29 Aug 2009

NEPAL / BHUTAN REFUGEES

You can’t work, study or live freely in the land of your forefathers – and you can’t return to the land of your birth. That’s the sad predicament facing more than 100,000 people in refugee camps in Nepal, who are desperate to return to nearby Bhutan. UNTV / ROCKHOPPER.TV

Posted at: August 29, 2009 12:23 am

Duration: 07:51

Available in: SD

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Full script

STORY: NEPAL / BHUTAN REFUGEES
TRT: 7.51
SOURCE: 21ST CENTURY / ROCKHOPPER.TV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NEPALI / NATS

DATELINE: RECENT, BELDANGI, NEPAL / FILE

SHOTLIST:

RECENT, BELDANGI CAMP, NEPAL

1. Various shots, people walking in village
2. Various shots, midwife advising a woman
3. Various shots, men playing soccer
4. Wide shot, man riding bike
5. Close up, barbed wire
6. Various shots, people in barbed wired camp 
7. Med shot, military check point
8. Various shots, camp scenes
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Chandra Maya Khatiwada, refugee:
"For us life is very limited, very restricted. We are not allowed to go outside and work. It's like life in the jail."   
10. Med shot, playing soccer
11. Various shots, camp

FILE – UNTV – DATE UNKNOWN, BHUTAN

12. Various shots, Bhutan

RECENT, BELDANGI CAMP, NEPAL

14. Various shots, Chandra in camp
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Chandra Maya Khatiwada, refugee:
"Our house was here and my neighbor was there, so far away and you had to shout 'Aaah' when you called the neighbors. Not like here."
14. Close up, map

FILE – UNTV – DATE UNKNOWN, BHUTAN

15. Various shots, view of mountains and urban life in Bhutan
16. Various shots, former Bhutanese ruler and court

RECENT, BELDANGI CAMP, NEPAL

17. Close up, Chandra's father
18. SOUNDBITE (Nepali) Chandra's Father:
"They gave us 15 days' notice to vacate our houses. If we didn't obey we would be put in jail."
19. Close up, map
20. SOUNDBITE (Nepali) Chandra's Mother:
"They were taking all the men and beating them. I feared that my husband would be beaten too."
21. Close up, plate full of potatoes and vegetables
22. Med shot, Chandra cleaning pots
23. SOUNDBITE (English) Chandra Maya Khatiwada, refugee:
"He did like, 'Oh, you are still here? You should have left the country already – you are still here.' I thought I was lost, so scared. "
24. Wide shot, white van on camp road
25. Wide shot, people in camp
26. Med shot, woman carrying basket on back
27. Various shots, refugees in camp

DATE UNKNOWN, BHUTAN

28. SOUNDBITE (English) Lyonpo Khandku Wangchuk, Minister of Information, Bhutan:
"The issue of the people in the camps is not a typical refugee issue, it's far more complex. It had its genesis in illegal immigration as far as Bhutan is concerned."

RECENT, NEPAL

29. Various shots, city scenes
30. SOUNDBITE (English) Rudra Kumar, Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Nepal:
"Nepal gave humanitarian assistance in hope they will be going back to their country. We ourselves have a lot of problems here and it is not possible for us to accommodate them in this country."
31. Various shots, camp check point 
32. Med shot, children walking to school
33. Various shots, children singing at school
34. Med shot, Chandra reading
35. SOUNDBITE (English) Chandra Maya Khatiwada, refugee:
"Very deep inside I feel that Bhutan is still my country, my birthplace. I cannot forget it at all, never."

FILE – DATE UNKNOWN, BHUTAN

36. Wide shot, Bhutan view
  
RECENT, BELDANGI CAMP, NEPAL

37. Med shot, man on bike behind barbed wire
38. Various shots, camp scenes
39. Med shot, men filling bags with grain
40. Med shot, truck 
41. Various shots, people waiting on benches
42. Various shots, people walking through wire doors
43. Various shots, woman and child talking to nurse
44. SOUNDBITE (English) Chandra Maya Khatiwada, refugee:
 "Still now we have been trying to go back to Bhutan for so many years. But there is not any positive result. So now going to a third country is the only best option for me. That's why I am leaving for America."
45. Various shots, people waiting on benches 
46. Wide shot, Prem playing soccer
47. Various shots, Prem packing his belongings
48. SOUNDBITE (English) Prem, refugee:
"This is Ganesh. We don't get any Ganeshes in the US so we are taking from Nepal."
49. Various shots, Prem packing his stuff
50. SOUNDBITE (English) Prem, refugee:
"I feel so much sad. But it is right to go to the US also because I want to make my future bright. I want to play football like the other people who play in America."
51. Med shot, mother putting red ink on her son's forehead
52. Various shots, sister hugging brother, mother crying
53. Various shots, refugees waiting to leave on bus
54. Wide shot, Prem approaching bus
55. Wide shot, Prem waving good-bye from bus

STORYLINE:

Beldangi looks like a bustling Nepalese village.

A midwife advises a client on her pregnancy – and a young man plays football with his friends.

But in fact, this is no ordinary village, this is a refugee camp.

