The Growing Crisis

The Maoist comrades have done it again. And, this time, the victim is a Swiss national Steve Jeannereet. It is a matter of national shame that we cannot ensure safety of tourists that enrich our public purse and enhance our national image.

The Maoists have killed teachers, journalists, and harassed doctors. But by physically assaulting a foreign national, they have not only ashamed themselves but also dented nation's image. When will the Maoists come to their senses? I guess it is not the right question to ask. Will they ever come to senses, unless they are forced to?

The government is trying to tighten the screw on rebels in the tarai while providing a free pass to the Maoists to engage in criminal activities. This strategy will eventually backfire. It will make easier for the rebel groups in the tarai to manipulate young unemployed youths in the name of ethnic discrimination. If the government cannot ruffle Puspa Kamal Dahal's feathers, it should not set a dangerous precedence of selective justice by targeting Madhesi rebels.

There is no difference whatsoever between Puspa Kamal Dahal and Nagendra Paswan's men. They are all engaged in criminal and anti-social activities. They have blood of innocent people stained in their hands.

The current government has completely failed to maintain law-and-order in the country. One thing that the current government is good at is -- provide compensation to the victims of Maoist crimes. If the prime minister or the home minister had to pay compensation from their pockets, then they would feel the heat. To give away taxpayers' hard-earned money does not seem to bother them a bit. This is height of irresponsibility and unaccountability.

If the Maoists are responsible for committing crimes, the current government is responsible for turning a blind eye on their criminal activities. Needles to say, both are at fault. In order to make the Maoists more responsible, the government should deduct the amount handed over to the victims' family from the money that the Maoists receive for their men confined in the camps. Let them feel the heat too. Hit them where it hurts most.

Of late, it has become evident that the Maoist leadership is not only power hungry but also hungry for money. Thousands of innocent civilians that were lured and registered as combatants have deserted the UN-administered camps, but the Maoist leadership is yet to report the cases to the government and reject payments made to support them. They blame the mainstream political parties for corruption and mismanagement but fail to see how mismanaged and corrupt their own party is. Collecting payments on behalf of non-existent combatants is a fraud in broad daylight.

It is understandable that the Maoists would not budge about it because they are financially benefiting from it. But why are UNMIN and the government silent on this issue? Neither UNMIN has shown any decency and reported the matter to the government nor has the government deemed it necessary to become fiscally responsible and stopped the payment even after media has reported it. When will the people in the corridors of power and those appeasing them to bury their own incompetence be held responsible for their screw ups?

With each passing day, things are becoming clearer: (1) The Seven Party Alliance (SPA) wants to remain in power forever in the name of peace process (2) India, after having burnt it fingers in its mission of buying unequivocal and everlasting Maoist support, now wants to teach them a lesson by strengthening rebels outfit in the tarai (3) the Maoists do not want peace and elections because of the plummeting public support. If there is peace, and free and fair elections are held, the Maoist leadership knows it very well that its bargaining power will take a nosedive. For the Maoists, chaos is profitable. It has both financial and political pay-offs.

Another thing that has become evident from the Maoists' never ending experiment is that they know what they want (capture the power and hang in there), but they don't know how to get there. That's the reason why they are engaged in never ending errant experimentation of all kinds.

The Nepalis are now in a far worse situation than they were during the Maoist insurgency. Then, we had one problem -- the Maoist insurgency. But we have uncountable groups with various motives and agendas. They are used and abused by various unseen forces to gain control. Caught in the middle is the unelected government that neither has the required mandate to force its will on people, nor has any strategy to solve the problems. What an ugly situation to be in.

India by forcing the SPA to join hands with the Maoists has created more problems than it actually had. While Nepal is failing, India wants to redefine its success. After the Maoists stopped dancing to the Indian tune, India now, wants to tighten its grip on Nepal and teach the Maoists a lesson by strengthening the rebel outfits in the tarai. India might have a last laugh by wiping out the Maoists in the tarai, but the Nepalis do not have anything to cheer about. It might be a good strategy from India's point of view, but when it comes to the people of Nepal, India will be simply replacing one devil with another. Creation of warlords has never brought peace and strengthened democracy anywhere.

With each passing day, not only our freedom and prosperity, but also our sovereignty is at stake. How much India values our sovereignty is crystal clear from its recent request to maintain a status-quo on encroachment of the Nepali soil at Susta.

