Shipping out?

It seems serious, though you can never quite tell about this sort of thing. Certainly the early October announcement by the United States that it is willing to take in almost 60 percent of the Bhutani refugees languishing in Nepal is some of the most serious rhetoric to arise from the 16-year-old issue in a long while, if not since the very beginning of the ordeal. The news was followed by reports that several other countries, including Canada and Australia, have offered to take in smaller numbers.

The refugees themselves are taking the sudden development very seriously indeed, although for seemingly diametrically opposed reasons. Following the US announcement, secretaries at six of the seven refugee camps in southeast Nepal publicly lauded the offer, assuring naysayers that the Thimphu government could still be effectively pressured by refugees who resettle abroad. Others, particularly several high-profile refugee leaders, including onetime prisoner of conscience Tek Nath Rizal, have long warned against such resettlement offers for the possibility of splintering the refugee cause. They decry the US offer, and UNHCR for being amenable to the idea. Rizal believes that such initiatives provide tacit approval to Thimphu's early 1990s expulsion of the Nepali-speaking Lhotshampa, and he has accused the US along with the international community of "working to defend the Bhutanese king".