ROLLER COASTER RIDE

JOHN NARAYAN PARAJULI Sunday November 7, 2004
Source: NATION WEEKLY (See page 26, also 36)
Bhim Prasad Tamang was not exactly thrilled by the high profile visit of U.S. official Arthur E. Gene Dewey last month to his dilapidated hut in the Beldangi II refugee camp. He's been through it before. In the last 14 years, a number of foreign dignitaries have come to the camp and raised his hopes for early repatriation, and that was that.
The story never had a happy ending.

"Do you want to go to Bhutan?" Tamang quotes Dewey, the assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, as having asked him. "Of course I want to go home," he says. "But what are the conditions?"

Like Tamang, more than 100,000 refugees in seven camps in eastern Nepal now feel that their desire to go home may not come to fruition. That they are doomed to a life of a refugee. Over the years, many high-profile comings and goings have raised expectations, but have amounted to nothing. In 2000, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees
Sadako Ogata told them, "Bhutan is ready to welcome you back. You all will be going home soon." But her assurance turned out to be hollow, say refugees. After cycles of hope and bitter disappointment their expectations are now tempered with realism.

"We are optimistic," says Prem Khanal, a refugee teacher. "But we are also keenly aware of how optimistic we should be about these visits." As Dewey took stock of the miserable conditions in the camps, he told the refugees that he was visiting them to learn what they think is the best solution for them. This is the first high-profile visit since Bhutan's disengagement from the bilateral process on December 22, 2003. The process of repatriating refugees verified by the Nepal-Bhutan Joint Verification Team at the Khudunabari camp was to begin from February 15 this year, but following a scuffle between the refugees and Bhutanese officials, Bhutan pulled out of the process, citing poor security as the reason. After almost a year, the United States seems to be keen to revive the stalled process.

"I didn't come just to visit this part of the world," said Dewey to a group of refugees, "but with a serious purpose: to bring a solution." The urgency in U.S. efforts to find a solution comes in part from reports that the Maoists are operating in the refugee camps. The United States wants to resolve the refugee impasse quickly to deny the Maoists another fertile breeding ground. Dewey warned New Delhi and Thimphu that "time is running out." During his discussions in New Delhi he also sought Indian help in "getting Bhutan to agree on steps for repatriating at least some refugees." Dewey is learned to have
explicitly conveyed Washington's concern about the growing Maoist influence in the refugee camps and the dangers this could pose for India and Bhutan, just as well as to Nepal.

Apart from underscoring the urgency for an immediate solution, his visit has also triggered discussion on other options apart from repatriation; local integration or third-country resettlement are high on the list. "We have to look into all options," Dewey told reporters in Kathmandu. "Sometimes there is not just one solution." There are
indications that the United States has given up hope that a complete repatriation will ever take place. "Our hope is that Bhutan at least accepts this segment," Dewey said in Delhi, referring to the 2.5 percent of the refugees in the Khudunabari refugee camp who were
classified as "bona fide Bhutanese." Although Nepal is keen on the repatriation process, the refugee community is, at best, divided over the remaining two alternatives—local integration and third-country resettlement. Some fear that agreeing to either of the options, even in principle, could diminish their cause for a dignified repatriation. "It could end our existence as Bhutanese refugees," says a young refugee Dadiram
Neupane, "and hence our right to return to Bhutan."

But others insist that any solution is better than none at all. "It's fine if they want to give us citizenship here or take us to a different country," says Bhim Prasad Tamang. Refugees like Tamang feel that the two options are, if not adequate, at least a dignified escape from the confinement of camp life. And there are others who want to work towards all three options simultaneously. They say no single option will be practical for all refugees: Not all will be repatriated, if ever Bhutan decides to do so; not all can be locally integrated given their sheer numbers; and not all will be deemed fit by the host country for a third-country resettlement. Most refugees are encouraged that the American representative at least seemed open to all solutions.

Dewey's visit to the camps and the three capitals has renewed hopes, as refugee leaders believe that American pressure was instrumental in pushing forward the bilateral process in 2000, when Julia Taft and Karl Inderfurth, both senior State Department officials, convinced both Nepal and Bhutan to agree on a verification process. U.S. President Bill Clinton's letter to the Nepali and Bhutanese prime ministers in late 2000 was credited with getting the process started.