PM Thinley returned happy from Maldives. He was successful in gaining Pakistan’s affirmative response. Bhutan’s monarch took up challenge to successfully convince Bangladeshi leaders to support Bhutan. New Delhi seems silently positive to see Bhutan in the UNSC. India is in the UNSC and if Bhutan is elected, these two neighbors shall remain members for a year, during which they can flank other UNSC members to push through the change in the UNSC membership. India is proposing a change in the charter, which if successful, will increase both permanent and non-permanent members in the UNSC.

While in Nepal; PM Thinley met President Dr. Ram Baran Yadav, his counterpart Jhalanath Khanal, Maoist Party Chairman Puspa Kamal Dahal, former Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal and other good old friends. Bhutanese delegation wanted an assurance of vote from Nepalese leaders, in written, which only they failed to receive. After a depressing return from Kathmandu, PM Thinley, who rushed to Kabul, called on President Hamid Karzai and shared greetings of good wills. From among the SAARC nations, Bhutan received the weakest assurance from Nepal. But Nepal’s stance is equally important as any other Asian nations’.

Bhutan is seeking a non-permanent seat in the UNSC in the upcoming election in UNGA, for one of the two seats reserved for Asian Group of nations. In global political tussle, tiny Bhutan is constantly sidelined, used as a voter for rich and powerful states, and is seldom voted to any UN top posts. In a four decade long, loyal membership to the UNO, Bhutan has never been voted to the UNSC. The weakness lies not on the state but on the policies of the UN, that keeps less advantaged nations deprived from rights and opportunities.

The UNSC has 15 members; five of them—USA, UK, Russia, China and France are permanent members, whose one “No” can nullify “14 Yeses” from the remaining. The remaining 10 seats are filled by other UNO member states, which are divided into 5 regional groups. Each group has one to three members. At present, 192 states are members of the UN; only 117 members have been the member of the UNSC and most of them repeatedly. The five regional groups occupy, in turn, ten non-permanent seats in the UNSC. African group gets three seats, Asian group, Latin American & Caribbean Group, and Western European and others group have 2 seats each and the East European group has one seat. Once elected, the tenure is for 2 years and every year five members retire. The member state that retires cannot contest for next immediate election.

Bhutan belongs to the Asia group. There are 53 member states in Asia Group. At present, India and Lebanon are representing Asian countries in the UNSC. Lebanon’s membership ends on December 31, 2011 and India’s in 2012 and each to be replaced by an Asian member state. The competition is tough, and Bhutan lacks the money power and aid assurances, which the powerful countries commit to secure votes in their support.

For a state to be eligible, it must get selected from the regional bloc and later elected from UNGA. The representative from the elected member must be available in New York all the time throughout their tenure for emergency meetings.

Although the Security Council is the most powerful body under the UN system, it depends on the intelligence of the representatives and not just the size of the nation they come from, to deal with the world security issues.  An opportunity to serve in the UNSC boosts the disadvantages and less influential nations to gain leverage and recognition at the global level. It promotes the participating nation’s responsibilities over the global and domestic security concern. It catalyzes rapid improvement of domestic civil rights and conditions. Thus, the opportunity should be opened to a wider range of nations, disadvantaged and developing.

Bhutan has difficulties in gaining confidence of the permanent members of the UNSC as Bhutan has been rationally denying bilateral diplomatic ties with them. It should give rest of the nation an innocuous reason to trust Bhutan’s neutrality, non-alignment and impartiality in making judgments. Such characteristics are necessary in a member for UNSC’s function includes taking neutral roles in dispute and international issues, recommending or taking military actions against aggressors, recommending new members to the UN, recommending UNGA regarding the appointment of the UN secretary general, and electing the judges of international court of justice together with the UNGA.

