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Indian strike imposers burnt a Bhutanese taxi in Kokrajha of Assam, India, accusing it of violating the general shutdown in Assam and West Bengal, Tuesday.
Indian security official, who rescued the Bhutanese nationals, said all nine persons in the taxi were unharmed.
Of the nine persons, seven were put on a train to drop at Rangia station, about 50 kilometres away from Samdrup Jongkhar, reports BBS today. While, the driver and a passenger travelled safe to Gelephu.
A lecturer at the Tribhuwan University has expressed that resettled Bhutanese would never forget their identity and nationality despite news challenges faces them in resettlement countries.
In a special interview with Bhutan News Service, Tara Lal Shrestha (Ph.D) said that even genes of resettled Bhutanese have retained their nationality, and feeling of being Bhutanese citizens.
Shrestha’s Sapanako Samadi, a research-based novel on the Bhutanese refugee issue, has recently appeared in the Nepalese book market.
According to Shrestha, resettling Bhutanese are not opting to lead new lives in western countries at their own will. “It is their compulsion since no doors for repatriation have been opened as of now,” he said.
He further said, “I am sure the Bhutanese identity will never die.”
Bhutanese people living in Nelson have been caught up in a phone scam targeting vulnerable former refugees.
The Department of Internal Affairs is warning migrants to beware of a scam artist that appears to be targeting the Bhutanese communities in Christchurch, Nelson and Palmerston North, wrote Fairfax NZ News, Tuesday.
The caller introduced himself as being from the non-existent Asian Minority Group of Internal Affairs in Wellington and says he can provide citizenship, according to the report.
It further mentioned that he told them to pay money to a Nepalese account through Western Union, a money transfer service, to cover document transfer fees.
Internal Affairs general manager for regulatory and compliance operations, Maarten Quivooy, said the department had received several calls about the scam.
“The phoney caller appears to know detailed information about the families he is ringing and explains that he can provide citizenship,” he said.
“One person made two payments via Western Union of $984 and $485. We’re advising people who have called us that there is no such group in the department and not to pay any money.”
Nelson Refugee Services manager Gabrielle Humphreys said two Bhutanese families in Nelson had been caught up in the scam, but quick action was taken with volunteer support to close their bank accounts.
“I don’t think there was too much damage. Some families in Christchurch and Palmerston North have been targeted over several weeks. The scary thing is the scam person had personal details of these people,” she said.
Refugee Services chief executive Heather Hayden said former refugees were vulnerable people who came to New Zealand to build a new life and obtaining citizenship was an extremely significant part of that process for them.
“To exploit that particular element is shocking and absolutely reprehensible,” she said.
The Bhutanese currency lies on its belly as if some headache has really gotten worse. The King sleeps at its head, day and night trying to manoeuvre with his privileged education the course of relief into the system already infiltrated with parasitic organisms drenched in its blood exerting global and regional hegemony. But alas in vain!
What I have set out to do here is try to provide a more practical explanation to the changing Bhutanese economic plane rather than garland the King and the royal government with more accusations of torture and sabotage. Something that is so easy to be denied not just by the government but also by the people.
So I chose a different topic. Of course you might judge my perspective as that of an outsider: of a former refugee ever ready to criticise the regime. But face it, if you have the courage that there are certain general economic shifts which continue to occur in developing countries. These shifts have been researched and adequately affirmed as completely against the betterment of a society. So, these shifts require impartial explanation.
In fact the case of Bhutan provides further proof, of a rather convoluted kind, that what we presently see is nothing new.
Foreign Labour causing imbalance of trade?
Currently many news articles published on various news websites report the current economic problems of Bhutan. Some provide justifications for that as well. A current problem is the currency deficit. One of the explanations given to be the cause of the problem was foreign labour. Government official statements tell us that foreign labour takes away all the investment that Bhutan puts into its construction industry- hence an imbalance of trade is occurring. If this was correct then logically the state coffers are virtually empty. So, to speak the availability of Indian currency in Bhutan has been completely withdrawn.
