The situation in Southeast Nepal will become explosive if the Bhutanese refugees stay there much longer. Meanwhile, their leaders concentrate on running each other down.
The screening camp set up by the Nepali Government at Kakarbhitta. Nepal´s gateway in the eastern Tarai, is hot and tense. Dhanamaya Chauhan, a middle-aged woman in a dirty dhoti, is pleading with an official and pointing to hercousin Bishnumaya, sitting in a corner with an infant in her arms.
She asks the official, "How can you sayourevidcnceisnotgoodenough?Wehave come from Bhutan, we are refugees."
Dhanamaya´s family are among the hundred or so families that have so far been denied refugee status since the Nepali Government began screening the arrivals from Bhutan in early 1993. "Bayan milena" . they are told: you are not a refugee.