Since the start of the five regional blocks in 1966, several countries became members of the council—some of them several times. Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, UAE, Vietnam and Yemen made it once; Bangladesh, Jordan, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines and Syria became members twice. Indonesia thrice, Pakistan five times, India six times and Japan nine times. There should be no dilemma why Bhutan should not be there once in more than four decades. Thailand is a good friend through royal relations while Myanmar and Bhutan share economic friendship. Bhutan is expecting a kind support from all Asian nations as well as from all the UN member states.

Since India and Lebanon cannot compete, India, Nepal and other friendly members of the region should have an ease in seconding and voting Bhutan to the UNSC for two years. Although Bhutan cannot afford to spend grants and aids for the seat, like other developed nations practice, Bhutan has enough reciprocal gratitude to receive from the members she has been voting for the last 40 years.

Bhutan has a good number of capable diplomats, who can successfully represent Asia in the world’s most powerful body. Prime Minister Thinley has a few names in his pocket.  Daw Penjo, Bhutan’s permanent representative to UN, Dago Tshering, the former Home Minister and present ambassador to India and Nepal, Sangay Ngedup, former minister for agriculture, Kinzang Dorji, another former minister, are at the top of his list. But there are other diplomats who can carry on the responsibilities even better.

Maldives, Bangladesh, Thailand, Myanmar, India, Pakistan, among others, appear supportive to Bhutan. Nepal and Afghanistan seem looking for big donor to buy their votes. The leaders in Kathmandu gave faint assurance to vote for Bhutan; political instability complicates assurance, as who may be at the power at the time of election is unpredictable. Asian nations’ vote to select Bhutan to represent them and later through an election in the UNGA to the UNSC membership will shape Bhutan’s image and build a affable trend of peaceful coexistence of big and small nations in Asia.

On the part of Bhutan, the leaders must intensify their diplomatic lobby. On the human rights ground, Bhutan should do two things—accept all the Bhutanese people, evicted by the former regime, from exile to create clean human right records, and avail more democratic liberties to the people in the country. The countries, which so ever,  receive requests from Bhutan, and or are willing to vote to Bhutan, should keep these two conditions strictly and see them implemented.

The best of all, should Bhutan gets elected to the UNSC seat, it will deliver a strong message of global justice on the smaller and weaker members of the UN.

(The author can be reached at: govindarizal@gmail.com)

It would be relevant to put forth few instances that may be interesting to the readers to read the real situation inside Bhutan. A Minister’s son goes to the government office, threatens life of a lady and batter for not processing the transfer of his girl friend. Then, he gets away compensating the lady with an amount of just Rs. 10,000.

Next, the Police officer goes to the remote village and beats up mother and son and further justifies his misdeed.

In contrast, a monk gets three years imprisonment for carrying few packets of tobacco ignorantly and for personal consumption with no ill intention of making profit or causing any health hazard to others.
Interestingly, a murderer get three year bailable sentence but non-bailable of three years imprisonment if one is caught carrying a packet of tobacco.

Not only the human rights organizations, even the women organizations that are supposed to protect the rights and safe guard the honor of women are turning deaf ear to the silents sufferings of the people. Bhutan government as its dual Character, befittingly maintains dual interpretation of law in Dzongkha and in English and apply whichever is suitable and convenient to punish the victims rather than using ingenuity of jurisprudence.

The Prime Minister Jigme Y Thinley speaks of equity and just in his every addresses. But, his ruthless treatment with injustice and unfair social welfare to the laborers who are in fact the back bone of the infrastructural developments could be easily interpreted. When the salary of the government employees and the MPs were revised two times in the span of three years, the wage of the laborers remained stagnant to Rs. 100 per day with hard labour from 7 am till 5pm. Although the labour Act 2007 enacted probably sans economic welfare as if the escalating price does not affect the poor. And soon Bhutan is going to become the member of the International Labor organization (ILO) which the ILO should allow unless the wage, security and social welfare of the laborers are compatible to International standard. The apathetic attitude towards the poor has been in fact boon for the rich.

