Justification of the Refugees

Many people thinks that the Bhutanese refugees should have been in India.  We should not have been in Nepal.  India being the largest multiparty democratic nation, the closest neighbor of Bhutan, and given the historical background of relationships between the two nations, it would have been only natural for the Bhutanese refugees to stay in India. It is in this context that is justifiable on our part to express our dismay at the persistent statement of India on the Bhutanese refugee issue, which is viewed as a Bhutan-Nepal bilateral concern only.   

To be precise, India, besides being the closest neighbor and having age-old friendship is responsible for the modernization of Bhutan.  India helped Bhutan in the establishment of modern government, and provided assistance for infrastructure development. The development wing consisting of Education, Health, Public Works Department, Forests, Land Survey, Irrigation, Manpower, Wireless and Telecommunications and the Police Training Team etc. were mostly managed by professionals and technical staff members, mostly on deputation from India.   

The projects and programs meant for rural development and welfare included Education, Malaria Eradication, Agriculture Land Terracing, Irrigation Channel Constructions, Geological Survey, Construction of Suspension Bridges and Drinking Water Supply schemes under the management of expatriates from India.  The Census of Bhutan was also initiated with the help of India for the first time in 1964 and completed in 1974.

 The development projects beginning in the First Five Year Plan in 1961 up until 1980 were managed with the involvement of the Indian Planning Commission.  There was a division in the Central Secretariat in Bhutan looking after the implementation of the entire development projects headed by the Financial Advisor.  The Indian Military Training Team continues to exist in Bhutan to this day with its headquarters in Haa Dzongkhag. Major parts of the National Highways continue to be under the Indian Road Task Force, the GREF.  In each and every field of development, Indian expatriates were involved. 

The Indian embassy had been regularly represented in all the sessions of Bhutan's Parliament.   The National Assembly Resolutions used to reach to Indian Embassy even before it reached the members.  In the later years, India's economic development packages included projects like Chukha Hydro Power dealing with a mass workforce and contractors from Bhutan who collaborated with contractors from India.  The working expatriates associated with the village people knew not only Bhutanese language and customs but also other rich aspects of the heritage of Bhutan, which even Bhutanese themselves, were not well oriented.   India has the knowledge of Bhutan even better than its own people.  It therefore becomes the moral responsibility of India to get involved in bringing about a lasting solution to the Bhutanese problems. For this reason, we turn to India for bringing Bhutan to the dialogue table in resolving the refugees' problem.  

While we stand for repatriation to our original homesteads, the package of “Durable Solution” has created utter confusion among the refugee community. This package though justifiable at this juncture of a derailed process, has not clearly interpreted its objectives, as the refugees in entirety have not clearly understood its aims while at the same time, the bilateral process has not been brought to an official standstill.  Until such a time that Bhutan justifies the refugees' position, the Durable Solution would help to strengthen the efforts of Bhutan to make the refugee issue a forgotten chapter. There is no way that the refugee communities could forget their birthplace from where they were forced to leave, leaving behind long inherited ancestral properties. History stands witness to the political atrocities meted to various sections of Bhutanese community initially targeting key political persons and later victimizing innocent people.  

Above all, eviction of citizens from the south and depriving the common people of their fundamental rights followed by displacement of ignorant people against their will and shifting them at gun point to settle in the lands of the refugees altogether has jeopardised the ever harmonious coexistence of the diverse population.

Justification to:

 Bonafide Bhutanese Citizens: No government of the world can expel their bonafide citizens from their country, as under the Statelessness UN Convention 1949, no one can be a stateless. Therefore, this criterion totally violates international law.  

Voluntary Migration: This criterion is also defective because the Bhutanese authority can only cease the nationality of the Bhutanese people once they are declared the bonafide citizens of another country like India or Nepal. Without the observance of these related documents, Bhutan cannot cease their nationality and fix the criteria of voluntary migration. Therefore, it is also another example of creating stateless which is the gross violation of Domestic Citizenship Laws and other international laws and Statelessness Law of 1949.  

Alien Migrants / Non-national: If refugees were non-nationals it was the duty of the Bhutanese authorities to prove it before the Court of Justice under the due process of the law. But the Bhutanese authorities expelled its citizens arbitrarily which is the gross violation of Article 7 of the European Convention on Fundamental Freedom for Human Rights1950, UDHR 1948 and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966. Therefore, this criterion is also illegal.  

Criminal: Under the principle of Criminal Justice System, no one is declared guilty unless it is proved guilty by a competent court but in the Bhutanese case, they were never charged by the police, never persecuted before the court and never declared by the apex court as the criminals. Secondly, even if they had committed crimes, the trial should be taken place in Bhutan and not in Nepal. In this scenario, this criterion has totally violated the basic principles of the criminology.    

The next issue, which matters many is propaganda allegedly created by the UNHCR recently:    

1.     Third country settlement,

2.     Host country assimilation with compensation &

3.     Repatriation to Bhutan.

UNHCR planning to migrate the Bhutanese refugees in the third countries like in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the innocent refugees will suffer more than in Nepal because if they migrated to the north developed countries all the refugees are not capable for doing any jobs because of their old age, minority, illiteracy and the language problem. In this scenario, the UNHCR has never tried to make available the compensation, which these refugees should get from their original country, Bhutan. On this issue, it would be appropriate to relay famous East Asian Case of 1965.   

 These criteria are also unjustifiable because; Third Country Settlement: UNHCR has never declared which country is accepting the Bhutanese. Some say it is the United States and the other as EU countries. But it is perceived not credible because the US migration is a big problem. The US government has invested millions US Dollars just for the immigration control of its southern border i.e. controlling illegal immigrants from Mexico and Cuba. The security forces have the right to shoot anyone on the spot while entering illegally in the county. They have enforced human smuggling Act, which empowers any illegal migrants, harbingers up to life sentence with the confiscation of their whole properties.

Almost similar measure is adopted in European Union and Australia. All these governments are raising the issues of illegal immigrants and refugees in their countries. For example, the last elections were primarily determined based on anti-refugees and anti-immigration policies in the countries like Sweden, Great Britain and Australia.

Host Country Assimilation with Compensation: The refugees have not shown their willingness to stay in Nepal because this is not their home country. So, Repatriation is only possible in the following conditions:  

(a)         The Bhutanese government should be ready to uphold their citizenship along with all the democratic rights equal to its other citizens; & 

(b)        Their ceased properties should be returned to the refugees with the benefits, which they have lost for 16 years under the quantumatrum international criteria for measurement of the compensation.