These people are stateless; with no country they can officially call their own.

They can't even set foot beyond its boundaries without written permission.

SOUNDBITE (English) Chandra Maya Khatiwada, refugee:
"For us life is very limited, very restricted. We are not allowed to go outside and work. It's like life in the jail."

Chandra Maya Khatiwada and Prem Khadka were both born in Bhutan – but for almost twenty years both have been blocked from returning to the land of their birth.

In Bhutan Chandra used to work as a qualified midwife. Now she shares a hut with their family, and misses the spacious living she enjoyed in her earlier life.

SOUNDBITE (English) Chandra Maya Khatiwada, refugee:
"Our house was here and my neighbor was there, so far away and you had to shout 'Aaah' when you called the neighbors. Not like here."

Chandra is descendant of Nepalese people who began migrating to nearby Bhutan over a century ago, when they were recruited to cultivate land there.

By the late 1980s, a census showed that the Nepalese population, Hindu by religion, had nearly overtaken Bhutan's traditional Buddhist majority.

Amid fears that Buddhist culture would be overwhelmed the country's ruler, King Jigme Sigme Wangchuk, imposed tough new citizenship laws on ethnic Nepalis. Their language was banned in school, and many were accused of being illegal immigrants. That's what happened to Chandra's parents.

SOUNDBITE (Nepali) Chandra's father:
"They gave us 15 days' notice to vacate our houses. If we didn't obey we would be put in jail."

As violence and fear spread, Chandra's parents joined a massive exodus back to Nepal.

SOUNDBITE (Nepali) Chandra's Mother:
"They were taking all the men and beating them. I feared that my husband would be beaten too."

Chandra was completely unaware of all this. She lived many miles from her parents and had no idea they had left. But the Bhutanese authorities knew.  Six months later, she was confronted by a local official, who demanded that she leave immediately.

SOUNDBITE (English) Chandra Maya Khatiwada, refugee:
"He did like, 'Oh, you are still here? You should have left the country already – you are still here.' I though I was lost, so scared."

Then a fellow refugee brought Chandra here to the camps in Nepal, where she was reunited with her family. In all more than 100,000 ethnic Nepalese became refugees.

Most maintain they are legal citizens of Bhutan, a claim denied by Bhutan's Minister of Information, Lyonpo Khandku Wangchuk.

SOUNDBITE (English) Lyonpo Khandku Wangchuk, Minister of Information, Bhutan:
"The issue of the people in the camps is not a typical refugee issue, it's far more complex. It had its genesis in illegal immigration as far as Bhutan is concerned."

Meanwhile their new host country, Nepal, ravaged by its recently-ended civil war, also balks at granting them citizenship.  Nepal's Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Rudra Kumar.

SOUNDBITE (English) Rudra Kumar, Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Nepal:
"Nepal gave humanitarian assistance in hope they will be going back to their country. We ourselves have a lot of problems here and it is not possible for us to accommodate them in this country."

Fifteen rounds of talks between the governments of Nepal and Bhutan have failed to shift this impasse. But that's done nothing to diminish the refugees' longing to return. They teach their children the national anthem of Bhutan, a country they've never been to.

Chandra shares this sense of loss.

SOUNDBITE (English) Chandra Maya Khatiwada, refugee:
"Very deep inside I feel that Bhutan is still my country, my birthplace, I cannot forget it at all, never."

But that birthplace remains a distant dream: and life for refugees in the camp continues to be a struggle. They are totally dependent on massive food supplies trucked in by the World Food Programme every month.

Faced with the deadlock, many refugees have reluctantly accepted another way out: resettlement in a country in the West. Seven nations including Canada, Denmark, Australia and the United States, have opened their doors.

These refugees have taken language lessons and they've come for a medical check-up before leaving; so far 60,000 out of 108,000 have signed up to go. Among them is Chandra.

SOUNDBITE (English) Chandra Maya Khatiwada, refugee:
"'Till now we have been trying to go back to Bhutan for so many years. But there is not any positive result. So now going to a third country is the only best option for me. That's why I am leaving for America."

For many, choosing resettlement is a wrenching decision – meaning separation from family and loved ones. Prem, the football enthusiast, is also getting ready to leave for the US.  He's been in the camps since the age of four. Not sure what he'll find in his new country, he's taking a bit of his past with him for protection.

SOUNDBITE (English) Prem, refugee:
"This is Ganesh; we don't get any Ganeshes in the US so we are taking from Nepal."

Once in the US he hopes to create a better future by getting a job in the sports industry.

SOUNDBITE (English) Prem, refugee:
"I feel so much sad. But it is right to go to the US also because I want to make my future bright. I want to play football like the other people who play in America."
   
The rest of the family says farewell to Prem and his brother Brin with a Hindu ritual to bless them on their journey. But the good wishes are interrupted by the tears of his mother, and then his sister who will be staying behind with her husband.

For most of his 24 years, Prem has been confined to a refugee camp, but now he is determined to explore a new life, and is on his way.  So far, over 10,000 have left the camps. Many thousands more refugees are set to follow him, for the promise of finding a state where they can at last become free citizens.

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