On the altar of foreign relations

In early November, during a visit to Nepal by Ellen Sauerbrey, a United States official in charge of refugee policy, the news suddenly became public that the Kathmandu government was refusing to give the green light to the resettlement process of some 5000 Tibetan refugees in Nepal. The offer of resettlement had been made by the US government in September 2005. "We are talking about the sensitivity of the government of Nepal to a very large and very immediate neighbour," Sauerbrey ruefully noted, "and that is something that the government of Nepal is going to have to address in the future".

For the past two years, several visiting US officials have repeated Washington, DC's interest in taking in this group of individuals, but the process has been continually stymied due to opposition from Beijing and diffidence of the Kathmandu government, itself reeling under continuing political instability. To the frustration of many, this stance did not change even after the official go-ahead was given for the initial processing for resettlement of the 107,000 Bhutani refugees who have also made Nepal their home for the past decade and a half. Indeed, the US infrastructure in Kathmandu meant to process more than 60,000 Bhutani refugees – a process that began in early November – was originally meant also to oversee the resettlement of these 5000 Tibetans.