But, how is it possible that the entire economy of Bhutan runs on foreign labour? Is the native professor who gets paid to teach at Royal Thimphu college foreign labour? Are the major businesses, the professions, the farms, hospitals and government sectors all run by foreign labour?
Is it just the lack of construction labour and/or crafts-persons, which is creating such a big imbalance in trade? Where are the thousands of Bhutanese citizens, whose labour creates value in the Bhutanese economy? Where? Who is to believe the news and to what extent?
If the facts provided by the articles on news websites are true enough, it is quite an irony to see a country which intends to be in complete balance with its entire social, ecological and political environment can neither balance its natural resources nor its labour to end up with an imbalanced economy. Yet envoys of the King buzz with happiness and sustainability principles wherever it goes. Empty talk without doubt!
It is important to say a few words on the Gross National Happiness before I move on to analyze the important economic issues.
Classification of the types of GNH
As a matter of fact Gross National Happiness (GNH) in Bhutan can be analogized to merely painkillers for the ones who consume it. For the others inside and outside Bhutan, it is an allergen of their environment. Neither can you ignore it nor can you withstand it. You sneeze in its presence and you feel anxious about its presence in its absence. The Chinese laugh but cordially out of politeness, the Indians acknowledge and grace your GNH ideas with the official smile allocated for a simpleton from rural India, people in the United States brag about your ideas at religious conferences, Australian parliamentarians crack a few jokes on the topic (what they do best) and the Buddha watches from his teachings, from the pages of holy texts, without happiness, fear, sadness or fervour. This is because the Buddha taught neither to gain nor to lose from anything. Pain is to be endured. Virtue is to be cultivated. Simply endeavour for knowledge and moksha. Or, what should be the happiest explanation to Buddha’s teachings, you tell?
So the question is can happiness, a truly abstract concept, an individual based feeling, be measured using a common national standard? What are the specific main types of happiness that will be measured, can someone from the government please elaborate? I am not talking about just one smile which will have to be categorized eventually. More prudently every context, every reason for a smile must be assigned a statistical value to be measured. Or else what is the point of GNH if it is just a feeling but cannot be averaged as the title gross suggests?
There is another alternative to GNH. After forty years since the former King Jigme Singye Wangchuk first pronounced his religious idea the alternative is to simply sack the idea. Simply talk about the debilitating economy of Bhutan in material and ecological terms!
GNH consumers
So for the average subjects of the King who consume the idea of GNH, this well packaged drug is an all-in-one remedy for all their growing number of ailments. First of these being: spendthrift behaviour to the detriment of the Tsawa-sum– king, country and people. I can imagine at this moment GNH must be making its effect most felt. Perhaps the mantras of the monks can also print Indian currency!
GNH must be a source of great mental relief at this hard corner despite the fact that an economic disease continues to grow and thrive. Indeed, it is visible because no one seems to be unhappy at all. Look at fellow citizens happily obeying cuts on the supply of Gandhi paper. When a God king lives and rules from the head, the body withstands the bad and the worse. The debate in Bhutan about the economy and Gross National Happiness is too shallow and religious. The innocently uneducated cannot be blamed at all; it is the literate westernized folks who continue to overlook the decadence GNH perpetrates on every sensible economic debate.
Agrarian economy basically
As a semi-agrarian, semi-herdsmen and also partially-industrial nation, Bhutan will perhaps remain in agony. It may never experience a crash of its economy in the western sense, because a capital market directly linked with the global market is absent. People haven’t forgotten their farming skills and are most likely to be able to live off their backyards for food even if another ten financial crises ravage the planet. Of course the rich will still import! No doubt. They will have their means.
But on a factual note the state has a huge foreign debt of more than US$779.9 m (2009) – Nu 40 billion. This debt is paid from the revenue the state collects every year. Whatever remains is to be allocated for development in various sectors.
And anyone can be sure that international debtors will perhaps not let the state of Bhutan simply disappear without paying its debt. The dictator will have to remain in power in the eyes of international moneylenders. It has happened in other parts of the world and continues to happen on a regular basis. This is because the mechanism to collect revenue that is in place will be much less efficient under a republican democracy than what is currently prevalent under the monarchy. The oligarchs can simply pass any kind of law to collect any type of revenue to increase the coffers.