The constitution says that Bhutan is a secular country and the king is the custodian of all the religions. The Buddhist philosophy and principles of respect, tolerance and co-existence is the fundamental guiding factor and pivot that GNH revolves on. In contrary to its secularism, Bhutan has not been respecting other religions. On 28th February 2011, 16 Christians, including three female while conducting prayer in Christian house in the remote village under Sarbhang district were arrested. They were set free after three days with a condition that they would not commit such offense of conducting Christian prayer.

Another Christian faith holder Prem Singh Gurung was arrested following documentary film show of Jesus Christ in Sarbhang district. He was convicted by the Galephu court for trying to create unrest, and not taking prior permission from the concerned authorities. He has been serving three years imprisonment. Ironically, although the Bhutanese government dislikes the Christian religion, it wholeheartedly welcomes the flow of millions dollar from the Christian hands.

Although the PM says they treat everyone equally, but in practical the actions are inhuman especially towards the southern Bhutanese who are perpetually subjected to discrimination and injustice.

One more example speaks of this reality. Despite his repeated attempt, a person could not get the name transferred to his own for the land that was inherited to him by his father. He went to the extent that he even approached the PM and even the king. He ended up getting arrested along with his land buyer for plucking own betel nuts and selling.

Some Drukpas who have some soft corner to the Nepalese have to risk their lives. Ms Dechen Wangmo, the owner of the Phajuding School in Phuntsholing who was sympathetic to the southern Bhutanese was alleged to have connived with the refugees and is jailed for 15 years.

Since 1990, the southern Bhutanese are expiated for no fault and are victims of biased justice, indifference and inequality. After 1990, there is no single recruitment of southern Bhutanese in the Royal Bhutan army, Royal Bhutan Police and Bhutan Arm Force. There is no single southern Bhutanese in civil administration. In foreign Ministry, the is even not a peon. There are about 80,000 relatives of the refugees who still are living in Bhutan but are people of neither there nor here. Their citizenship is in question and they have been deprived from every government opportunity. They have no right to cast vote.

It is mandatory to produce security clearance certificate from the police even for admission of children in the school. The relatives of refugees could not be issued security clearance. These people are categorized in seven categories in the census record and the stigma is the trade mark of non-entity. These people are not allowed to mend the land left by their kith and kin. Moreover, the lands are being distributed to northern Bhutanese creating complication in the event of repatriation. The government has changed the names of the blocks, villages and the land registration number in order to annihilate the southern Bhutanese and wipe off history and all the evidences of southern Bhutanese living there. The International Communities acting bystander has further supported the Druk dictators.

The core countries of aid for Bhutanese refugees, especially the United States of America, so called the champion of Human rights and democracy in the world is responsible for what is happening in Bhutan.

Unless the International communities work towards studying the real situation inside Bhutan, the government will always smother up the real facts with humility. Bombarding Libya in the name of protection of civilians to dethrone Gadaffi who is antagonist to western countries especially America may be praise worthy. Contrarily, praising and protecting king Jigme Singye Wangchuk and his predecessors who ruled the country with iron hand for 100 years could be harassment to the innocent Bhutanese. His successor, king Jigme Khesar Wangchuk who inherited the throne in 2007 has further aggravated the people’s sufferings.

GNH has been the privilege to the native-Drukpas only and it may be little appealing to the outsiders who do not know the real situation inside. It has a little flavor in the country which is overwhelmed by agony of tragedies, unhappiness, unemployment, poverty, injustice, suppression, nepotism and favoritism. In a real sense, the southern Bhutanese are the victims of Gross National Happiness.

The author is Chairman of the Human Rights Organization of Bhutan.

To a lay person, being happy means having clothes to keep warm during the freezing Himalayan winter and having money to buy medication when a family member is sick. To this person, Gross National Happiness might mean living in a house with family and working the farm, instead of living in slum by the side of the road doing unpaid, compulsory labor for the government.

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C. 2010 GlobalPost. This excerpt is reproduced with permission.