Let us get realistic for a second, shall we? Had King Gyanendra agreed to dance to Indian tune like Jigme in Bhutan, Gayyoom in the Maldives, and General Than Shwe in Burma, what would have been the fate of SPA politicians? Where would they be now?

India's selfless desire towards establishing peace and stable democracy in Nepal is not as selfless as India would like it. It cares more about its grips on Nepal than anything else. It wants to administer proxy rule in Nepal through the likes of Dasho Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, Gayyoom in the Maldives. What will it take us to realize this fact?

Ram Raja Prasad Singh has already revealed India's role in fueling the ongoing crisis in the tarai. If India really wanted peace in Nepal and respected its sovereignty, it would not deploy its intelligence agency to bring together all the rebel groups operating in the tarai and have a meeting with them in Indian soil. It would not have engaged itself in encroachment of Nepali soil. It would rather help negotiate a settlement between the rebels and the Nepali government and returned encroached soil even before Nepal approached for it.

The problem with our political leaders is that they don't believe what they don't want to believe. Ignorance is bliss and this adage applies very well to beleaguered politicians who want to conveniently ignore ground realities as long as they can. The self-esteem of the political leadership has sunk so low that it is hard to believe that the current leadership will be able to navigate the nation towards stable liberal democracy.

So far both optimists and pessimists have been proved wrong. Neither peace nor complete political paralysis has resulted. Political crises are yet to be equated with disaster. However, if the current political deadlock and insincerity among the political leadership persists, the nation will plunge into a deep political and social crisis. Nepal will disintegrate internally if the inherent malaise is not removed.

Bhutanese Refugees: Trapped and Tantalized

It’s been more than one-and-half decades since the first group of refugees reached eastern Nepal from Bhutan। However, their collective sufferings resulting from the tragedy of forced exile continue unabated; they have no way of knowing what their situation will be from one day to the next. With respect to land, they lost the possessions that gave meaning and dignity to life and their personal history.

The forceful mass expulsion of Nepali speaking Lhotshampa of southern Bhutan by the Drukpa regime is a living example of state sponsored apartheidism। The Lhotshampas became sacrificial lamb because economically well-off, better educated, and freedom loving Lhotshampa were an eminent threat to Drukpa regime’s autocratic aspirations. However, in a desperate move to annul the threat to his autocratic regime, former King Jigme exhibited a worst form of guardianship by chasing the very people he was supposed to protect as a monarch.

Even after languishing in refugee camps in eastern Nepal for more than a decade and half now, Bhutanese refugees cannot stop thinking about returning home। Although their decade long battle for the right to return home has not borne any fruit, they have not given it up altogether. The hope of being home someday has kept them going.

India, the regional power house and closest ally of Bhutan, has so far shirked its responsibility in solving the Bhutanese refugee problem by calling it a bilateral issue between Nepal and Bhutan. However, everyone, including Bhutanese refugees themselves, knows the key to voluntary repatriation of Bhutanese refugee problem rests in New Delhi.

Indian government is indirectly obstructing the rightful repatriation of Bhutanese refugee by shirking its responsibility in solving Bhutanese refugee issues। As Bhutan is India’s closest ally in South Asia and has always blindly toed Indian line at the United Nations and other forums, India does not want to upset Bhutan King’s aspirations for autocratic regime by pushing for rightful repatriation of Bhutanese refugees in Nepal.

Bhutanese refugees have witnessed 15 tumultuous years pass by and 15 rounds of talks held between the Nepalese and Bhutanese government fail. Nepal has failed, miserably, to force Bhutan to accept its people. The time is ripe for some hard talks. Nepal should put Bhutan on the spot and ask if it is going to take back its citizen or not. If yes, when? Nepal should push for definite time line. The refugees cannot and should not continue to stay in the camps for long. Bhutanese refugees deserve much more than the mere enjoyment of Convention rights in exile.
In addition, the Nepalese government has two options: it can do what the Ivory Coast did or express the inability to pressure Bhutan and thereby ask Bhutanese refugees to explore the option of resettlement in third-world countries। During the influx of Liberian refugees in 1989, President Félix Houphouët-Boigny set such an example by declaring the refugees from Liberia as “brothers in distress” and refused to warehouse them in camps. He asked his people to accept them as a part of the Ivorian society. Let those willing to accept local integration be part of a Nepalese society. If we do not have that big of a heart and courage to do what Félix Houphouët-Boigny did in Ivory Coast, lets stop showing Bhutanese refugees false dreams. The 15-year of diplomatic efforts have already shown that with India on Bhutan’s side, Nepal will not be able to score decisive victory and pressure Bhutan into repatriation of refugees.

