The government's attempt to ignite friction amongst the citizens in Southern Bhutan failed completely inspite of strict census policy and forced indoctrination. The people knew the motive behind the government's tough stand courtesy the learned people of the villages and in the services. In its utter disregard for human values and the total frustration, the government planned to carry out a war of attrition and a propaganda campaign against the Southern Bhutanese. After thorough drilled and well executed exercises, the government released glossy magazines filled with grisly colour photographs, showing the mutilated bodies of alleged victims, by anti-nationals. These photographs have been brought to international attention only after winning the consent of the top bureaucrats of the government. Before the books were published, documentary films were made out of it and shown in all the districts of Bhutan except the South. The documentary films accompanied the King's entourage and shown to the common public at selected places. "In the Royal Bhutan Army Military Training Centre" Tencholing in Wangdiphodrang district where the select soldier's from different army units were centred for mobilisation in the south, the king and his team stayed for six days at the Training Centre in 1990 and through-out their duration of stay, the documentary films were shown to the soldiers, their families, the fresh recruits, the militia men and the villagers in the army film hall. The king’s visit to army units and villages is taken as a visit by the omnipotent and omnipresent lord with cash incentives and lucrative gifts. During the king's tour to the Military Training Centre, the army and the district officers' feasted at the royal expense for six consecutive days and the soldiers were given a grand party. On top of that the officers received the following presents (these are not the regular uniforms issued to Bhutanese Armed Forces) from His Majesty the Druk Gyalpo Jigme Singye Wangchuk for their dedicated and meritorious service to the King, Kingdom and the Government:-
Officers.
i) Korean Camouflage Army Cap -1 no each.
ii) Korean Camouflage Army jacket -1 no each.
iii) Korean Camouflage Army shirt -1 no each.
iv) Korean Camouflage Army boot -1 no each.
v) Korean Camouflage Army vest -1 no each.
vi) Korean Camouflage Army slack -1 no each.
vii) Sharp Disc Music System (Nu 12000) -1 no each.
viii) Cash Nu 5000/ each.
Non Commissioned Officers
The non commissioned officers and the recruit instructors were given Nu 500/- each as incentives. Every officers in the Royal Bhutan Army had received the above incentives from the king.
Royal Bhutan Police, Royal Body Guards and many other bureaucrats are equally benefited in pleasing the ruling elite. The king mainly stays in the army guest rooms or mess whenever he visits in different places obviously for security reasons. However, the king is always accompanied by his circle of four queens and the five top most bureaucrats. In his address to the villagers and to the soldiers, the king never blames the southern Bhutanese but the administration. King Jigme is almost a lone figure within the four walls of Tashichhodzong and he is trying his utmost to steer his kingdom ahead without support from his own inner circle the royal elite. It is presumed that he made personal mistakes in his private life due to his marriages with the four sisters who are out to oust him and the Lhotsampas with their collaborators from the Bhutanese scene. King Jigme Singye Wangchuk otherwise is a very simple man and unostentatious. His diet is simple and he lives in Samteling in a simple log-cabin palace. According to Narendra Kumar, writing in the Calcutta Statesman, about the king, he writes that "the king is handsome like a Greek God, is courteous to a fault, publicity shy, and a teetotaller". Siding Nerendra Kumar a western Ambassador to Thimphu says "The king is very austere, very dedicated to the cause of the people ............... when they say that people have access to him, it is true". The Southern Bhutan problem therefore, is not the king's make but made by somebody from within the Tashichhodzong. The mass agitation by the people of Southern districts was in retaliation against the government’s policies and its forceful implementation. It was not an uprising for democracy but an uprising for basic changes in the total authoritarian rule. The people of Southern Bhutan had never visualised the government's crack down to be so brutal and swift. Thimphu found it an easy excuse to blame the southerners that it was a move to take over power, inspired by democratic changes in Nepal. This stand of the government cannot be justified at all. Without any media coverage, the government was at will to do anything against the unarmed civilians by the well equipped security personnel, and which they have done. To remind, the Government of Bhutan, democracy cannot be achieved from a foreign soil, it has to be initiated and established from the country concerned. The September 1990 demonstration was for a peaceful resolution of the home problem but it culminated into a political struggle too. If the Lhotsampas had wanted democracy in Bhutan then, they could not have immediately retaliated the government’s forceful imposition of ethnic biased rules and regulations. They could have waited, mobilised the people and launched the struggle for political changes over at an appropriate time. The Lhotsampas could have won over the trust and support of the Sharchops, the Tibetans, the minority ethnic groups and the consent of the security forces to turn the nozzle of the barrel to the oppressors.