However, under a republican democracy truly elected parliamentarians will face a much harder time trying to reduce services available to the public than just fulfil loan repayments. This is because the public will be watching with eyes much wider when they do not have to fear. So, efficient collection of revenue in this context means most of it will be payed off against international debts.
In a more radical scenario a newly formed republic state may wish to simply renounce itself free from the debts based on principles of state responsibilities. These are arguable things in international law provided a educated population completely rejects the basis on which these loans were accepted.
Occasionally debts are forgiven but not completely forgotten. International banks usually try to negotiate a drop of exchange rate to sustain a lower scale economy for extremely valuable resources. This is so that repayments continue infinitely. So, an arsenal of formulae for inflation will have been imposed to keep the value of resources in Bhutan always extremely low. And, so people will forever continue to slave under the King to repay the loans cent by cent in US currency.
One can comfortably ask, why does Bhutan need to pursue ecological destruction in hopes of a hydropower economy when the main agricultural economy from the plains and the tourism economy of the North are capable of being equally self-sustainable? Electricity could have been provided to almost all small towns and cities with smaller scale power stations which do not unnecessarily dam water on a large scale causing wide spread environmental destruction and most importantly costs less? Debts could be paid out far more quickly too. The government could have set up a proper government department collecting revenue from one mini-power station to pay for the installation of another.
Low scale businesses in the Bhutanese communal style could have propped up all over Bhutan with the widespread distribution of electricity and would have created better revenue from packed rare herbs or packed foods of the Himalayas. With enough agricultural produce many food products could have been processed in Bhutan with the energy at key agricultural locations, starting with the famous yak cheese. Rather than sending raw materials for a meagre sum, finished products could have crossed the borders. But, big hydropower stations stand today only to drain not just the water but also the wealth. The international loans are the not the key, it is the lock. Repayment of the loans is simply not mathematics; it involves the ongoing exploitation of natural and human resources. While the exploitation of resources expands in Bhutanese currency, the interest rates to the loans increase in western currency. The problem lies right there. They are simply unpayable loans.
Had it not been for the hydropower entrapment, agriculture and tourism would have sustained the exchange rate to a far sustainable extent. It is not being argued that Bhutan should not have electricity. Rather electricity should have been an energy resource to increase production not something to sell off to neighbouring countries to meet unreachable loan repayments.
No matter how low scale the economy, at least the people would have been happier to have a healthier economy than a bigger and an unsustainable one.
Doesn’t GNH mean striving for a greater balance with the environment and greater happiness – (whatever type it may be)?
The King neither tells you nor asks you why Bhutan should never have taken up huge hydropower debts. The King takes advice from international bankers and construction experts who are outsiders and who simply want to make money.
And, it is wise to remember exploiting resources of the East has and will continue to be a business for the West. It is an ongoing process till the end of time. The continuing neo-colonial history of the world right up to this day proves that business tyranny is irreversible unless tackled by a revolution. The exceptions that exist worldwide to the widespread rule are fewer now than it was half a century ago.
What was expected, and is interesting to note, is that now foreign eyes are being laid on mineral deposits of Bhutan. You see, once the debts soar into the sky it sets in a chain reaction of other debts and obligations to the regional superpowers or to the West. The King or the government is compelled to engage one natural resource to overpay the burden of another. And to overpay the other, another must be exploited. It sets in a chain reaction of environmental wreckage.
Yes, Bhutan will enter into this age of wreckage to preserve its current monarchical statehood. Or else it will simply go bankrupt. International finance is controlling everything. The King has gained nothing from this, neither the Shabdrung monks and nor the citizenry. The keys to the Bhutanese economy have already been transferred overseas and only a true revolution by the people can reclaim authority over its resources and its life. Surely, the King and his folks will live comfortably. The monks will remain revered by their slaves. But the rest will have to perhaps start thinking of rising above tyranny for there is no alternative!
