Kathmandu, Apr.5: A digitalised database covering 51 per cent of the Bhutanese refugees in seven camps in eastern Nepal has it that above 99.83 per cent of them have documentary evidences that they are Bhutanese citizens.
Association of Human Rights Activists, Bhutan (AHURA, Bhutan), a Bhutanese Human Rights organisation in exile, surveyed 4,553 Bhutanese refugee families to prepare the database – loaded in compact disk released here today.
“Up to 95 per cent have either both the citizenship papers and legal land and property holding documents in their possession,” said Ratan Gazmere, Chief Co-ordinator of AHURA, Bhutan in a press meet here. “Only 0.17 per cent did not have any papers due to seizure by government authorities, loss or theft.”
The findings comes at a time when Nepal and Bhutan are engaged in working out the modalities to verify the around 100,000 Bhutanese refugees in the UNHCR-maintained camps. The two Himalayan Kingdoms had agreed in 1993 to categorise the refugees into four groups – Bonafide Bhutanese citizens, Bhutanese who have emigrated, Non-Bhutanese, and Bhutanese who have committed crimes.
“The contents of our database put a question mark to the categorisation of the refugees since all of them are found to be genuine Bhutanese refugees,” said Gazmere who will be highlighting the database in the ongoing 56th session of the United Nations Commission of Human Rights meeting in Geneva next week.
The summary report of the database, according to AHURA, will also be made available in its websitehttp:ahurabht.tripod.com The survey findings have shown that the refugees in the camps have different documentary evidences including citizenship certificates, identity cards, tax receipts, land and property documents – all issued by the Bhutanese government – some even dating back to 1890’s.
The digitalised database has the details of around 50,000 refugees including their names, their address in Bhutan, present refugee camp address, family structure, the date when they were evicted from the Dragon Kingdom, documentary evidences to prove their Bhutanese citizenship, among others.
Minute details like the refugees’ house numbers, land-property measurements, among others, have also been included. Of the surveyed refugees, 22,000 have been found under 18 years of age.
Also included in the database are the details about the six southern Bhutanese districts from where most of the refugees were evicted. The blocks, villages, houses under the refugees’ names, among other details, within these districts have been well-documented.
“The families included in this survey have had to leave behind more than 5,000 houses, 30,000 acres of land and property and other mobile and immobile property whose present market value would run into millions of US Dollars,” states a press statement of AHURA.
The database has also included detailed information on what led to refugees leave their homelands. Of the total interviewed refugee families, 57 per cent were found to have been forced to leave Bhutan, often under gun-point or with serious threat to life. They were also compelled to sign voluntary migration forms. “Most of the people filling the voluntary migration forms are those from interior districts and villages from where fleeing to safety is impossible,” said Gazmere.
Chirang, one of the interior districts, alone claims 23 per cent the total refugees who were forced to sign the migration forms, the database shows.
Besides bringing out the digitialised facts and figures, AHURA also released a book “Bhutan: A Shangri-La without Human Rights” here today.