The Royal Regime of Bhutan is always ready to photograph the bleeding or dying people but not ready to stop crimes. Crime or murder is always desired by the rulers of Bhutan. And in Bhutan it is always “a doctor after the death” to tactfully tackle the outside world. Yet, the Royal Regime is still provided with enough financial assistance by European Countries and many World Organisations, to invite terrorism in the world? Those who are sympathetic to Bhutanese Monarch must speak to this gospel truth and express concern. Photo not shown in this chapter.
Regarding the genuine mass support of the people then the Lhotsampa agitators had, not for democracy but for some radical changes in a liberalised pattern. The qualification of this support are the Bhutanese people with refugee status numbering almost one hundred thousand in the asylum camps in Nepal and another about fifteen thousands are living in the states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, West-Bengal and Sikkim. Had it been a democratic movement, the Lhotsampas would have struggled, fought and succumbed to bullets in Bhutan rather than die a miserable death in a third country.
If the government could photograph bleeding decapitated body of Bhim Bahadur Chhetri why couldn’t they photograph the terrorists? Why couldn’t the forces stop this crime? Why they stay so near to photograph the victims? Or isn’t a crime by the forces in the name of people of Bhutan to brand them as terrorists? The world must judge the scene with objective analysis from the problems in our forefront. Photo not shown in this chapter.
To protect its clean image of unique Shangri-La flowered by peace loving people in the lap of Mighty Himalayas under the fluttering flags in tune with the churning prayer wheels, Bhutan wanted to remain invisible to the outside world with its deeds. The Dragon finally thundered and Bhutan became a focus of international attention when tales of woes and sufferings narrated by the victims of Shangri-La myth through press coverage got flashed. However, very few outside Bhutan know that the stage for this game was set for a total victory after a thorough homework and rehearsal from the early 1980s. The first indication of the government's dislike of Hindu culture was the disbanding of television antenna disc from the country when the tele-serial Ramayana became very popular with the masses. In order to lower the pride of the Shanskrit and Hindi and Nepali lingua-franca, the government banned the Nepali text from the schools in Southern Bhutan. All the Nepali text books published by Ministry of Education then were officially destroyed by burning in all the schools of Southern Bhutan. Not satisfied, it was made mandatory to consume beef in the schools and college hostels, in the army units and in the public feast. This step was a severe blow to the Hindus as eating of beef is taboo in Hindu Religion. In Hindu Religion Cows and Oxen are worshipped. The Nepali speakers still remained silent but with the imposition of the policies as already mentioned, it became clear that all the steps taken by the government designed primarily to subjugate the Nepali-culture so that the Lhotsampas would vacate the south voluntarily to preserve their cultural identity. Still the Lhotsampas remained faithful to the ‘Tsa - Wa – Sum’ (king, country and Government) and contributed even more to the economic development of Bhutan. Unable to chase the southern inhabitants away, the Thimphu regime planned to launch a military crack down for which a lot of preparation was done, security matters were looked into and financial resources were capitalised.
[Every death that has occurred in Bhutan in the recent years is from Lhotsampa community only. What is the motive behind these crimes in Bhutan that one community is at loss always? Isn’t the Regime responsible for this? The world must not keep off from these facts.]
