September 12, 2008
It rained all last night here in central Nepal, but as sunlight broke through the clouds this morning, and a murder of crows spread quickly across the valley, so did some very dark news. Yesterday, the new Nepal government announced an ominous policy change toward Tibetans living within its borders.
Growing Chinese pressure on Nepal to curb the “anti-China movement” and seven-month-long protests in Kathmandu finally culminated in the new Home Ministry’s decree:
"We will not allow our territory to be used for anti-China activity…
The government has begun investigating the cases of Tibetans living in Nepal. The ones without proper documents will be deported," Modraj Dottel, home ministry spokesman, told AFP.
Dottel said police and immigration department officials have been ordered to take action because the Tibetans have not stopped their protests despite repeated appeals from the government. "We have been forced to take this measure as Tibetan immigrants continued with their anti-China protests. We don't want to spoil our friendly relations with China," the spokesman said.
More than 20,000 Tibetans live in Nepal. Thousands fled Tibet after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.
Those early arrivals were given refugee status in Nepal. But new exiles from Tibet cannot stay in Nepal, which hands them over to the U.N. refugee agency for their onward journey to India, where their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama lives.
The big policy shift is that, from now on, Nepal may deport Tibetans to China – all, that is, who are without either official refugee status or UN documentation. If these “non-status” Tibetans are returned to Chinese-controlled Tibet, they will certainly face punishment and imprisonment by Chinese authorities.
This has spread dread throughout the entire Tibetan community. Thirty percent of the Tibetan refugees living in camps, for instance, are without the Refugee Certificate (RC), the legal recognition of their refugee status.
The Nepal Government has issued the RC to Tibetans who entered the country before 1989. But the local administration has not issued any RCs since 1995.
In the meantime, the Home Ministry wrote to the District Administration Office on Thursday asking it to keep surveillance on Tibetan refugees residing illegally in the district. The ministry, however, had no answer about the plight of refugees who were unable to acquire the RC after 1995.
Basically, we’re talking about the possibility of mass deportation of Tibetans back to a very hostile Chinese government, which controls their homeland with an iron fist.
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