Penniless Gurkhas Turn To UK Charity After Joanna Lumley Campaign

London Times ^ | January 05th 2010 | Michael Evans

[Steelfish]

January 6 Penniless Gurkhas Turn To UK Charity After Joanna Lumley Campaign

Michael Evans

Military charities are being swamped by penniless Gurkhas and their families arriving at Heathrow to settle in Britain after the campaign last year to allow them to live in this country.

About half a dozen Gurkhas and their families have been arriving every day since before Christmas to take up the offer of residence made by the Government after the campaign led by Joanna Lumley, the actress.

Up to 12,000 Gurkhas are expected to apply for settlement in Britain over the next three years. But the military charities warned yesterday that the Gurkhas were arriving with little money and nowhere to stay.

“Many of them have come down from the hills in Nepal after the end of the festivals and have then gone to their landowners to borrow money for flights and visas to London,” Annabelle Fuller of the Army Benevolent Fund said.

“They are arriving with no money and huge debts and no idea about the circumstances here in the UK, and they are coming to us for help. The Ministry of Defence warned that this would happen, but when the campaign was running all the media focus was on the rights of the Gurkhas to settle in Britain.”

The Army Benevolent Fund said that the Gurkhas were not going to Kathmandu, the capital, where the MoD has set up a resettlement office to provide information about life in Britain, including the difficulty of finding jobs and the cost of renting accommodation.

“Instead they’re getting into huge debt by borrowing money using their pensions as collateral, and arrive at Heathrow with nothing,” Ms Fuller said. The pensions they receive in Nepal “are fine for living in their own country but inadequate for coming to ....

[submarinerswife]

Is this payback for the Gurkhas helping the Brits in WWII? (They were fearless with a 14 inch knife.) If not, why would their defense dept be involved?

[RicocheT]

The British Home Office should hire these immigrant Gurkhas (the males), make them policemen and give them those long rattan batons. They would have no reservations against beating rioting Pakkis or East Indians. Could be handy to have working in certain London suburbs or in the other large cities in the U.K.

[ARepublicanForAllReasons]

Are not the Gurkhas the famed 'most-feared' and fearless mountain fighters the world has known?
What we could accomplish if Maggie and Ron were still PM and POTUS. Re-arm the men, send them back to save Nepal from the Commies, then move on to a major offensive to liberate Tibet, with US, GB and India joining forces. That would surely put a hair up China'a ass!

Ah, but I dream. Back to present day reality.

[James C. Bennett]

The rioting is by Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims in Britain.

The Gurkhas are Hindu.

For a good idea of the cultural differences amongst the above, consider the following study:

http://www.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4434146.stm

[DieHard the Hunter]

What is happening to the Gurkhas is a travesty. The whole lot of them ought to be re-pensioned with proper British military pensions, for a start — not the cheap nasty little pensions they are given to live in Nepal. Resettlement in the UK ought to be automatic and at the Crown’s expense upon honorable discharge.

And they would make a tidy little enhancement to any British police force — particularly for dealing with rioting muslims.

Failing that, the United States could pick up some excellent, skilled immigrant workers, for the price of a plane ticket and a green card. With the added bonus that they would certainly qualify for your elite armed forces if asked to, or perhaps they could be put to good use settling the crime issues along the southern US Borders.