Measuring GNH~ the new accounting system~ Measuring economic gains
The media is there to spread everything on the table. And, it takes only the least powerful eye-glasses to see a vision. As Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is on the rise as Prime Minister Thinley continuously reports the National Bureau of Statistics have taken up an interesting task. They are working on a method to calculate GNH. Environmental harmony is one of the core principles of the theory and is perhaps the most important. It is being theorized that based on the total natural resources of the country, GDP per person is worth US $ 1,584.90 million in 2010 out of a total of more than $700 billion per year. This is purely mathematics on paper rather than reality.
Keeping the environmental value in mind the next question which comes to my mind is does that mean Gross National Happiness is being calculated in dollars? Is it economically ascertainable?
Ok.
So Gross National Happiness is an economic concept? That is something that has been denied for the past forty years. Why does the valuation in US dollars amaze us and perhaps makes us a little happy? What if every state in this world carried out the same calculation? The differences between valuations of different nations would have been interesting to see. Bhutan is not the only country in the world which has resources. Almost every nook and crany of the planet has exploitable resources. But in fact Bhutan is an exception to have calculated the resources per person. So does that mean US $ 1,584.90 million will belong to each person? When? How? If an individual’s million dollar wealth is to be utilized will the government seek the permission of every citizen before using it?
Questions fly here and there. Will the upcoming mineral deposit boom pay royalties to individuals because the resources belong to each individual? Of course the answer is a No. It simply belongs to the state of Bhutan= King.
Bhutan is either putting its statehood at risk or simply joking. Indeed GNH is one of those few elegant jokes that manage to take out a real neat laugh every time you say Gross National Happiness!
Prime Minister preaches what he doesn’t follow!
The Prime Minister went on national television with great depravity but alas pointing out the lack of commitment on the part of the people of Bhutan with their spendthrift habits i.e. spending too much on Indian goodies. This must be understood with a deep sense of humour.
Indeed, the PM himself incurs expense- at home, parliament house to home, Bhutan to elsewhere, elsewhere to Bhutan on exported goods and services. It is more shameful to an onlooker than the person who gets lost in the open, as you can see evidently!
As everyone appears happy with the decisions of the government and also with the statement of the Prime Minister, I can logically deduce Gross National Happiness is inversely proportional to economic progress i.e. directly proportional to economic deterioration.
The Real Picture
The currency deficit is a clear sign of ‘unproductive’ use of natural resources even when so many rivers have been tapped into hydroelectricity, many mineral plants have opened up and tourism has soared; unproductive to meet loan repayments and public spending costs- even when productivity is claimed to be on the rise. How can this be possible? The Prime Minister continuously boasts an increase in GDP, then why does the currency still deteriorate?
Look GDP has increased yet there is no proper value in commodities to exchange outside the country. What must be clearly understood and I cannot better emphasize that though the process of producing exchange value can be on the rise this is not necessarily the case of the final product. Yes this means the methods to produce value – labour, investment and natural resource exploitation can grow. This is the process. However it is the final product that has less market value. This could happen for two reasons.
First the goods are not valuable. You cannot compare a kilo of bananas with a kilo of pure gold. Or the second reason which is the more likely cause in the case of Bhutan, is that currency negotiations intimately linked with resources expansions has simply devalued the real value of resources. This has been the case with the majority of the developing nations owing debts to international banks. E.g. Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Bangladesh, Eastern European and also many African countries. The globalization of poverty is generally on the rise. Plenty of evidence exists globally and perhaps also in Bhutan. If only one could get reports and papers relating to currency negotiations which are obviously well guarded national secrets. Any attempt to ask for these papers will be met with dark forces than gleeful photogenic smiles.
Additionally the increase in GDP is simply unmatched to the scale of increase in interest rates on external foreign debt. A major part of the revenue simply disappears to cover debts and interests. Even the little inflationary increase in value of the products of Bhutan is subsumed within the mother inflation of international debts.
On the whole we can use this analogy. Take for example a mug: Bhutan’s economy. It is scooped to gather water from productive natural resources the country possesses or produces. The point we always miss is that interest rates on international debts grow by western country standards. Every year the mug must get larger to meet obligations.
