RGOB planned ceding southern belt to India
Kakarvitta, July 24: Desperately, the Bhutanese regime offered to chop its southern belt and cede to India where the Bhutanese citizens of Nepali origin could be resettled.
National Front for Democracy (NFD) quoted text by Prof. Mahendra P Lama of School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University in a paper entitled “The Politics, Human Rights and Implications of Protracted Refugee Situations," brought out by Oxford University, United Nations University, Tokyo and Centre for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA and released in June 2007 to have mentioned the following text:
…"Discussion by this researcher with various senior Indian officials has revealed very many interesting parleys between India and Bhutan. The offer by Bhutan to part with one of the districts in southern Bhutan and handing the same over to India for re-settlement of the refugees and other Nepali speaking Bhutanese citizens has often been mentioned. Given its serious international ramifications, this was apparently discarded by India as a desperate proposal from Bhutan…." [Page 29]
The NDF, while thanking India for subsequently discarding the agenda as a desperate proposal from Bhutan and in view of its serious international ramifications, takes this as a very serious but deliberate anti-national attempt of despotic regime to disintegrate the country in order to continue holding on to the power.
A statement by the political coalition says it strongly condemns such nefarious acts and would hold the present incumbents responsible in the event that even an inch of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country is compromised.
The NFD suggested the government that the entire present imbroglio plaguing the nation can be solved decently through "National Political Harmonization Program" as already initiated vide April 21 this year memorandum submitted to the king.
It further said, it will launch mass awareness campaigning inside Bhutan which could even include the call of non-violent movement like general strikes in the Himalayan Kingdom and taking the issues to the international forums as means of retaliation to the anti-national policies of the government. Bhutan News Service