The Hindu : Rights groups call for 'fair' solution

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 20, 2003

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International

Rights groups call for 'fair' solution

New York June 19. The announcement by the Governments of Bhutan and Nepal that only a handful of Bhutanese refugees would be allowed to return to their country with full citizenship rights could render tens of thousands of refugees stateless, said six international humanitarian and rights groups.

The refugees will have just 15 days to appeal their categorisation in a screening process that the two Governments have been conducting since March 2001.

In a joint statement, the Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Lutheran World Federation, Refugees International, the U.S. Committee for Refugees, and the Bhutanese Refugee Support Group, called on donor Governments and Governments in the region to increase pressure on the Governments of Bhutan and Nepal to find a just and fair solution to this long-standing refugee crisis. ``The Bhutanese refugees have been waiting over a decade for a solution to their plight,'' said Rachael Reilly, Human Rights Watch's refugee policy advisor. "This is not a solution, but rather a wholesale violation of their rights.'' Nepal and Bhutan on Wednesday issued the results of a pilot verification process in one camp that divided the 12,000 refugees into four categories: — Two and a half per cent of the refugees (only 293 people) in Category I: bona fide Bhutanese citizens who would be eligible for repatriation to Bhutan;

Seventy per cent in Category II: refugees who "voluntarily emigrated'' from Bhutan and would be required to reapply for Bhutanese citizenship. The process they would need to follow to reclaim their citizenship, land and property remains unclear and may be decided in talks between the governments in August;

— Twenty-four per cent in Category III: non-Bhutanese people whose claims to citizenship were rejected and would be returned to their respective countries;

— Three per cent in Category IV: so-called `criminals' who would be liable to be tried in the Bhutanese courts.

More than 100,000 refugees of ethnic Nepalese origin from southern Bhutan have been living in camps in southeast Nepal for a dozen years after they were arbitrarily stripped of their nationality and forced to flee Bhutan in the early 1990s.

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