An estimated 115,000 persons from Bhutan were living as refugees in neighboring countries in 1998, including 100,000 in Nepal, and more than 15,000 in India.

Lhotsampa

All but a few hundred of the refugees from Bhutan are Lhotsampa, Bhutanese Hindus of Nepali origin who lived in the southern plains of Bhutan. Most fled to Nepal and India between late 1990 and 1992 to escape what refugee leaders called an "ethnic cleansing" campaign by the Bhutanese authorities. Bhutan, an isolated Himalayan kingdom, is ruled by Buddhist Drupkas who live mostly in the country's mountainous north. The Drupka historically excluded the Lhotsampa from the country's political and economic mainstream.

The refugees complained of being denied citizenship and political rights, prevented from studying in the Nepalese language, and forced to wear traditional Drupka clothing. They also said they were subjected to widespread human rights abuses. The Bhutanese government not only denied the refugees' charges, but it also claimed that most of the refugees were either illegal immigrants to Bhutan or not from Bhutan at all.

Since 1993, there has been a stalemate between Bhutan and Nepal over the refugees' future. The two governments have held numerous talks, but with no concrete results. Although the flow of new refugees slowed to a trickle after 1992, discrimination in Bhutan did not end. In January 1998, Bhutan adopted a resolution dismissing 219 Lhotsampa government workers from their posts simply because of their ethnicity. The Bhutanese authorities have also resettled hundreds of Drupka families onto land belonging to the refugees.

In June, Bhutan's King, Jigme Singye Wangchuk, introduced several measures that limited his own power and introduced more democracy into the political process. Although some observers thought that might signal hope for the refugees, other expressed doubt. The New Delhi-based South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center (SAHRDC) said that the changes might not be as significant as they appeared, and that the King was probably only making them as "political concessions [to domestic political opponents] in order to preserve the monarchy." SAHRDC added that the King and the Bhutanese government still appeared intent on preventing the return of the refugees.

Sharchops

Beginning in late 1997, several hundred ethnic Sharchops (or Sarchops) from eastern Bhutan fled into Arunachal Pradesh in India. Although their number was small, the exodus of a second group of refugees from tiny Bhutan called attention to what SAHRDC called "another of the [South Asia] region's subterranean 'hot spots.'"

In a 1998 report on Bhutanese refugees, SAHRDC said that the exodus was the result of Bhutan's political persecution of Sharchops, Bhutan's second largest ethnic group. The government crackdown was aimed at stifling political opposition among Sharchops for the Druk National Congress (DNC), a political party seeking more democratic reform and human rights protection in Bhutan. The Bhutanese authorities arrested scores of Sharchops in 1997, including community leaders, monks, and relatives of exiled DNC leader Rongthong Kunley Dorji. Coincidentally, the authorities in India also arrested Dorji in 1997, though they released him on bail in June 1998.

Little was known about the situation for the Sharchop refugees in India.

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