Category: Other refugees

Happy to be here, a Bhutanese family is resettled in Oakland, CA

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is the third in the troika of posts I mentioned yesterday about Bhutanese refugees arriving in the US (the first two are here and here).  This family has been resettled in “welcoming” Oakland, CA where we reported  just a couple of days ago that there has been an uptick in crime effecting refugees and immigrants.

First, more on the background of this Nepalese ethnic group which we will be resettling by the tens of thousands over the next five years (this article actually says we are taking the majority of the 100,000 living in camps in Nepal).   This is a lesson in the rise of ethnic nationalism, see Judy’s post on the topic more than a year ago.   From the Contra Costa Times:

Bhim Timsina had the most to say, sharing a long, bleak story about a kingdom that expelled a sixth of its people. “There became two types of people in Bhutan,” he said of his native country. His people — those of Nepali descent — were the type who had to leave.

[…..]

Timsina was 8 years old when his family was expelled from the farmland they had ox-plowed for generations, a fertile seven acres that yielded rice, millet, buckwheat, cauliflower and spinach.

Their Nepali ancestors first migrated to Bhutan’s arable southern Chirang region as farmers in the late 19th century, and it was not until the 1980s that the Timsinas found themselves unwelcome there.

They were called Lhotshampas — the “People of the South.” They dressed differently from the Drukpa ethnic majority but had for years peacefully coexisted with them. They practiced Hinduism, not Buddhism. They spoke Nepali at home, not the national Dzongkha language. They lived in the warmer lowlands, not the northern Drukpa highlands that are considered the heart of the Himalayan country.

When the Bhutanese king enacted a policy called “One Nation, One People,” it enshrined Drukpa culture and made its traditions mandatory in Bhutanese schools and public life. Lhotshampas protested, fueling government claims that their expanding population, and feared alignment with Maoist rebels, could threaten the monarchy and Drukpa way of life.

And because official documents had no record of Timsina’s parents in a 1958 census, the family and tens of thousands of others were dubbed illegal immigrants and banished in the early 1990s.

Unlike the Iraqi refugees we have been writing about who are unhappy with life generally in the US, this refugee family is making the best of the tough times.  Although stressed about finances and jobs, and for the older generation not much contact with the outside world, this family will likely make it.

At the Timsina home in East Oakland, the climate has been a mix of optimism, frugality and nervous uncertainty.

[….]

But the happiness can be elusive. As the months have passed, Timsina said he has now come to believe that much of what he learned in Nepal “relates only to Nepal. Now, I realize it is quite difficult. Going to college, it is so costly. I cannot pay for that.”

[….]

In mid-May, he will have completed his first eight months in the country, meaning his federally-funded refugee cash assistance of $359 a month will expire. Fortunately, after impressing his teachers at The English Center, he was hired to work part-time after classes as an evening receptionist.

[….]

Timsina’s father, Bedha, 60, and mother, Lachhi, 50, have a few extra months of checks and food stamps because they arrived later, but they are less likely to find a job after their help expires.

[….]

“For my existence, I will do any kind of work,” Bhim Timsina said. “But I need to aim quite high.”

Bhutan continued: how to pressure refugees to resettle

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Earlier today I told you about the Bhutanese  (Nepalese) refugees we are bringing to the US  over the next five years—60,000 in all!   We also reported in several previous posts over the last year that many refugees were reluctant to sign on, not knowing what to expect from life in the US.   Well, get this, the United Nations is helping them along with their decision by showing photos of already resettled refugees practicing their culture in America.    You can bet there are no photos of unhappy refugees—unemployed and living in poverty.

KATHMANDU, April 25 (Xinhua) — The photos of Bhutanese refugees resettled in the third country of the United States have been exhibited in Bhutanese refugee camps in Jhapa and Morang districts in eastern Nepal, according to local media on Saturday.

The photos taken by Kashish Das Shrestha in New York cover a variety of topics and even show refugees enjoying momos and other Nepali delicacies there, local newspaper The Himalayan Times reported. 

“I saw photos of resettled refugees having momo in the United States at the exhibition,” said Debaka Rai, a refugee in Beldangi camp, Damak of Jhapa district, some 300 km east of Nepali capital Kathmandu, adding “the photos also shown that the marriages of the resettled refugees in third countries are performed as per our traditions and customs in.”

The exhibition titled “Home” was organized by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the refugee camps. Shrestha captured the photos during six months in New York.

It just occurred to me that we have been wondering aloud why so many Iraqi refugees, who are now disillusioned with their lives here, tell a uniform story of being told how great everything would be in the US if they signed up for resettlement.  Maybe this is how it’s done!

“The exhibition was organized to put to rest the confusions and doubts of the refugees regarding resettlement,” UNHCR-Nepal acting chief, Dian Goodman said, adding “the refugees are fee [free?] to take up the opportunity, however, we are not pressurizing [lets hope the writer means pressuring ?] them.”

