Observers reason that His Majesty’s suggestion through the royal Kasho on December 9 and the National Council members’ report to His Majesty, the prime minister and the National Assembly speaker, were timely because some gewogs were set to hold elections as early as December 15.

The process of the interim elections had begun in most of the 205 gewogs, based on directives from the home ministry, according to the dzongkhag election officials. Hundreds of nominations in various gewogs had already been filed and election dates were announced.

Kanglung gup, Ugyen Dorji, who completed his term in November this year and had filed his nomination for the interim elections in December, welcomed the decision. He said that the extension of their tenure was one of the best possible ways to fill the void until the local government elections. Another gup in Dagana said that the appointment of interim gups would have hampered the smooth implementation of the 10th Plan.

The local elections could not be held because the delimitation process for the local government constituencies is still in progress. The Local Governments’ Act 2007 and Thromde Act 2007 would also be tabled for amendments in the summer session of Parliament in 2009.

Home ministry officials said that the interim gups would be elected as per the dzongkhag yargay tshogdu (DYT) and gewog yargay tshogchung (GYT) Acts. But His Majesty in his kasho said that the gups elections would not draw any legitimacy even as an interim measure if the elections were to be held as per DYT and GYT Acts, that had been repealed. He also said that the cost of conducting new elections again after a period of a few months will cause significant financial burden and enormous inconvenience to the general public and the bureaucracy.

Members of the National Council approached His Majesty the King, the prime minister and the National Assembly speaker on December 1, raising a number of concerns over the interim gup elections.

His Majesty in a Kasho to the election commission of Bhutan (ECB) suggested that the terms of the incumbent gups be extended until ECB completes the delimitation process and relevant acts, under which the elections are to be held, have been revised in accordance with the Constitution.

Kuensel Newspaper

But this week, the first of 5,000 refugees from Bhutan arrived in Canada, offering a reminder of the dark side of the country’s recent history. The refugees — ethnic Nepalese and mostly Hindu — were effectively forced out of Bhutan by that same, Buddhist royal family almost 20 years ago and have been languishing in camps in Nepal ever since.

Their unusual story has continued with the Canadian resettlement offer. Some Bhutanese refugees believe no one should leave the camps until their homeland lets them return and, as part of a sometimes violent internal dispute, have spread misinformation about Canada to discourage immigration here.

Prospective migrants have even been told they will be forced into labour camps in the Arctic if they move to Canada.

“There are lots of rumours circulating,” said Yogendra Shakya of Access Alliance, a Toronto-based social service agency, who visited some of the camps in August. “I was asked a lot ‘Is it true that Canada is so cold that you can’t have children there, and that’s why they want us to go there?’ ”

The resettlement program is also part of a new approach by the federal government to sponsor large groups of refugees en masse. In support of the project, Citizenship and Immigration Canada this month put out a $1.3-million contract to conduct advance health screening of the Bhutanese coming to Canada and provide treatment for tuberculosis and other conditions if necessary before they relocate.

Refugee sagas usually begin with an infamously despotic leader, or with years of war and strife. This one unfolded differently. Jigme Singye Wangchuck, Bhutan’s king until recently, has been widely praised for lifting his people from near-medieval conditions, beefing up public education and health care and opening the window to the outside world. He also promoted Gross National Happiness, a creed which holds that material wealth should not come at the expense of spiritual wellbeing, the environment or culture.

Two years ago, the hugely popular king converted Bhutan into the world’s newest democracy and abdicated in favour of his Western-educated son. Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck was crowned just last month, earning glowing press coverage as a handsome and charismatic monarch of the people.

Almost forgotten was a period in the late 1980s and early 1990s when more than 100,000 Bhutanese of Nepalese origin — a sixth of the population — departed the country, leaving Bhutan largely to the majority Kruk people.

According to a 2006 article by the UNHCR, the United Nations’ refugee agency, “tens of thousands” were evicted, often after being made to sign “voluntary” migration certificates. An Immigration Canada spokeswoman said the camps’ residents were “forced” to leave Bhutan, while a 2007 Human Rights Watch report states that most, if not all, the refugees in Nepal have a right under international law to return to Bhutan.

