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Political Unrest
Dissent was growing in the south because of what the Southerners thought was
an attempt by the government to force out Nepali-speaking citizens, and to
impose the Drukpa culture. In July1989, a small group of dissidents, led by Tek
Nath Rizal, a former Royal Advisory Council member in Bhutan, set up the
People's Forum for Human Rights (PFHR) in Nepal. Between October and December
1989, 45 people were arrested in Bhutan for writing and circulating
"seditious pamphlets." Six were held for between 26 and 28 months
before being released, and Tek Nath Rizal is still imprisoned.
The Bhutan People's Party was formed by Nepali Bhutanese in India in June
1990. With the PFHR, it organized mass public demonstrations in southern Bhutan
in September and October 1990 that were unprecedented in the kingdom's history.
The demonstrators submitted a list of 13 demands for radical changes in the
political system as well as basic civil rights. It was alleged that both
demonstrators and security forces committed acts of violence. After the
demonstrations, the Bhutanese army and police began the task of identifying
participants and supporters, who were classed as Ngolops (anti-nationals),
and the flow of refugees out of Bhutan began. It reached a peak in May 1992,
with 11,000 arrivals recorded for that month in the camps in Nepal. The refugees
brought with them detailed allegations of torture, brutality, and rape.
The refugee
problem
The Bhutanese government rejects the refugees' allegations and argues that it
now faces a problem of terrorism in southern Bhutan. Village leaders and
officials have suffered intimidation, facilities have been destroyed or damaged,
there have been a few instances of political assassination, and ordinary
villagers have been robbed and assaulted. However, while many crimes of
violence and robbery in the south are now blamed on ngolops in
Bhutan's only newspaper, it is not clear that all such crimes are politically
motivated.
As the refugee camps began to grow in 1991, Bhutan disclaimed responsibility,
arguing that the people in the camps were illegal immigrants, Nepali nationals,
migrants from India, or southern Bhutanese who had left voluntarily. It cast
doubt on the authenticity of the citizenship documents still held by two-thirds
of the camp residents, and expressed the fear that a plot was afoot to turn
Bhutan into a Nepali dominated state. Representatives of Nepal and Bhutan met
several times to discuss the problem, but their discussions were either
fruitless or ended in bitter disagreement.
The first breakthrough occurred in July 1993, when a Nepali government
delegation visited Thimphu, Bhutan's capital. In a joint communique, the two
countries' home ministers announced that a joint committee would be set up to
"determine the different categories of people in the refugee camps who are
claiming to have come from Bhutan," and to arrive at a "mutually
acceptable agreement on each category to provide a basis for the resolution of
the problem." The Bhutanese stated (in a document published in May, 1993),
"the royal government of Bhutan will accept full responsibility, for
a bonafide Bhutanese national who has been forcibly evicted from
Bhutan." But clearly, many matters still need to be clarified if the
problem is to be resolved. Nor will any final resolution be sustainable if it
does not take full account of the fears of the Drukpa Bhutanese, and of the
grievances and aspirations of their southern compatriots.
An important development affecting the already imprisoned Tek Nath Rizal
occurred toward the end of 1993. On November 16, Rizal received a life sentence
for his political activities. But on November 19, the king of Bhutan announced
that Rizal would be released as soon as Bhutan and Nepal had resolved the
refugee problem.
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