Bhutan - Lindsay Brown [25]
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The year 2007 will mark 100 years of monarchy in Bhutan; however because 2007 is an inauspicious year according to the Bhutanese calendar, Bhutan will wait until 2008 to celebrate the 100 years of Kingdom.
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Major problems didn’t really emerge until the late 1980s. At that time, the government began to focus on preserving what it saw as Bhutan’s threatened national identity. It introduced a policy of driglam namzha (traditional values and etiquette; Click here) under which all citizens had to wear the national dress of gho and kira at schools, government offices and official functions. At the same time, as part of the implementation of the ‘New Approach to Education’, study of the Nepali language was eliminated from the school curriculum. Resentment began to stir among some Nepalis in the south, exacerbated by what the government now concedes was overzealous enforcement of the policies by some district officials.
Mindful of the country’s extremely porous border – and Bhutan’s attractiveness because of its fertile land, low population and free health and education facilities – in 1988 the government conducted a nationwide census. This was aimed partly at identifying illegal immigrants, defined as those who could not prove family residence before 1958. Thousands of ethnic Nepalis lacked proper documentation. A series of violent acts in the south, including robberies, assaults, rapes and murders – primarily against legitimate Bhutanese citizens of Nepali descent – created a sense of fear and insecurity that led to an exodus of Nepali-speakers from Bhutan. How much of the migration was voluntary remains a matter of fierce debate, but tens of thousands of Nepali-speakers left Bhutan between 1988 and 1993.
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www.unhcr.org is the site for the United Nations refugee agency and provides the latest facts and figures on the refugee camps in Jhapa, Nepal.
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At the same time, a set of dissident leaders emerged charging human rights abuses in the treatment of Nepalis inside Bhutan, and demanding full democracy and other political changes in the kingdom. This movement received some international attention.
By the end of 1992, some 80,000 Nepali-speakers who said they were from Bhutan were housed in seven camps in the Jhapa district of southeastern Nepal, organised by the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). By early 1993 the exodus had virtually stopped. In June 1993 the UNHCR established a screening centre at Kakarbhitta on the Nepal–India border.
Bhutan and Nepal agreed that they would settle the problem on a bilateral basis. They have held several rounds of talks to try to identify which residents of the camps are legitimate citizens of Bhutan and to find an appropriate solution to this complex problem. After numerous meetings they agreed to a joint verification process which began in March 2001. The process was completed at the first camp, Khudanabari, in December 2001 and the goal was to close the camp on a mutually agreeable basis and continue the verification process at other camps. Unfortunately the findings of the verification process, where only 2.4% of the people in the camp were classified as genuine refugees, did not satisfy the camp population and agreement on the appeal processes was not found after many months of negotiation. Frustration in the camps boiled over into a violent attack on the Bhutanese verification team at Khudunabari in December 2003, stalling the verification process.
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BODO GROUPS & THE UNITED LIBERATION FRONT OF ASSAM
The northeastern region of India has suffered years