After US Republican Congressman, Steve Chabot expressed satisfaction over Nepal’s treatment of Tibetan refugees in late September, another US Congressman from the same party threatened to cut American aid unless Nepal improved its record on the issue. Republican Representative Frank Wolf, a member of the House Appropriations Committee that oversees US funding, said he will try to block funding to Nepal unless it provides safe exit visas to Tibetans, AFP reported from Washington on Thursday. Wolf was speaking at a hearing in the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the US House of Representatives on the issue of human rights in Tibet. Wolf also co-chairs the commission with Congressman James P McGovern (Democrat). No transcript or testimony of the hearing was posted on the commission’s website. “We’re not just going to cut them, we’re going to zero them out,” AFP quoted Wolf as saying. “If they’re not willing to do it, then they don’t share our values and if they don’t share our values, we do not want to share our dollars,” he said in the hearing, in which, Tibetan Prime Minister-in-exile Lobsang Sangay had testified. The Tibetan leader urged the US to do more to pile pressure on China. 

In Washington, Wolf’s spokesperson Daniel Scandling was not immediately available on the phone for firsthand comments, and an email enquiry from the Post had not been returned by the time we went to press. However, on September 30, during his visit to Nepal, Chabot had positive things to say. “I am impressed by what the Government of Nepal has been doing about the Tibetan refugees,” he told a press conference in Kathmandu. He was flanked by US Ambassador to Nepal Scott H DeLisi then. US embassy officials in Kathmandu had no immediate response, but a spokesperson noted, possibly referring to the September 30 press conference, that the US ambassador DeLisi had publicly recognised “all that Nepal has done for the Tibetans in Nepal who seek safe passage to India.” Though Nepal is not a signatory to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugee, since the early 1990s it has allowed safe passage to Tibetan refugees under a “Gentlemen’s Agreement” with the UNHCR and Western countries. “As per the agreement, UNHCR will be facilitating the safe transit of Tibetan new arrivals to India.

 

There is a commitment from both the UNHCR and Nepali government to continue the existing system which is based on Nepal’s international obligations,” Stéphane Jaquemet, the country representative of UNHCR had told the Post in an interview in September last year. Last year, a US official speaking on background said that they recognise that Nepal finds itself in an awkward position on the Tibetan issue, and that it has mostly honoured the terms of the “Gentleman’s Agreement.” The official also said that it was difficult to make politicians in Washington, who have their own constituency to cater to, the nuances of diplomacy. The Tibetan issue is high on US agenda. In February, during her visit to Nepal, US Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Maria Otero had expressed concerns about Nepal’s increasingly assertive policy towards Tibetan refugees. “She expressed concerns about the Nepal government’s policy with regard to Tibetan refugees arriving in the country as well as identification of refugees who have been living in Nepal for decades,” the then prime minister’s Foreign Affairs Adviser, Milan Tuladhar, had said in a statement. Wolf said on Thursday that he would lobby for dropping the aid to Nepal if Nepal’s record on Tibetans dœs not improve by next year, AFP reported. The US Agency for International Development says it provided $80.474 million in 2011 and to date, Washington has provided $153.938 million through bilateral agreements.