Bhutan yet to respond on holding talks

January 9, 2000
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Kathmandu, Jan.9: A good four months after the two Himalayan Kingdoms departed agreeing to continue the talks on the festering Bhutanese refugee issue, Nepal is still awaiting Bhutan’s response on the date both sides could sit across the table.

As the two sides had earlier agreed to resume talks by the first half of January, Foreign Ministry is keeping its finger crossed whether the Dragon Kingdom would invite the Nepalese delegation to its capital by the stipulated time.

“The next round of talks was decided to be held by the first half of January,” says Murari Raj Sharma, Secretary of Foreign Ministry. “We are still waiting for the Bhutanese response.”

Turn wise, the next round of talks should take place in Bhutanese capital Thimpu following the eighth Joint Ministerial Level Committee (JMLC) meeting that took place here from September 14 to 16 last year.

Since then, Foreign Minister Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat has met his Bhutanese counterpart twice. But neither of the meetings could take a decisive turn. When he met Bhutanese Foreign Minister Jigme Y. Thinley during the last UN’s General Assembly at the end of September last year, the latter told Dr. Mahat that he had not been able to discuss the issue back home after the eight round of talks due to time constraint.

The second time Mahat met the Bhutanese government was in November when he reached Thimpu to extend invitation for the 11th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Summit scheduled, but now postponed indefinitely, to be held in Kathmandu.

Whether the next round of talks will be the ninth JMLC meet or not remains elusive since Bhutan is yet to confirm the level of the talks. It could be, according to Foreign Ministry officials, either ministerial level talks or that involving officials of both the countries.

In either case, the talks will focus on the same knotty issue that had led to the inconclusive eighth round of talks – how to begin the process of verification of the above 100,000 Bhutanese refugees languishing in seven camps in eastern Nepal.

The verification has to do with four categories of the refugees – Bonafide Bhutanese who have been forcibly evicted, Bhutanese who have emigrated, Non Bhutanese people, and Bhutanese who have committed criminal acts — agreed during the first JMLC talks held in Kathmandu in 1993.

Trouble began since the fourth round of talks in 1994 when the two sides could not meet eye to eye on their positions on the four categories. The apple of discord was primarily the second category – Bhutanese who have emigrated – which Bhutan claimed it could not take back citing its legal provisions while Nepal pressed for the other way round.

Bhutanese refugees in exile claim that most of them were made to sign voluntary migration forms under gun point when they were forcefully evicted from the Dragon Kingdom almost a decade ago.

As both the sides stuck to their guns, there was virtually an impasse for almost three years after the seventh round of talks in 1996.

Nepalese delegates in the eight round of talks saw the light at the end of tunnel as the Bhutanese side agreed to take back the second category refugees back home “if they are found to have left their homes under compelling circumstances.”

Even then, what remains to be answered is the million dollar question: How will the verification process get underway? As foreign ministry is keeping its card close to its chest, Bhutan may come up with an idea seemingly out of the blues. Like it did during the last talk when it brought out a list, bearing around 3,000 refugees’ names prepared by the UNHCR Nepal Branch Office, and proposed that the verification be started with the same list.

The commission of the world body manages the seven Bhutanese refugee camps in eastern Nepal.

“Right now Bhutan is busy flushing out the ULFA and Bodo militants from Assam who have entered the Bhutanese territory,” notes Rakesh Chhetri, a Bhutanese refugee and a noted analyst. “That’s why it may take time to chart out its strategy for the next talk.”