Amid
Bhutan
Happy Talk,
Its PM Calls
Refugees
"Hordes" That
"Threaten
Stability"
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March 29 --
When Bhutan's
Prime Minister
Jigmi Y.
Thinley
appeared at
the UN
Thursday
promoting his
country's
Gross National
Happiness
concept and a
conference set
for April 2,
Inner City
Press
asked him a
less happy
question: what
about the
refugees
chased out
of Bhutan?
Some
have called
this ouster of
Lhotshampa
people akin to
ethnic
cleansing;
people
have
languished in
refugee camps
in Nepal for
well over a
decade.
Inner City
Press asked,
what about
their
happiness?
Thinley
essentially
argued that
the Lhotshampa
were or are
not Bhutanese,
that they came
as "hordes" of
economic
refugees but
Bhutan
could not
afford them.
He told Inner
City Press,
"Bhutan became
an attractive
destination to
people driven
from their
homes by
ecological
issues,
economic and
political
instability,
mostly coming
from one
particular
country,
Nepal."
Sounding
like a
number of
other
countries,
Thinley said
the Bhutanese
"government
had to take
steps to
assure its own
security. Tt
was the later
hordes
of people,
numbers that
threatened
stability
[and] led to
certain
administrative
measures --
legal,
constitutional
-- led to
situation
you mention."
In
a final burst
of happy talk,
Thinley said
that it's
"showing signs
of a
durable
solution,
Nepal and
Bhutan are
engaged in
dialogue on
how the
should share
the
responsibility
over those
people located
in refugee
camps in the
event these
people have no
options."
The
option, which
opened only
after a decade
of unhappiness
or worse, has
been
resettlement
out of the
region.
Perhaps after
much suffering
some
refugees are
made happy.
But it seems
incongruous.
Watch this
site.
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