Pressurizing or pressuring, either way it doesn’t matter we get the message; both are pretty despicable if the UN High Commissioner for Refugees is distorting the picture of life in America.

Where are all the Bhutanese coming from?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Residents of “welcoming” cities may have noticed in addition to Iraqis and Burmese, the number of Bhutanese (really Nepalese) being resettled has been stepped up.   Today I hope to post a series of three posts (second one is here) on recent news about the Bhutanese—a subject we have written about extensively in the past, here, but not much recently.

This is a story from the San Francisco Chronicle a week ago with background on this new group of refugees.  Sorry to have to quote so much, but the story is complex.  Be sure to read the whole article here.

Oh, and besides informing readers about the Bhutanese it is interesting in light of our recent discussion about the concept of defending one’s culture.

The impressive necklace of cliff-perched fortresses that dot this Himalayan nation’s mountainous perimeter are a testimony to Bhutan’s long-standing effort to keep out foreigners.

In the 1980s, however, the tiny Buddhist nation of just 600,000 sandwiched between the People’s Republic of China and India found itself with what it considered to be a foreigner problem.

Bhutan’s minority population of ethnic Nepalese had mushroomed to represent one-third of the population, causing then-King Jigme Singye Wangchuck to start a “one nation, one people” policy to deport and strip many of their Bhutanese citizenship. The campaign ended with the expulsion of about 105,000 Nepalese through beatings, torture and murder committed by the Royal Bhutan Army that lasted until the early 1990s, human rights groups and deportees say.

So, the Nepalese came to be in Bhutan because they had come across the border originally illegally from Nepal;  Bhutan eventually cracked down and wanted to keep its unique Buddhist culture and put in motion a plan to push some of the Nepalese out of the country.   Instead of going back to Nepal they went into India and then were trucked back to Nepal, to camps.

About 105,000 Nepalese eventually crossed into India, where they were trucked to seven camps in eastern Nepal under the supervision of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. In Nepal, they have remained stateless, even though they share the same ethnic and cultural background.

Some historians say the backlash was a response to the demographic threat. Others say the monarchy feared anti-royalist and Maoist ideologies that were gaining momentum at the time in Nepal.

Today, about 100,000 ethnic Nepalese still reside in Bhutan, nearly one-sixth of the nation’s population.

A Maoist insurgency has formed in the camps and they go back into Bhutan to organize (like community organizers!) the remaining Nepalese in Bhutan in hopes of overthrowing the democratic government of Bhutan.

Locked in political limbo, these camps have become breeding grounds for a fledgling militancy that seeks to overthrow Bhutan’s monarchy just two years after the king abdicated in favor of his son, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, who heads a constitutional monarchy that permitted the nation’s first democratic elections last year.

“This (insurgency) is something Bhutan needs to be worried about,” said an intelligence official in neighboring India who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

Analysts say the Maoist insurgency in Nepal – which ended in 2006 – inspired Bhutanese refugees after Nepal’s King Gyanendra was forced to abdicate and a new government formed with former rebels.

The ideological affinity with the Nepalese Maoists is evident in the literature the Bhutanese militants disseminate and the similar names they use to describe their movement: the Communist Party of Bhutan, Tiger Forces, the United Revolutionary Front of Bhutan and United Refugee Liberation Army.

“We are preparing a protracted people’s war,” said a 27-year-old leader of the Communist Party of Bhutan.

Enter the NGO’s who busy themselves mucking around in other countries politics, and always eager for more refugees to be resettled in the West.  In all the articles I have read about this group of refugees, not once have I heard anyone say that maybe Nepal could just take its ethnic Nepalese back—they share the same religion, speak the same language and generally share the same culture!    Oh no, let’s just ship them off to live on welfare in crime-ridden cities in the West (next post!).

Bill Frelick, refugee policy director for Human Rights Watch, says the insurgents, who are believed to number between 600 and 1,000, are still too weak to launch an effective revolution. But other analysts say the alliance with militant Indians, the continuing relocation of refugees and recruiting forays into Bhutan are worrisome signs.

In 2006, the United States and a handful of other Western countries offered to resettle more than 70,000 Nepalese refugees. About 7,000 have already left the camps and the rest will be gone within four years, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

The UN and the NGO’s told our US State Department (Ellen Sauerbrey at the time) to jump and we did.  The US has promised to take 60,000 Bhutanese (really Nepalese) over the next 5 years.

The Maoists have been fighting to keep their fellow Nepalese in the camps.  But, there could be a silver lining for the Maoists if people are resettled.  Is Frelick now having a little remorse about pushing resettlement?

Frelick said the insurgents could take advantage of the resettlement program by using future remittances to buy weapons and having camps void of more restrained voices. “You could end up with all the more moderate people leaving the camps,” he said.