This is happening because the quantity of water owed to our external lender heroes always increases so that they can tap into the resources for their wealth for an infinite period of time. In their philosophy Bhutan of course is not supposed to overcome its debts. Whatever water remains in that mug for the sucked out Bhutanese population, must be divided amongst an ever increasing thirsty population; the rich and influential being the first ones to be served and the farmers and labourers of Bhutan the last. The very population which helps to exploit the resources of Bhutan continues to further get exploited. Unfortunately that is what will force the Bhutanese Government to increase its exploitation of labour and natural resources in the future.
As Bhutan enters a new age of environmental wreckage, the environmental advocacy cloak the King wears is rather shabby. You can never stop laughing at the Emperor’s new clothes if you possess the honesty of a child!
Last words
The currency deficit provides a clear insight into a completely off-balanced – balance of trade. Bhutan suffers economic hardship not because of foreign labor or any other trifle reason. The hardship has descended because of decisions to take out huge international loans without proper thought over ecologically and economically unsustainable means to provide a better availability of exchange value within an economy. I have described earlier how a better exchange value could have been cultivated.
The weighing balance of international trade will remain blind-folded. Trade is not carried out for justice. Its sole purpose is to facilitate the control and expropriation of value. The King of Bhutan and his folks have simply overlooked what they constantly thought they were taking care of.
So Bhutan in the Prime Minister’s plan will perhaps resort to eating only raw national products, walk on foot to avoid using petrol, heavily relying on the air to remain healthy, use traditional medicine and avoid condoms. Recourse to the service of astrologers would perhaps become popular rather than going to the doctors across the border. Imagine astrologers of Bhutan giving contraceptive advice. All this looks very happy. Of course there must be native doctors but the majority of Bhutanese do not have access to basic health care in their localities whereas astrologers are found everywhere in Bhutan.
I make this hypothetical induction in the context of the statement by the Prime Minister on national television, the religious dogmas that are used to spruik an innocent population and the forcefulness by which the people have to be happy on an average.
The future looks grim!
(Originally from Sibsoo, Bhutan, Avishek Gazmere is a University Student currently living in Adelaide, Australia. He can be reached at [email protected].)
A two-member team from Bhutanese Advocacy Forum Europe (BAF) called on Jean Lambert, Chairperson of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with South Asia at her office in European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium and highlighted various issues, Monday.
The BAF representatives, after expressing their deep appreciations towards EU’s continued support to the Bhutanese refugees and for the various development of Bhutan, appraised and requested EU’s serious attention towards systematic annihilation of culture (by changing the age old names of southern villages and towns into imported names from elsewhere), language and dialects, and religion of the southern and eastern Bhutanese and other minorities by perpetuating the policy of Driglam Namzha and through state sponsoring of Drukpa Kazyugpa Buddhism, stated a press release issued by the Forum.
The team also told Lambert that 80,000 Lhosampas, mostly the relatives of exiled citizens, were deprived of their right to vote in the last general election, and might face the same situation in 2013.
It further informed that Lhosampas are denied employment in defense, external affairs, civil aviation, home ministry and other government institutions. Those related to refugees are even not allowed in any government employment.
We also highlighted the continued incarceration of political prisoners from the south (since 1990) and the east (since 1997) in Rabuna and other prisons, one of the delegates said.
The BAF team mentioned the situation of prisoners like Nandalal Katwal (former General Secretary of exile based Bhutan Gurkha National Liberation Front (BGNLF), Dechen Wangmo (former national coordinator of UN funded Global Youth Service Day and Youth Employment Summit), Tenzin G. Zangpo, General Secretary of the Druk National Congress (Democratic) and Shanti Ram Acharya, journalist with exile based Bhutan Reporter.
Meanwhile, it also raised the issue of persecution of Christians all over Bhutan including long-term imprisonment and short-term detention, the statement further said.
Furthermore, the BAF team urged European Commission and the European Council to clarify the EU policy in relation to the rights of willing Bhutanese refugees to return and situations of grave human rights violations in Bhutan.
