By IANS
Kathmandu : Almost half of the Bhutanese refugees living in Nepal have opted for a new life in the US, with the percentage expected to grow.
Nearly 50,000 Bhutanese from 10,000 families languishing in closed camps in eastern Nepal for 17 years now have applied for resettlement in the US from among the over 108,000 refugees currently residing in Nepal, a report said.
After the US government decided to offer a new home and life to the refugees who were evicted from Bhutan because of their Nepali origin, applications have been pouring in at the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR).
The UNHCR runs the seven camps in eastern Nepal’s Jhapa and Morang districts, where the government of Nepal had allowed the fleeing refugees to stay. UNHCR is also coordinating the resettlement together with the International Organisation for Migration.
The first planeload of refugees is expected to clear all the red tape and arrive in the US in January 2008.
While the US government has said that it would absorb as many refugees as are willing to go, other countries like Canada, Australia and Denmark are also offering new homes to the groups who have spent 17 years in the camps without any means of livelihood.
However, the resettlement offers have also created friction in the camps with the group that wants to be able to return to Bhutan opposing the move.
Several organisations and Bhutanese parties in exile that have sprung up in the camps and outside fear that once those weary of camp life start exiting and the refugee population in the camps goes down, it will lower the pressure on the Bhutanese government to take its citizens back.
The pro-repatriation groups have also been known to try to intimidate those who want to go, creating clashes in the camps in which three people died recently.
Anticipating trouble after the resettlement process began this month, the US authorities asked Nepal to step up security in the camps.
One of the pro-repatriation parties, the Bhutan People’s Party (BPP), has begun objecting to the presence of armed police personnel inside the camps, asking for them to be deployed outside, the Himalayan Times daily reported Tuesday.
“It is against UN norms to deploy armed security personnel inside the camps,” the BPP said in a press statement.
It also said going to a third country would reduce the refugees into slaves. Only in their own country could they hope to gain control of their own lives.
The BPP and its allies are hoping that a recent meeting by India’s political parties that was held in New Delhi would help resolve their problem.
Last week, India’s political parties decided to send a team of MPs to the refugee camps and also discuss the repatriation issue with Bhutan. It seems to indicate a thaw in India’s stand on the refugee issue.
The refugees, Nepal as well as the US and human rights organisations have been all along saying that India has a key role to play in resolving the deadlock since India is Bhutan’s biggest trade partner as well as foreign affairs adviser.
However, India has so far refused to intervene, saying it was a bilateral matter between Bhutan and Nepal.