Author: Times News Network
Publication: The Times of India
Date: August 5, 2007
Introduction: Critics Call Kathmandu's Action
Blatant Brownnosing To Beijing
As a mark of the growing Chinese influence
on Nepal, the Girija Prasad Koirala government has begun a stealthy crackdown
on Tibetans trying to escape from China via Nepal.
The Koirala government, which is seeking China's
aid in infrastructure and hydropower projects and to waive a loss-making deal
in which Nepal was forced to buy two aircraft at a highly marked-up price,
recently handed over a Tibetan refugee to the Chinese authorities, though
they were aware this could jeopardise the man's life.
Tsering Wangchen, a 25-yearold from Tibet's
Amdo province, had escaped to India via Nepal last year. When he tried to
visit his home in Tibet, Wangchen was arrested near the border by the Nepal
Police, fined and jailed. Then on July 16, Nepal's immigration officials handed
him over to Chinese officials and police on the Friendship Bridge, which marks
the border between Nepal and Tibet.
The incident came to light late on Friday
after a rights group, the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet
(ICT), issued a statement, condemning the move.
"Although the Nepal government is not
a signatory to international refugee conventions, the refoulement is a clear
breach of the 'Gentlemen's Agreement' between the Nepalese government and
the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), which assumes cooperation
among Nepalese police and government officials with the UNHCR in providing
for the safe transit of Tibetan refugees through Nepal and onward to India,"
ICT said.
This is not the first crackdown on Tibetans
by Nepal's new government. Days before Wangchen was deported, Nepal's border
police arrested four more Tibetans and were in the process of handing them
over to China when diplomatic pressure forced them to hand over the group
to the UNHCR.
China's influence on Nepal had been growing
steadily since the time of the present king's father Mahendra, who sought
to woo Beijing to combat India's influence, especially after Sikkim merged
with India. The influence reached its peak after the current king Gyanendra
ascended the throne in 2001.
In 2003, Nepal deported 18 refugees to China,
including 10 children, which created an international furore. Then less than
a month before his coup in 2005, Gyanendra made Prime Minister Sher Bahadur
Deuba shut down the office of the Dalai Lama's representative in Kathmandu.
The new government has indicated it would not allow the office to re-open.