“The team also sought a clarification from the European Parliament on what action it took to implement its past resolutions on Bhutanese refugees and what role it has been playing and will play in order to raise human rights issues with Bhutan government.”
In her response Lambert briefed the team about her last visit to Bhutan in 2011 during which she strongly raised the issues concerning Bhutanese refugee repatriation, of those people whose voting rights have been deprived in the last election and urge Bhutan government to seriously work towards resolving those issues.
“I heard for the first time Mr Thinley (the prime Minister of Bhutan) calling refugees in the camps in Nepal instead of calling them people in the camps, which he usually prefers to call the Bhutanese refugees in Nepal,” the statement quoted Lambert as telling to the BAF team.
She further said, “European Union is fed up with Bhutan’s time buying tactic in solving refugee related problem. EU will in its 2013 election monitoring process focus mainly in the south to ascertain if those deprived groups are again prevented from voting.”
According to Lambert, renaming of villages and towns in southern Bhutan is a violation of cultural rights of the southern Bhutanese and should not be done.
“I will urgently ask my delegations in New Delhi to take up this issue with Bhutan. We’ll also study the status of political prisoners,” Lambert said.
The visiting BAF team submitted a memorandum attaching a list of Bhutanese political prisoners, a list of old and new names of southern Bhutan’s villages and towns and a press freedom report compiled by one exiled journalist.
In another occasion, the same BAF team screened the documentary, Politics of Bhutan by Jogen Gazmere, a former AI prisoner of conscience, followed by a power point presentation on the genesis of Bhutanese refugee crisis at South Asia Democratic Forum (SADF). The SADF is a lobby group of south Asia at the European parliament based in Brussels office in Brussels.
BAF delegates appealed SADF to actively pursue the cases of Bhutanese refugee issues and other related to democracy and human rights in Bhutan.
Paulo Casaca, Founder and Executive Director of the SADF, after appreciating the team’s efforts, thanked them for their splendid presentation.
“We have now fully understood the issue and will do our best to take up the issue with appropriate bodies at the European Union”, said Paulo, who is a former member of European Parliament from Portugal.
(With inputs from Hem Rizal from the Netherlands)
The government of Canada said it will accept more Bhutanese refugees for relocation through the ongoing third country resettlement program generating hopes of new lives, at least, for those waiting for family reunion. However, it has not yet disclosed actual number of refugees to be accepted.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced the decision to exiled Bhutanese of Jhapa and Morang district last week.
Canada, which has already received 5,000 individuals and was undecided for months regarding this, is learnt to be sending its resettlement team for interviewing refugees within October this year.
Meanwhile, the UNHCR said that 62,673 exiled Bhutanese have already been resettled in various eight western countries as of April 15.
Nepal police have severely tortured a refugee youth who is apprehended for his alleged involvement in obtaining Nepali citizenship and Machine Readable Passport (MRP) illegally, revealed his family sources and the Center for Victims of Torture (CVICT).
The family sources of one “J. Subba, in his 20s,” disclosed on Saturday that security personnel tried various forms of physical techniques to torture him in police custody. Citing the nature and sensitivity of the news, BNS can neither mention the full name of Subba nor can it publish his image.
According to a petition circulated by the Punya Foundation, Subba was inflicted with severe forms of tortures, including the technique of hooding. Following an alert, a team including legal expert from the CVICT visited Subba in police custody last week, it is learnt.
“CVICT lawyer reports Subba as saying that police in civil dresses slapped him on his face 10-12 times. Further, Subba was randomly beaten with a baton and kicked. He is subjected to falanga-torture, as a consequence of which, he has difficulty to walk,” stated the petition.
The Foundation further stated that Subba has multiple scars in his body. “Owing to pain, he cannot sleep. Subba has been threatened of fourth round of interrogation. He fears his life,” added the Foundation.
It is reportedly learnt that Subba, who was arrested from the Tribhuwan International Airport (TIA) two-weeks ago while he was about to fly to United States through the third resettlement program, is still under police investigation on document forgery at Metropolitan Police Range of Hanuman Dhoka, Kathmandu.