A spokesman for the Bhutanese government, however, argued on Tuesday that few of the refugees are actually from his country, suggesting that many impoverished residents of the region settled in the camps to take advantage of services funded by the international community.

Bhutan has no ill feelings toward its remaining Nepalese minority, with some even serving now as cabinet ministers, added Tshewang Dorji, counsellor with Bhutan’s mission to the UN.

“Nobody was forced to leave … The government didn’t want the [ethnic Nepalese] people to leave,” he insisted. “People who have ill feelings toward Bhutan have blown this issue out of proportion.”

Regardless, repeated efforts to win the refugees’ repatriation failed, until eventually a group of seven Western countries, including the United States, Australia and Britain, agreed to accept about 70,000 of them. Canada is taking 5,000 over the next five years.

And yet the humanitarian offer met some stiff resistance in the camps, with certain groups fearing that mass resettlement would spell the end of their efforts to get back to Bhutan itself.

“There have been fairly organized efforts to discourage migration,” said Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees. Word spread, for instance, that refugees who ended up here “would have to work at camps at the north pole,” she said.

To try to set the record straight, Canada has distributed leaflets with accurate information about this country, and is further briefing those selected to come here, said Danielle Norris, an Immigration Canada spokeswoman.

The years of living in refugee camps, unable to officially work to support themselves, has taken its toll on the displaced Bhutanese, said Mr. Shakya, who is of Nepalese origin himself. “Depression, stress is very, very common in the camps,” he said.

And yet, he said the refugees have strived to make the most of their grim predicament. Levels of education are higher than in the Nepalese population outside the camps, and many speak fluent English, he said.

Lately, it seems the refugees have also come around to the idea of setting down roots in the West, with many believing they can continue to fight for return to Bhutan from their new homes, said Mr. Shakya.

Bhutanese refugees tell dark side of Himalayan kingdom

Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck became the world’s youngest reigning monarch when he was handed the Raven Crown by his father, the former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, in an elaborate ceremony in Thimphu, the capital. The former King, who is 52, abdicated two years ago as part of a plan to reform the hermit-like Buddhist nation of 635,000 people, which had no roads until the 1960s and allowed television only in 1999.

The “Land of the Thunder Dragon” held its first democratic elections in March in an effort to avoid the kind of political trauma that led to the abolition of the world’s last Hindu monarchy in nearby Nepal this year. Court astrologers told the Wangchuk dynasty, which has ruled Bhutan for a century, that it had to wait until yesterday for an auspicious date for the coronation of the fifth Druk Gyalpo, or Dragon King.

Officials say that the astrologers deemed 2007 a “black year”, but others suggest that the royal family simply wanted to wait until Bhutan’s first two-lane highway, from the airport to the capital, was completed.

Hundreds of foreign guests, including Sonia Gandhi, the head of India’s Congress Party, attended the day-long ceremony in the golden throne room of Tashichho Dzong, a white-walled, 17th-century fortress. Also present were the former King’s four wives, who are sisters.

Jigme Khesar is the oldest son of the former King and his third wife, and was educated at private school in the United States and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied political science and diplomacy.

The ceremony began at dawn, when three giant tapestries were unveiled, each depicting Buddha and the gurus who took his religion to Bhutan. At 8.31am — exactly — Jigme Khesar received a satin and silk crown, topped with an embroidered raven’s head, from his father before taking his seat on a golden throne.

Thousands of Bhutanese have flocked to Thimphu, among them nomadic yak herders. “We have walked for more than a week to come to the celebrations,” said Dema, 32, a woman herder. “The King is like our father.”

Most Bhutanese credit the Wangchuck kings with ensuring the survival of their nation and its culture. The former King is also credited with inventing the concept of Gross National Happiness, which seeks to balance material progress with spiritual wellbeing. “We have enjoyed progress, sustained peace, security and growth,” Jigme Thinley, Bhutan’s new Prime Minister, said. “These are all attributed to the great kings, benevolent kings, selfless kings, that Bhutan has had.”

