LAW, HUMANITY AND ‘CATEGORISATION’

When the Joint Verification Team (JVT), set up by the governments of Bhutan and Nepal after seven years of dialogue, first set foot in the Lhotshampa refugee camps in January 2001, there was widespread elation. The refugees believed that their deliverance was close at hand. The donor governments and aid agencies, which had collectively brought pressure to bear on the process, were excited that they were finally witnessing the beginning of the end of the decade-old refugee problem. The team's brief was to verify the bona fides of the refugees in the camps, and their claim of being from Bhutan. Himal, however, had a word of caution ("Indeed, if the Bhutanese side does not drop its insistence on this sticky and messy issue, the verification exercise cannot be expected to go far. (Unless, of course, Nepal is willing to go by anything that Bhutan says.)", 'Dark Clouds Behind the Silver Lining?' — March 2001)] Sadly, more than two long years later, the caution, especially about Kathmandu's willingness to sign on the dotted line as requested by Thimphu, has proved well-founded.

In an interminably slow process, between 10 March and 15 December 2001, the JVT managed to complete the verification of refugees in just one of the smaller camps, known as Khudunabari in Jhapa district. It took forever to interview the camp's 12,183 inmates, frustrating them as well as the larger refugee community. With more than a hundred thousand refugees living in six camps, simple calculation showed that the interview process alone would take eight years to complete.