Whether Subba has an involvement in resettlement fraud, whether he worked in coordination with other fellow Bhutanese or Nepalese officials, as reported by national dailies in Kathmandu, is yet to be known.
“I could not tolerate torture and have accepted all the allegations put on me, reported CVICT as Subba saying,” added the petition.
Despite repeated attempts, BNS could not verify many of these facts independently.
Human rights activists and various political party leaders today stressed the need to incorporate refugee rights into the new constitution.
Tibetan and Bhutanese refugees living in Nepal are facing tough times in social, administrative, economic, educational and travel sector due to the absence of appropriate laws, rights activist Sudip Pathak said at an interaction on ‘Human Rights-friendly Constitution and Refugee Rights’ in the Capital, wrote The Himalayan Times (THT), Sunday.
“We have also submitted memoranda to the leaders of major political parties demanding that refugees be protected in line with international laws and standard on refugees,” Pathak said.
According to rights activists, majority of Tibetan and Bhutanese refugees have no refugee cards, though they have been living in Nepal for 51 years.
Nepal has failed to ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention to ensure their fundamental rights. CPN-ML leader CP Mainali and Nepali Congress leader Dhyangovinda Ranjit urged the government to respect the refugees’ rights on humanitarian grounds, and clearly define their legal status.
THT further mentioned that CA members Kamala Panta, Mina Pandey and Kalyani Rijal flayed the government’s frequent crackdown and intimidation on refugees and demanded that the government bring a clear policy on refugees to safeguard their human rights.
Rights activists Subodhraj Pyakurel and Kapil Shrestha stressed the need to formulate refugee-friendly laws, it added.
The France-based international non-governmental organization, Reporters Without Borders (RWB) which conducts an annual ranking comparing each nation’s state of press freedom, has placed Bhutan at 70th, six places down in the rung from last year’s 64th.
This has caused a certain amount of surprise in relevant authorities.
Information and Communication (MOIC) Secretary, Dasho Kinley Dorji said, “We don’t know how the ranking and analysis is done, so we don’t know anything; as far as we are concerned, in the last few years things have not changed.” He added that it is difficult to say whether the report is credible or not.
Meanwhile, MOIC’s Head of Media Division, Monira A Y Tsewang said, she was “amazed”. “As far as we are concerned, we are creating an enabling environment and we never go about dictating the media. So, it feels quite sad to be rated like this.”
Department of Information and Media Director Kinley T Wangchuk said, that he was extremely surprised and puzzled adding that the ranking should instead have improved “because there has been no abuse or attack on our journalists”. He also referred to the increased media houses and a liberal media licensing policy.
“We continue to train journalists and support trainings continuously. The department is helping develop the Journalists’ Association of Bhutan (JAB) and has been promoting growth of media “, he added.
Editor of Bhutan Observer Needrup Zangpo cited the lack of Right to Information Act as one of the causes behind the low ranking.
“Bhutan’s drop in press freedom ranking might be because of an increasing number of people calling for an RTI act and openness in the government system,” he reasoned. Kuensel’s News Editor Samten Wangchuk also said that although the Bhutanese news media enjoy much better freedom in terms of the issues they cover and write about than they could some years ago, “it is access to information that we struggle with even today”. He said the Bhutanese media was being compared with nations many times bigger than itself “which if aligned to our context and level, we would feature lower down the indicator.”
DOIM’s head of media relation division Dawa Penjor said one reason could be because of rapid media development in other countries while in Bhutan, it has remained constant. He added that it is important to know if Bhutanese media is at the same level as others.
However, this is a far cry from Bhutan’s ranking by RWB in 2003 at a miserable 157 which later showed dramatic improvement following the adoption of the Constitution among other reforms.
RWB publishes the Press Freedom Index which is an annual ranking of countries compiled by the organization based upon its assessment of each country’s press freedom records.
RWB prepared a questionnaire with 44 main decisive factors indicative of the degree of press freedom. The questions relate to every kind of violation directly affecting Journalists and netizens (including murders, imprisonment, physical attacks and threats) and news media (censorship, confiscation of newspaper issues, searches and harassment). It also establishes the level of impunity enjoyed by those responsible for these press freedom violations.
