International Campaign for Tibet

US envoy rakes up Tibetan refugee issue with PM

KATHMANDU: Visiting US under-secretary of State Maria Otero on Monday took up the Tibetan refugee issue with Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal and urged him to stick to the international practice of providing safe transit to trans-country refugees.

Otero, the highest-level US official of the Obama administration to visit Nepal, also drew PM Khanal’s attention to the refugees’ problem of identification in Nepal as they have been taking refuge in Nepal ever since mainland China invaded Tibet in 1959.

“She expressed concern about what policy Nepal has, if Tibetan refugees arrive here, and raised the issue of identification of such refugees who have been living in Nepal for decades,” PM’s foreign affairs adviser Milan Tuladhar told The Himalayan Times.

Otero, who is also the US Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, had visited the Tibetan Refugee Transit Center in Kathmandu Sunday with American Ambassador to Nepal, Scott DeLisi, to talk to the Tibetan refugees, some of whom are awaiting the clearance of their passage to Dharmashala of India, where their spiritual leader Dalai Lama operates Tibetan’s exiled government.

Sources said the refugees had spoken to the American officials about their vulnerability, including Nepal government’s increasingly assertive policy toward their transit to Dharmashala upon China’s request.

PM Khanal responded to Otero that the Government of Nepal has been treating Tibetan refugees as per universal laws and obligations, stating that it is a very ‘sensitive’ issue to Nepal. He also assured the US official that he would further talk to the Ministry of Home Affairs on the matter.

“PM does not make any commitment about the issue,” Tuladhar implied, as it was an affair of bilateral concern rather between Nepal and China.

During the half-an-hour meeting, the issue of Bhutanese refugees was also raised. On the occasion, PM Khanal told Otero that Nepal prefers to other options the return of Bhutanese refugees to their home. Otero had also discussed the issue with Indian and Bhutanese authorities while on her way to Kathmandu on Saturday.

“We believe that the Bhutanese refugees deserve the right to return to their motherland,” Tuladhar quoted the prime minister as saying. Otero advised him that the resumption of dialogue between Nepali and Bhutanese authorities would be better to address the issue permanently.

Nepal is home to some 20,000 Tibetan and over 100,000 Bhutanese refugees. But, more than 40,000 Bhutanese refugees have resettled in US and seven other developed countries as a UN plan of third country resettlement.

Asked whether she raised the issue of refugees in Nepal, Otero said, “It is an important issue for us. We believe we will proceed to look at it very carefully.”

[This article originally appeared in The Himalayan Times, on February 14, 2011]