Yes, we are talking about Bhutan, and the person upon whom the horrendous torture was inflicted is none other than Bhutanese human rights leader Tek Nath Rizal. Rizal, a refugee leader in exile for more than a decade, has chronicled a harrowing tale of his prison life in Bhutan in his new book Torture Killing Me Softly. In nearly two hundred pages, he narrates his predicament while he was stuck in Bhutanese jails for a decade. The most startling aspect of the book—apart from the routine torture the state metes out to its opponents—is the use of sophisticated mind control devices by the ruling elite of Bhutan. One finds hard to reconcile the image of a pastoral country with its employing cutting-edge torture tools bestowed by modern science.

Rizal claims in the book that his Bhutanese torturers applied light sensitivity, very high sound decibels, and microwaves on him in order to destabilize his mind, induce anomalous behavioral changes and create disassociation. Dr. Indrajit Rai, a security expert and member of Nepal’s Constituent Assembly, in the foreword to the book, notes that mind control devices are used on prisoners-of-war. He writes, “Bhutanese government practiced mind-control techniques on Rizal as a means to inflict physical and mental pain in order to destroy his life. With a view to deviating him from his goal of fighting for democracy, the Bhutanese government used these devices on him and pumped out all his thoughts and feelings.”

The book begins with the description of Bhutan’s scenic beauty. But soon, a picture of exploitation emerges beneath the beauty: People who are forced to work en masse on a road construction are stamped on their faces as a proof of attendance. “Such dehumanizing practice reminded me of numbering animals in the heard by tattooing onto their body,” Rizal writes. Then, he goes on to explain the composition of Bhutanese population—Ngalongs (the ruling group mainly living in north), Sharchhokpas (Buddhist inhabitants of eastern and central region) and Lhotshampas (ethnic Nepalese living in southern Bhutan). He notes then existing communal harmony, as he comments, “For centuries, people belonging to these groups have lived in perfect communal, religious and ethnic harmony.”

But the harmony, in the hindsight, began to fall apart in the late 1970s when the newly enthroned king Jigme Singye Wangchuk enacted several laws aiming at the disenfranchisement of Lhotshampas who then represented one-third of the country’s population. The so-called “One Nation, One People” policy, an anachronistic campaign in a country marked by a mosaic of cultures, religion and ethnicity, stripped many ethnic Nepalese of Bhutanese citizenship and curtailed their basic rights. This spawned a series of protests in the late 1980s and early 1990s in southern Bhutan, eventually resulting in the mass exodus of the Lhotshampas. First, they arrived in West Bengal and Assam, in India, and stayed there for a couple of years. But the local governments in those Indian states, in an unabashed show of complicity with Bhutanese rulers, loaded the refugees in trucks and sent them to Kakkarbhitta, an entry point in Indo-Nepal border. As the flocks of refugees started to spill over in Jhapa, some of them taking temporary refuge on the banks of Mai River, the Nepal government invited UNHCR to intervene. Since 1991, around one hundred thousand refugees, the victims of what British scholar Michael Hutt calls “one of the world’s least known ethnic conflicts”, now languish in seven refugee camps in southeast Nepal (Many have opted for third country resettlement initiated by the US in 2008).

During this tumultuous period, Rizal was entrusted with several high-profile designations by the king: he was member of Royal Civil Service Commission, Royal Advisory Councilor, Member of the Cabinet and Coordinator of Nationwide Investigation Bureau. Under the last designation, he was tasked with investigating the corruption that was rampant in Bhutan during that time. But this job cost him very dear after he submitted his report in which he disclosed the involvement of royal members and influential officials in corruption. After a weeklong detention, he fled Bhutan in early 1989. But on November 16, 1989, he was arrested from his apartment in Birtamode, Jhapa, where he was spending his life in exile. He was arrested along with two Bhutanese youth leaders Jogen Gazmere and Sushil Pokharel and handed over to Bhutanese authorities. That happened under the auspices of Nepal’s autocratic Panchayat regime, which was about to collapse.

