee children suffering, and their rations becoming more meagre.
Thimphu has continuously conducted a farcical yet eminently successful diplomatic exercise to keep the Lhotshampa refugees from returning. While succeeding in depopulating a significant portion of its southern hills of the Lhotshampa inhabitants, a massive roadblock arose with the quick recognition of the evictees as refugees by the UNHCR. But after that initial setback, Thimphu has, over a series of 13 talks, stalled any repatriation – sometimes proposing a meaningless refugee-categorisation exercise, another time conducting a sample verification from which it withdrew on the excuse of disorderly conduct by the refugees. All the while, Bhutan has been aided by the continuous political turmoil in a Nepal saddled by commoner politicians new at diplomacy, a Maoist insurgency and, in the latest instance, a royal regime that for its own reasons had incipient sympathies for the Royal Government of Bhutan's actions against the Lhotshampa.
Fair game?