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X. Divergent Views, Rising Tensions

Despite their concerns and questions about the U.S. resettlement offer, many refugees are thrilled at the prospect of starting a new life in the US, and are keen to register their interest in the scheme. Indeed, by November 2006 the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu, the UNHCR offices, and the government of Nepal had each received several thousand spontaneous written appeals from refugees for resettlement.¹⁸⁶ For the first time in 15 years, a durable solution appeared finally to be within reach, and many refugees expressed their gratitude to the U.S. for giving them hope:

We want to go [to the US]. The educated ones will get jobs. We will at least have a place to live and at least we will get our basic rights, like other human beings in the world. Earlier we were sad, because we didn’t see any solutions, no prospects of going home. Now we are hearing that some countries are ready to take us. That gave us hope. We began to dream of a normal life. That encourages us to speak. We are very hopeful.¹⁸⁷

Refugee parents frequently referred to their immeasurable relief that they could finally allow themselves to have some hope for their children’s future. A refugee father said, “The children’s future is the first thing. They need an identity in this world. They have no identity in either Bhutan or Nepal.”¹⁸⁸ A refugee mother stated, “Our future went, but we want to see the future of our children. It would be nice if we could take our children to America, because at last we could send them to a good school.”¹⁸⁹

On the other hand, there are also refugees who, for various reasons, are not interested in the offer of resettlement. For some repatriation still is the only acceptable durable solution, and they have no use for an offer that does nothing to bring the day of repatriation closer:

For me, the first priority would be repatriation. I want to be repatriated. I wouldn’t like to go anywhere else, but would stay here as a Bhutanese refugee and whenever the political environment will be favorable, then I will go to my own country. I would not accept another citizenship. I will stay a refugee until I can return to Bhutanese citizenship. Let it be the rest of my life.¹⁹⁰

Others, including older people in particular, expressed concerns about the difficulties of leaving behind everything with which they are familiar, and relocating to a country where they know neither the language nor the culture. A 57-year-old refugee man said:

If I do not go back to Bhutan, my choice would be to stay in Nepal. I want Nepal to give me land and citizenship. I don’t want to sit in the camp. I want land and a house. But if Nepal says no, I prefer to stay in this camp. I know nothing of the United States. I am only a farmer. I am unskilled. I don’t speak their language. I can only find work here. My life is here. I want my life to stay the same way. I don’t want to go to some unknown place. I am only a farmer. I want my land. My country is Bhutan. That is my first choice. Otherwise, Nepal or India.¹⁹¹

But older refugees were not the only people to express a preference for repatriation or local integration. A refugee student said, “I have already spent half my life in Nepal, I love Nepal, it is the country of the Nepalese. If given a choice, I would choose Nepal. If I were taken to another country, it would take time to get used to another place again.”¹⁹²

Some of the people who see no realistic option for repatriation and who prefer local integration to resettlement expressed concern about what would happen to those who decline the resettlement offer. A young refugee woman asked, “What happens to those people who want to stay? Many people in Nepal are stateless. Will the Bhutanese also be left stateless?”¹⁹³ Others were concerned that the international relief agencies would cease to provide assistance to the remaining refugees in Nepal after the bulk of the refugees had been resettled. Another refugee woman described some of the rising anxiety among the refugees worrying about their future: “People ask, ‘Will they only take educated people for resettlement, the youth? Will the international agencies still give assistance to the others?’ So these kinds of questions are an additional problem here in the camp.”¹⁹⁴

Opponents of Resettlement

While most refugees who rule out resettlement for themselves have no objections to other refugees being resettled, a vociferous and influential minority is opposed to the resettlement offer, not just for themselves, but for all refugees. In particular, a number of prominent refugee leaders and refugee political organizations, almost exclusively based in Kathmandu, have denounced the resettlement offer on the grounds that it undermines the struggle for the right to repatriation. They accuse those refugees who speak out in favor of resettlement of betraying the cause of the refugees and of aiding and abetting the continued oppression of the remaining ethnic Nepalis in Bhutan. As a refugee woman said, “Some say we have to go to Bhutan and fight against the king. Some youth groups say that we are Bhutanese, why should we surrender to a third country? We should go to Bhutan and fight for our rights to be bona fide citizens of our own country.”¹⁹⁵