Wouldn’t it have made more sense to let Bhutan and Nepal work this out themselves instead of letting NGO’s and the UN micro-manage every dispute over territory and culture in every tiny corner of the world?

Earth Day plus one: more ‘climate change’ refugees on the move

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, surprise, surprise, they want to move to neighborhoods in the First World.  Our friends at Blue Ridge Forum sent this to us yesterday, but am just getting to it this morning and don’t have time to do it justice.   But, I want you to see this excellent (and humorous) article at American Thinker by Brian Sussman entitled, “Sinking Islands or Stinking Islands?”

Sussman begins:

The headline on Monday read, “Climate refugees in Pacific flee rising seas“. Boy did the editors get this one wrong. A more accurate caption would have been, “Jesse Jackson-like shake-down gets tribe taken off tropical trash heap”.

A focus of the story was the tiny South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu. Apparently New Zealand responded to the phony cries of a few goo-goo activists, and is now convinced that unless the Tuvaluans are allowed to immigrate, they’ll soon be blubbing with the fish. Of course, the calculable cause of this sinkage is a steadily rising sea fed by anthropogenic global warming.

Rubbish. Literally.

He concludes that the ‘crisis’ of a rising sea level is a myth perpetuated for political reasons by Al Gore and his friends around the world.  Read the whole article!

So, while Mr. Gore conveniently lifted certain facts from the record when creating his film, he will no doubt champion the recent evacuations as prophetic vindication. Tuvalu is being decamped while New Zealand is being played like a cheap ukulele.

This incident has been diabolically concocted by global warming zealots, who are recruiting convenient poster children, so that when they convene in Copenhagen for the big climate change powwow this December, they’ll be able to stick another sharp pin in their global warming voodoo doll.

Here is an archive of all the posts we have written about “climate change” refugees.  I wish I had time to say more, because this is a subject near and dear to my heart since my undergraduate and postgraduate degrees are in environmental studies and  I worked as an environmental lobbyist.  I KNOW these zealots!

Later I’ll make a new category here at RRW for “climate change” refugees because I have a sneaking feeling we will be hearing more about this hot topic.

Get ready for “climate refugees!”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I told you about this incredible campaign back in December, but there is more today.  Participants in the global warming crusade (notice now that the climate is cooling, “climate change” is the operative phrase) are pushing for a redefinition of ‘refugees’ to accomodate their apocalyptic view that in a few short years we will have millions of people escaping “climate change” who need to be resettled in your community.

I don’t have the time or patience to analyze this lengthy article published at something called the International Relations and Security Network, so read the whole thing.    

The problem of defining ‘climate refugee.’

Albeit popular in the press, the term “climate refugee” enjoys no legal authority. The 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees is the core treaty of international refugee law. Article 1 defines a refugee as any person who “owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.” The definition does not afford binding legal protection to environmentally displaced persons, and focuses instead on political refugees and refugees of violent conflict.

A 1967 Protocol later amended the 1951 Convention and removed geographic and time constraints, rendering the convention a more universal document. Climate refugees, however, remained outside the legal framework. The UN world recognizes this dissimilarity and employs a verbose working definition instead – “environmentally induced migrant.”

The result puts humanitarians and environmentalists compassionately at odds. Humanitarians argue their limited resources are already overstretched. Environmentalists note that climate change and consequently environmental displacement are byproducts of human-led industrialization. Sheltering those victimized by climate change is a moral and security imperative.

We will need new funding and resettlement schemes (no doubt!).

Eventually, to avoid the most adverse of scenarios, resettlement and funding schemes will be needed. Civil society is leading the charge. Due to their proximity to the Pacific islands, the governments of Australia and New Zealand have become early targets of pressure.

The right to resettlement, however, begs a fundamental question: How does the international community distinguish between victims of climate change and casualties of unsustainable development? Professor Biermann explains that although this distinction may be useful in the developed world, elsewhere it is unfitting. “It is difficult to say for developing countries […] you can’t tell the Egyptians its your problem that you settled in the Nile [Delta], because this what they have been doing for the last 5,000 years.

“[That] is why we make the distinction between climate refugees and other refugees – because of the moral link between causation and consequence. Rich industrialized countries, they have been responsible for the largest part of this problem.”

Refugees are not a blessing.  Really?   I thought diversity strengthened communities.

Any resettlement, nevertheless, will likely be onerous. Displaced populations may be forced to take up residence in foreign countries, straining cultural traditions and in certain cases the very existence of their national identities. Refugees, never mind their genesis, are rarely regarded as a blessing. They necessitate costly assistance and their presence – albeit through no fault of their own – frequently engenders political strife with local communities, all the more reason for drafting resettlement schemes early on.

As I said, get ready.