Torture takes us inside the poorly managed and decrepit Bhutanese prisons where Rizal undergoes inhuman persecution. “As I lay on the floor with my face covered with the blanket, it was as if I was in a comatose condition. I was not able to keep track of time, nor was I able to make any movement,” he recalls. The author quotes Jawaharlal Nehru, first Indian Prime Minister, who described the solitary confinement in Allahabad, India: “It is the killing of the spirit by the digress, the slow vivisection of the soul.” The book’s title seems to be derived from these lines.

At times, the book reads like a novel. The descriptions are vivid which made me wonder how the writer, without any note taking, was able to remember all the details. He even claims that 40 ethnic Nepalese from southern Bhutan were arrested after his interrogators were able to extract information from him using the mind control device. The well constructed narrative focuses on how the prisoners are treated in the kingdom’s jail. In Rabuna jail in Wangdi district, he writes, he had to struggle his hands through a small hole in the room to get hold of the food-platter on the otherside. And this he had to do, with his hands and legs cuffed in chains. He had to rely on other body organs: “Whenever I felt thirsty, I turned the water tap on and off with my teeth, the position of the tap next to the toilet made this an unenviable practice.”

The food was not only detrimental to health but was also adulterated with nails, pieces of glass, fish bones and dead insects. Here too, according to him, the mind control device that was applied on him in capital Thimpu, aggravated the harm. To further exacerbate the matter, he was positioned with the barrel of a gun pointed at him all the time. Once, he narrates, the prison authority allowed him to eat his food only after smoking 40 cigarettes. “This was the worst kind of torture I endured during my incarceration in Rabuna,” he writes.

Then, he was shifted to Dradulmakhang where on Bhutan’s National Day (December 17, 1997), he started his hunger strike. Following pressure from international human rights organizations including Amnesty International, he was released on December 17 1999.

But his ordeal did not cease. He claims that the effects of those torture techniques and devices persist in his life and continue to manifest in his health as he lives in Kathmandu or travels abroad.

There is no way to verify Rizal’s claims as the Bhutanese government that considers the refugees ‘illegal immigrants’ will surely brand it as another attempt to tarnish the kingdom. But we also can not call it entirely untrue when the account comes from a leader of Rizal’s stature. It’s evident from the annex under the heading of “suggested reading” that the author has researched a great deal about the use of electronic devices to control one’s mind. The epilogue reads: “The global agencies must verify the tall claims of the government of Bhutan independently whether it is ‘Gross National Happiness’ or the ‘Gross National Sufferings.’” Indeed, the cases of gross human rights violations as documented by Rizal in Torture cast a shadow over the so-called Shangri-La.

The texts taken from Nepalmonitor.com

Even after seven months Tala hydropower project was handed over to Druk Green Power Corporation, shopkeepers and house owners in Gedu town have not been able to increase their business as expected.

The business has in fact decreased compared to the days when the project was under construction.

Now after the THP infrastructure was handover over to the Royal University of Bhutan to be used by Gaddug College of Business Studies, more than 50 percent of the 700 plus THP staff left for Punatsangchu hydropower project. The majority of the remaining staff shifted to Areykha power site located some 15 km from Gedu town.

During the construction period, around 280 houses were hired as THP permanent residential buildings. Shortly, the company will use only 29 and the rest will be handed over to respective owners. 

When staffs living in 86 temporary THP houses move to Rinchetse next year, the business in Gedu will further go cold. The establishment of Business College does not seem to bring good business. The 856 college students have everything they need in the campus including canteens, grocery shops, cobbler, beauty parlor and a tailor’s shop.

Moreover, the hospital staff, the lecturers and teachers live in government quarters. The forest staffs have formed a small community with huts.

Many people with cars prefer going Phuensholing to buy basic necessities, which is just about 90 minutes drive. Frustrated, some shopkeepers have even quit their business. Repayment of bank loans has now become their major concern.

Economic Affairs Minister Khandu Wangchuk accompanied the Prime Minister in the sojourn. In Brazil, PM Thinley is scheduled to make a keynote address at the conference.

The fourth conference was held in Thimphu last year. It is the first time that South America is holding conference on GNH.