Of the various groups, organizations, and people who argue that the goal of repatriation must take precedence over all other concerns, the single most prominent figure is Tek Nath Rizal. Rizal became a member of the National Assembly of Bhutan in 1974, and was elected a Royal Advisory Councilor in 1984. When the disastrous consequences of the 1988 census became clear, Rizal petitioned the Bhutanese king to reverse the stripping of ethnic Nepalis’ Bhutanese citizenship. Subsequently, Rizal fell out of favor with the king and fled the country. The Nepalese authorities arrested him in his home in Birtamod, in Nepal’s Jhapa district, on November 16, 1989, and handed him over to the Bhutanese authorities. Upon his arrival in Bhutan Rizal was imprisoned. In 1993 he was sentenced to life imprisonment. The King later granted him a pardon, but made it conditional on the success of the bilateral refugee negotiations between Bhutan and Nepal. Rizal was finally released from prison on December 17, 1999.¹⁹⁶

During his time in prison, Rizal acquired an almost mythical status among the refugee population. Upon his release in December 1999 refugees had high hopes that they had in Rizal a leader of great stature and personal courage who would be able to change the dynamics of the situation and bring an end to their plight. He soon became their largely unopposed leader.¹⁹⁷

Rizal heads a number of Bhutanese organizations in Nepal, notably the Bhutanese Refugee Representative Repatriation Committee (BRRRC), which has long advocated for the repatriation of the Bhutanese refugees, and the Bhutanese Movement Steering Committee (BMSC).¹⁹⁸  But Rizal and his organizations have been unable to lead the refugees back to Bhutan. A rift has opened between the refugee leaders based largely in Kathmandu and supporting Rizal, and those based in the camps, including the elected refugee representatives on the Camp Management Committees (CMCs).

The sudden and unexpected announcement of the U.S. resettlement offer has dangerously accelerated this dynamic. Faced with the prospect of thousands of refugees opting for third country resettlement, refugee leaders in Kathmandu have hardened their stance significantly, arguing that any endeavor to resettle Bhutanese refugees to third countries rewards the Bhutanese government for its misdeeds, endangers the position of the remaining ethnic Nepalis in Bhutan by giving the green light to the Bhutanese government to embark on a new round of expulsion, and undermines the efforts to realize the right to return for the Bhutanese refugees in Nepal.¹⁹⁹

Most proponents of resettlement readily agree that this would, in effect, let Bhutan get away with expelling more than 100,000 of its own citizens in violation of its international legal obligations, and its subsequent inflexibility during negotiations with Nepal to end the refugee crisis. But they feel equally strongly that the refugees should no longer be held hostage to the outcome of negotiations with a government that has signaled time and time again that it is not willing to change its position and allow the refugees to repatriate.²⁰⁰

Rizal and other Kathmandu-based refugee leaders have shown themselves to be immune to the force of these arguments. Not only do they continue to reject categorically the resettlement offer, but they also refuse to countenance any opposition to their stance, resorting to increasingly high-handed tactics to impose their views. After six of the seven camp secretaries organized a press conference to welcome the U.S. resettlement offer, Rizal dismissed all six from the BRRRC.²⁰¹

The enmity is by no means confined to the refugee leaders in Kathmandu and the elected refugee representatives in the camps. While most opponents of resettlement in the camps do not dispute the right of others to choose the resettlement option, some use threats and intimidation to try to silence those who advocate for resettlement. Disaffected youths who have spent all or nearly all of their lives in the camps with nothing to do and nowhere to go are most prone to resort to threats to intimidate proponents of resettlement.²⁰²

Some of them identify with, or belong to, the Bhutanese Maoists.²⁰³ Little is known about the Bhutanese Maoists, their membership, and their level of organization. While there is much speculation about the Bhutanese Maoists in the camps, facts are hard to come by and few people are willing to declare openly to foreign visitors that they belong to this group. Nevertheless, they have stepped up their activities in the camps, having grown more confident after King Gyanendra of Nepal was forced to step down and reinstate the Nepalese parliament in April 2006, in what was seen as a major victory for the Nepalese Maoists.²⁰⁴ In the main, these activities are limited to so-called “cultural programs” in the camps where youths march with wooden rifles and exhort the refugees to fight for their right to return to Bhutan.²⁰⁵

However, some refugees did claim that the Bhutanese Maoists were gaining in strength. “The Maoists will never let the king be. See what they have done in Nepal?” A refugee said. “After 17 years, it looks as though the King is still unwilling to listen to the language of peace. He will then be forced by the language of the gun.”²⁰⁶

In interviews with Human Rights Watch, some refugees reported feeling intimidated by the Bhutanese Maoists in the camps. A young refugee woman, said:

We have been here too long. We are suffering. I want resettlement, but I can’t speak out because these Maoists, they say we should all go back. People say, “We will cut you.” Many people here want resettlement, but they can’t speak out because of fear.²⁰⁷

A representative of an international humanitarian organization working in the camps said, “It is important that durable solutions come soon, because youths especially are frustrated and are joining radical groups. They also see the example of the Nepalese Maoists. They want to do radical activities in Nepal as well as in Bhutan.”²⁰⁸

Threats and Intimidation

So far serious threats have only been directed at refugees in leadership positions who speak out publicly in favor of resettlement. Members of the newly formed Bhutanese Refugees Durable Solutions Coordination Committee (BRDSCC), including six of the camp secretaries, are generally regarded as pro-resettlement. During the time of the Human Rights Watch mission to the camps, young refugees hand-delivered a death threat to two of the camp secretaries. Signed by a hitherto unknown group, the letter said, “If you speak of resettlement, your head will be in a bag and your body will be at the side of the river.”²⁰⁹

One of the two camp secretaries whose life was threatened, Hari Adhikari Bangaley, who is the executive director of the BRDSCC, told Human Rights Watch:

We have experienced problems from people who are trying to take up aggression. There is total confusion in the camps. We campaign for all three options [repatriation, resettlement, and local integration] but they say we are only campaigning for resettlement. There are demonstrations against us. They burn effigies of us. They have damaged my motorbike. They have surrounded me, and have threatened to cut my throat. Some are very emotional about taking up guns. But I should not be afraid or withdraw.²¹⁰

A third camp secretary, Manoj Rai, told Human Rights Watch that he, too, had been threatened several times on account of his advocacy for resettlement. “I receive many threats,” he said. “Sometimes they write letters without an address or a name.” One threat he had previously received stated, “If anyone talks about America, they are the traitor. We will break your feet.”²¹¹ Yet another camp secretary said, “We camp secretaries, we cannot do anything, because they threaten us. They don’t allow us to speak. If one bad person comes, he can kill 10.”²¹²

Some refugees in the camps are frustrated and angry that the Kathmandu-based refugee leaders (now frequently referred to as “our so-called leaders” or “self-proclaimed leaders”) claim to speak for the entire refugee population when they reject the resettlement offer. These leaders, some refugees argue, have no personal understanding of what it is like to live in the camps. They can afford to reject the resettlement offer and insist on repatriation only because they do not have to contend with the hopelessness of life in the camps. One refugee said:

Usually, when people want to know what the refugees want, they ask Tek Nath Rizal, or they ask the human rights groups, and then they say that this is what the refugees want. But this should not be done. The refugees should be asked, hut by hut. Rizal doesn’t know that my wife is suffering from the coal, that my children are suffering from asthma. The leaders don’t stay in the camps. Nobody has asked the children. Nobody has gone to the women. They are the real sufferers. Rizal doesn’t hear the women crying, he doesn’t hear the children crying. We ask the international community, please go hut by hut.²¹³

Human Rights Watch did not come across any actual violence against refugees favoring resettlement who are not in leadership positions. The fear of being attacked or otherwise harmed is widespread, however, and the strong impression is given that most refugees who would opt for resettlement do not feel free to express this opinion openly. A young refugee man described how the opponents of resettlement target everyone who speaks out in favor of it: “If they say your view is not correct, they will tell this to the leader [Rizal]. They are mobilizing, coming against those who are speaking against the leader.”²¹⁴ A woman refugee said, “We can speak, but the environment is not favorable in the camps. There are groups that want to force us to go back to Bhutan.”²¹⁵

The cramped conditions in the camps compound the problem, since they allow for little privacy. Some refugees are afraid to speak their mind on this subject even within the confines of their own huts. A refugee man said, “I feel fear. Unidentified people make threats. Every person is tormented by this fear. I have a burning desire for a better life, but I can’t express myself publicly because I feel fear from unknown sources.”²¹⁶ A young refugee man said:

People feel insecure. If others hear that you are looking for other options than repatriation, they will condemn you as not favoring repatriation, of diluting the prospects for repatriation. Others will accuse you of having no love for the country.²¹⁷

A member of the BRDSCC, referring to the spontaneous applications for resettlement that refugees have started sending to UNHCR and the U.S. embassy, said:

Hundreds of people have made applications for resettlement, but they can’t say this in the camps. If there was no intimidation, people saying, “I will chop off your head,” then people would speak out. Many people have applied for resettlement, but quietly. They don’t want their neighbors to know, because overnight there might be problems.²¹⁸