As the ranking reflects the position during a specific period, this year’s index takes account of events between Dec 1, 2010 and Nov 30, 2011.
Bhutan is now ranked lower than countries like Tonga, Central African Republic, Mauriatania, Croatia, and Burkina Fasco. Finland continues to be the forerunner for the second time in a row and the last ranked is Eritrea at 179.
The questionnaire was sent to RWB’s partner organizations (18 freedom of expression groups in all five continents),its network of 150 correspondents around the world, and to journalists, researchers, jurists and human rights activists.
A scale devised by the organization was then used to give a country score to each questionnaire.
The study looks specifically at press freedom violations and also measures the level of self censorship in each country and the ability of the media to investigate and criticize.
Financial pressure, which is increasingly common, is also assessed and incorporated.
A lesser score in the index correspond to more freedom of the press.
The questionnaire takes account of the legal framework for the media such as penalties for press offences, the existence of a state monopoly for certain kinds of media and how the media are regulated, and the level of independence of the public media. It also reveals violations of the free flow of information on the internet.
Needrup Zangpo said, “RWB also looks at the legal situation in which the press operates to compile the rankings. If legal instruments for better and swifter access to information are put in place, Bhutan’s ranking would be much higher because journalists here do not face outright threats and intimidation in the line of duty”.
Meanwhile, Samten Wangchuck was of the opinion that bureaucrats led by the government hold on to public documents that affect the people across the country as they would their own personal belongings. “So long as this attribute and the burgeoning culture within the public sectors is allowed to flourish, we are not a democracy in any democratic sense”.
RWB do not include a country for ranking if there is a lack of reliable, confirmed data and is careful to note that the index only deals with press freedom and does not measure the quality of journalism.
RWB advocates freedom of the press and freedom of information.
It is known to be the largest press freedom organization in the world with over 120 correspondents across the globe.
Founded in 1985, RWB has been working to protect and defend journalists for nearly 30 years. RWB reports also show that 87 journalists were killed in 2007 and 67 killed in 2011. In 2012, so far 22 journalists have been killed and 161 imprisoned in their line of duty.
Courtesy : The Bhutanese
तारालाल श्रेष्ठले ‘सपनाको समाधि’ उपन्यास बजारमा ल्याएका छन् । भुटानी शरणार्थीका विषयमा लेखिएको श्रेष्ठको उपन्यास शनिबार राजधानीस्थित पर्यटन बोर्डको सभाहलमा जगदीश घिमिरेले सार्वजानिक गरे ।
श्रेष्ठले पाँच वर्षको अनुसन्धानपछि त्यसलाई उपन्यासको रूप दिएको बताए । उपन्यासमा भुटानी शरणार्थीको समस्या सिर्जना, उनीहरूले भोग्नुपरेको मानसिक, भौतिक, आर्थिक तथा भौगोलिक समस्याको चित्रण पुस्तकमा छ ।
‘म पटक-पटक झापा गएँ, भुटानीसित बसें खाए र तिनका समस्या केलाएर उपन्यास बनाएँ,’ तारालालले भने, ‘आफ्नो देशमा प्रजातन्त्र नपाएका नागरिक दुःखको भासबाट फेरि दुःखकै भुमरीमा पर्दै गएको मैले देखेको छु । उनीहरूको दुःख मेरो उपन्यासको मुख्य विषय हो ।’
जगदीश घिमिरेका शब्दमा उपन्यासले शरणार्थी पुनर्बासले निम्त्याएको समस्यालाई पनि नजिकबाट छामेको छ । ‘यसमा चारवटा देश छन् नेपाल, भारत, भुटान र अमेरिका र तिनै चार देशमा पात्र छन्,’ उनले भने, ‘उपन्यासमा विश्वविद्यालय आएको छ । हाम्रै विश्वविद्यालयका केही गुरुहरूको अनुहार त्यसमा आउन सक्छ ।’ पुस्तक डिस्कोर्स पब्लिकेसन्सले छापेको हो । कान्तिपुर