The warehousing of Bhutanese in refugee camps in eastern Nepal has not contributed to anything। Instead, it has increased idleness and dependency of Bhutanese refugees, which in itself, is a violation of human rights. Warehousing these men and women that have an ability to change the face of any nation is a denial of rights and a waste of humanity.

Nepal should put up a bold face and acknowledge once and for ever that we are not able to help our brothers in distress। Given the limited prospects for return to Bhutan in the foreseeable future, Bhutanese refugees should be asked to explore other viable options. In a scenario whereby local integration may not be desired by most of the Bhutanese refugees and voluntary repatriation does not seem to be happening in the foreseeable future, what options are left? For Bhutanese refugees languishing in refugee camps in eastern Nepal resettlement in third countries may be, in fact, the best—or perhaps, the only—alternative. Bhutanese refugee leaders should be extremely cautious and should not allow this problem to go unsolved any longer for their personal political gains. The settlement in third-world countries is not the best option, as no place is dearer than one’s birth place, but is far better than a foreign land whereby one is forced to spend dependent and idle life at the mercy of relief agencies. Furthermore, if the problem remains unsolved much longer, it will fall off the radar screen of the international community into an Orwellian memory hole. Bhutanese leaders should not ignore what is happening with Palestinian refugees languishing in refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon. Neglected by the international community, more than 750,000 Palestinian refugees who fled Israel in 1948 and who, along with their children numbering in the millions, are now forced to live uprooted lifes indefinitely.

Bhutan's foreign minister Khandu Wangchuk recent remark, “bringing back the "highly-politicized camp people" into Bhutan would mean importing ready-made-terrorists” clearly shows that Bhutan does not want to take back these refugees anytime soon। Refugee leaders should acknowledge the truth once and for all. With India on its side, Bhutan may, theoretically, continue its delay tactics forever. In turn, Bhutanese refugees warehoused in refugee camps may never again be able to see their land. As Israel will likely never accept Palestinian refugees who fled Israel in 1948, as acceptance would change Israel from a Jewish state into an Arab state, Drukpa regime may never accept forcefully evicted Lhotshampa. Accepting these forcefully evicted Lhotshampa will turn Bhutan in to a democratic state which is dead against the aspirations of the King and his cronies in Bhutan.

The Bhutanese refugee leaders should shun their future political ambition if necessary for the greater good of Bhutanese refugees। The western nations have pretty well studied the complexity surrounding the issue or else they would not be exhibiting their willingness to take Bhutanese refugees in their land. Western nations will not do anything that will displease emerging economic power house, India, which is on Bhutan’s side when it comes to the Bhutanese refugee issue. In addition, India’s overindulgence in Nepal’s internal political affairs has subtly threatened the careers of political leaders who dare to dissent on the Bhutanese refugee issue. Therefore, many politicians in Nepal are hesitant to openly criticize India’s reluctance in solving Bhutanese refugee crisis.

Bhutanese refugees should acknowledge the complications surrounding the issue and be ready to make painful decisions of settling in third-world countries। As far as democracy in Bhutan is concerned, the remaining Lhotshampa and democracy-loving Drukpas, if any, will sooner or later rise and defeat autocratic Drukpa regime. It’s just a matter of time. Ten, twenty, or thirty years is not long in the history of a nation. The leaders should think about the futures of the brave men and women and their families that dared to stand against Drukpa regime, which as a result, are now forced to live an idle and dependent life in refugee camps and be ready to make hard and painful decisions.

Bhutanese refugees in Nepal have suffered too much and for too long. They deserve a better life for themselves and generations to come. Political ambitions of few refugee leaders should not be allowed to dwarf the future of fellow citizens. In addition, it is a duty of refugee leaders to provide younger generation refugees languishing in refugee camps with an opportunity to enjoy the rights to the freedom of movement, education, access to employment even if it is on foreign land. It is far better to be a citizen of sovereign nation than live a life of refugee forever. Warehousing these productive brave men and women in refugee camps is a waste of humanity.