Bomb Blasts and Refugee Crisis

Following the recent bomb blasts in the country, most of the newspapers worldwide seem to be reviving the so called refugee dilemma.

Violence haunts Bhutan's refugees, reads the BBC headline. Harriet Grant of the BBC World Service Nepal says, 'the refugees are ethnic Nepalese forced out of Bhutan in the 1990s by the government, which was concerned with the rising influence of a sizeable Hindu minority in the Buddhist country.'

His Majesty the Fourth King pleaded with some of these people not to leave the country. But they left, of their own accord, without heeding to the pleas of His Majesty.

Bombs in Bhutan stir refugee crisis, writes Mohan Balaji of the Asia Times Online, stating that the blasts is a powerful reminder of the simmering refugee problem that has long plagued the ruling government and tarnished the reputation of the tiny Himalayan kingdom often referred to as Shangri-La.

He further states that Bhutanese refugees are called Lhotshampas, which is totally untrue. People who left Bhutan after destroying infrastructures, murdered fellow citizens and disturbed the trainquility of the nation were termed as ngolops or terrorists. People who live in the south of Bhutan are known as Lhotshampas or Southeners just as the people in the East are known as Sharchokpas (Easterners).

History depends on who write them. Truth can be distorted or hidden.

The recent bomb blasts could be the work of one of the militant organisations, aptly named the Bhutan Tiger Force, the Bhutan Maoists Party, or the Communist Party of Bhutan. Yet nothing can be sure until the investigation is completed.

The blasts is under investigation according to Kuenselonline.