Bhutan, the world’s youngest democracy, hands Raven Crown to 28-year-old King – Times Online

Most Americans are probably not thinking about Bhutan right now. Sure, some are aware of that tiny Buddhist nation sandwiched between China and India. But Bhutan can seem a universe away. It didn’t have television until the late 1990s. Its main export is electricity. Instead of focusing on gross domestic product (GDP), Bhutan measures gross national happiness (GNH).

Jigmi Y. Thinley, Bhutan’s first democratically elected prime minister, describes his five-year term as “a period within which we will have to prove to the people that democracy itself is worthwhile.” That sounds like a lot of pressure. But when I meet Mr. Thinley at the Bhutan Mission in New York City, he seems quite calm. “I’m not losing sleep,” he admits. Mr. Thinley, born in 1950, is wearing a Western suit. He studied in the U.S., and his English is so articulate that it borders on poetic.

Bhutan’s road to democracy was paved by the fourth king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who decided that the country’s destiny should not be left to accidents of birth. Bhutan is now a constitutional monarchy, and its fifth king was coronated this month.

Many Bhutanese were initially squeamish about democracy. But the election, comprising of two parties with fairly similar agendas, was remarkably peaceful.

“What we have proven is that peace and stability are prerequisites to the establishment of democracy,” Mr. Thinley says. In Bhutan, “without having to worry about their daily security, survival, these basic things — people were able to reflect on the philosophy itself.”

He adds that in many so-called democracies, “you trade your vote for a square meal. . . . The Bhutanese didn’t have to do that.” He draws a contrast to countries where “democracy has been the child of a convulsive process . . . instability, war and revolution. And then, those people who came to power knew how to create revolution, how to stir people, and how to fight against despots and authoritarianism — but did not know how to govern, how to serve.”

Mr. Thinley outlines his idea of good governance: “We have to ensure that in the first five years of our governance we act completely within the confines of the constitution . . . that the rule of law prevails under any circumstance. . . . We will respect and ensure the absolute separation of the three branches of government, that’s the judiciary, executive and the legislature.”

He describes the process of drafting the constitution — there was a committee that referred to the constitutions of the world. Mr. Thinley says the U.S. constitution “defined the conceptual framework within which all other constitutions have been drafted. And so the United States Constitution was certainly a major document that inspired and that was referred to by the constitution committee.”

He rejects the argument that some cultures are not wired for democracy. If there were “any culture where democracy would not be appropriate, then perhaps it was Bhutan!” When he was a little boy, he says, the idea of a democratically elected prime minister was “out of the realm of possibility.”

Bhutan has had its share of problems. In the early 1990s, tens of thousands of people of Nepalese origin fled Bhutan, many accusing officials of driving them out. Thousands are in refugee camps in Nepal. Today, Bhutan may still be far from a full-fledged democracy. But considering other turbulent states in Asia, it seems off to a good start.

Democracy, according to Mr. Thinley, boils down to “the empowerment of the people, the freedom of the voter. . . . giving the capacity to the individual citizen to determine his or her own destiny,” he says. “Now if these are what democracy provides, then I would say that regardless of what culture you belong to, democracy is essential.”

Some will make the (basically pro-authoritarian) argument that some cultures don’t want to determine their own destiny. “People can be made to think that way.” Human beings are a “very interesting species . . . as intelligent as we are we can act and we sometimes appear to prefer to act in the most foolish ways. As much as we inherently search for, yearn for, freedom, we very willingly submit ourselves to subjugation and tyranny. And then find ourselves saying: This is how we like it.”

Mr. Thinley will continue to implement the government policy of GNH. Happiness is not hedonistic, “it is not the kind of fleeting pleasures that we seek.” It has to do with “being able to balance material needs of the body and the spiritual needs of the mind.”

He says the conditions for the pursuit of happiness have four pillars: Equitable and sustainable socioeconomic growth; conservation of the fragile Himalayan economy and environment; cultural preservation and promotion — and good governance.

Mr. Thinley admits that there’s a limit to what the government can deliver. It can try to create the right conditions, but “the individual himself and herself must pursue happiness.”

WSJ.com

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