The Government of Bhutan as a preliminary step carried out the physical auditing of the arms and ammunition held in different army units and depots. After ensuring the safety check-ups the government recalled all the retired service personnel for active service and recruited militia-men throughout Bhutan. The pool vehicles from different departments were given to the army units. Reserve arms and ammunitions were purchased from foreign countries and stockpiled. Says a Delhi based diplomat now in exile who wants to remain anonymous. "When I was a diplomat in the Royal Bhutanese Embassy in New Delhi, six trucks of arms and ammunitions consignments from a foreign country was received and sent to Bhutan through the Bhutan's National Flag Carrier, the Druk Air". It is obvious that the government needed those military goods not for fighting a war with another country but for butchering the weapon-less citizens. The Indian brand military weapons of the Royal Body Guards were replaced by foreign brands and all the defence officers were issued with special pistols with foreign marks. This is a bitter fact and there are senior Royal Bhutan Army Officers in exile who can testify. All the entry and exit points in Bhutan were manned by security forces, bridges and road heads well covered, flow of basic goods like salt, kerosene and even rice sanctioned and the schools and hospitals were closed and thus was the stage set ready for pre-emptive strike at innocent targets. According to an Army officer in exile wishing anonymity. "At night time, I used to load dry rations, kerosene, salt and other goods in the vehicle and used to go to Changkha. The recipients of my help are in the refugee camps. It was easy for me as military vehicles were not checked and moreover, I used to be in my military uniform. The civilian vehicles were subjected to thorough check and nothing was possible to be sent in those vehicles". He further states that any one opposing the governments plan had to pay with their dear lives or was imprisoned. I recall in 1988 Captain Tarun Chhetri ADC to the king along with a Forest Ranger Man Bahadur Dewan Rai died an unfortunate mystery death in Manas. The king had gone to the Manas wild-life sanctuary for hunting. "Their death was declared a suicide case and cremated without post-mortem". His relatives are in the camps. Every one knew that it was a political assassination. The officer went on to tell that. "In one instance twenty one soldiers from an army unit were court-marshalled in 1990 without furnishing any reasons. Some were imprisoned and some are still in the prison. However, it became clear later, that it was a political case". The charmed hiatus in which Thimphu finds itself is bound to end before long, for there are obvious limits to credibility in selling a flawed programme. Thimphu strategists who sat down in 1990 to chart the present course did not contemplate that there would be a refugee problem, or that it would fester into the mid 1990s. The eviction operation was supposed to be brutal and swift. The Lhotsampas would disappear into the night after which Bhutan would revert back to its self image of innocent hermit Shangri-La.
In the government report titled “The Southern Bhutan Problem” the government argued that : ..........the dissidents and their supporters had miscalculated on three major counts. Firstly, ethnic Lhotsampas did not constitute the majority of the population. Secondly, the government refused to be provoked into armed retaliation despite attacks on the police with guns, "khukuries" (knives) and bombs by the so called peaceful demonstrators. Thirdly, convinced that it would be sufficient if they could persuade some of the people in southern Bhutan, and force others, to participate in the "demonstrations" to bring about the government's capitulation, the dissidents had launched their agitation without considering whether they had genuine mass support. With an economic boom in southern Bhutan due to large-scale export of cash crops and the establishment of several industries which have created abundant jobs, and the substantial benefits occurring from developmental projects, the majority of the Lhotsampas refused to support the agitation launched by the dissidents."
The above stated argument of the government to support their stand and to hold the Lhotsampas the root of all the problems in Southern Bhutan is absolutely untrue. The answers of these baseless arguments have already been covered in detail and in depth with opinions and findings from the fact finding mission to Bhutan. The International Community simply cannot be kept at bay from the absolute truth by writing seditious and treacherous documents about its own population. The decency of the Lhotsampas in the refugee camps in Nepal have been widely acclaimed and appreciated by one and all, years have passed in exile, yet these innocent people are hoping to return to their homes with the blessings of His Majesty King Wangchuk. The wrongs and rights of the government and the Lhotsampas have already been covered widely by individuals, diplomats, academicians, intellectuals, missions, press and publicity and information media. Now it is the turn of the Bhutanese Government to weigh the pros and cons.
