In an interview given to the Nepali newspaper Republica on 03 October 2009, Nepal's Home Minister Bhim Rawal has confirmed that his country intends to gradually deploy units of the Armed Police Force (APF) along the Tibetan border. Although the move appears connected with a recent visit to China by Nepal's Foreign Minister, its exact objective remains unclear.
The deployment is officially taking place as part of the Special Security Plan (SSP), which was drafted during the summer of 2009 in order to improve law and order across the country. The primary objective of the SSP is, however, to restore state authority in the Terai, the plains region bordering India, which has long been plagued by the activities of a multitude of criminal gangs and, sometimes violent, political agitation.
In early October, a 25-man APF team led by inspector Damodar Dhodari was sent to the Mustang region, an area bordering Tibet that is mainly populated by ethnic groups closely related to Tibetans, to study the deployment of the border security force and in particular figure out the number of checkpoints to be manned along the border. Currently, there is only one Nepali police checkpoint at Lo Manthang in northern Mustang, which will be expanded to 150 after the current study. A similar team has reportedly been sent to the neighbouring Manang region with the same objectives. Minister Rawal, who has recently visited Mustang and Manang, spoke of the APF deployment as a "national plan" and specified "there is no connection of [sic] the ministerial or the [Nepali] government level visits to China [on September 2009] (...) to the plan of deploying APF along the northern border", adding he has "not felt any pressure at any time".
However, during her recent visit to China, Nepal's minister of foreign affairs Sujata Koirala met with the Chinese Public Security Minister Meng Jianzhu in Beijing on 10 September 2009. A report carried by the China Tibet Information Center stated that the objective of the meeting was to "strengthen cooperation on border security". Quoting Meng, the report spoke of "collaboration and mutual support" and of "China-Nepal law-enforcing cooperation" to "effectively safeguard the border security and the stability of both nations' domestic social order". According to the report, Koirala "pledged that the Nepali government would tighten security measures on checkpoints along the borders to prevent illegal entries". The Himalayan Times, in Kathmandu, reported that on the eve of her departure for Beijing, Koirala conferred "about security matters" with the Chief of the Army Staff, Chhatra Man Singh Gurung, the head of the Nepali police, Ramesh Chanda Thakuri, and the head of the APF, Sanat Kumar Basnet.
In the interview on 03 October, Minister Rawal specified that the plan to deploy APF along the Tibet border is "to make our border secure and free from infiltration from any criminal activities". "We do not want to allow any elements to carry out activities in Nepali soil against any of our friendly countries", he added. Given the political situation in Nepal, he said, "We have to put our utmost efforts to make our border secure and efficient [sic] to control any type of violent activities".
What exactly is to be achieved by deploying the APF along the border and any tangible impact it will have remains to be seen. Nepal's border with Tibet is undoubtedly the scene of intense smuggling activities, in which local authorities on both sides of the border have been involved. Tibetan exile activists have staged symbolic marches to Tibet, but these were all peaceful and the Nepalese authorities stopped them long before they reached the border area. No substantial reports have emerged that describe serious security concerns in the region, let alone "violent activities" by Tibetans linked to cross-border movements.
The "illegal entries" mentioned by Chinese Public Security Minister Meng may refer to the Tibetans who come to visit relatives in Nepal or India, or to see the Dalai Lama, or to go on pilgrimages to India. Many of these cross the border illegally because the Chinese authorities effectively refuse to issue them with valid papers. They cross the border southbound to leave Tibet and most of them eventually cross again, this time northbound to return home. They are treated as refugees by international organisations and Nepal is bound by agreements not to criminalise them or return them against their will. Once in Nepal, these Tibetans generally maintain a very low-key profile and there are no indications that they become involved in anti-China activities on Nepalese territory.
Finally, Mustang is an isolated region easier to access from Tibet than from Nepal. Refugees very rarely use the route through Mustang as it is easy to control from the Tibetan side - their main route passes through the Everest region in Eastern Nepal. The number of Tibetan refugees who have settled in Mustang or surrounding areas is very small and there are no known reports about them conducting any political activities.