NATIONAL7 (Spotlight Weekly)]

TEK NATH RIZAL

A top human rights leader is released after ten years in Bhutanese jail. Does it point toward political reforms in the Dragon Kingdom?

By BHAGIRATH YOGI

It was unexpected but welcome news for the 52-year-old top dissident leader when Bhutanese authorities told him on December 17 that he had been released from the Chamgang prison. After serving ten years in prison, Tek Nath Rizal, a noted human rights leader, was released by the Bhutanese authorities on the occasion of their national day.

"I would like to have an audience first and brief him about the plight of other political prisoners and Bhutanese refugee problems," said Rizal, after his release. "Only then I would decide upon my future plans."

A former member of Royal Advisory Council, Rizal was dismissed from his post after he publicly opposed the discriminatory Citizenship Act introduced by the Bhutanese government in the late Seventies. The same infamous Act was used as a tool by the Drukpa regime to forcibly evict Lhotsampas (residents of southern Bhutan of Nepali origin), nearly one-sixth of its population of around 600,000. While in exile, Rizal formed People's Forum for Human Rights in Bhutan. But the then Panchayat regime deported him to Bhutanese government in November 1989. After more than three years of detention, a Bhutanese court handed over a life imprisonment sentence to Rizal, on charges of treason, in 1993. The King had later announced that he would be released when the Bhutanese refugee problem would be resolved. The London-based Amnesty International had declared Rizal as a Prisoner of Conscience.

The release of 40 political prisoners, including Rizal, has surprised the Bhutanese refugees. Of course, they have reasons to be happy. "It is a milestone in the one-decade old history of our struggle for the restoration of human rights in Bhutan," said C. B. Dahal, an activist with the National Movement for Human Rights in Bhutan. But refugee leaders were skeptical about the Bhutanese monarch's next move. " I don't see it as an indication of the beginning of political reforms within the Druk Kingdom where there are still more than 100 political prisoners," said Ratan Gazmere, a human rights leader, associated with AHURA Bhutan. " Of course, the Bhutanese King might be thinking toward finding an amicable solution to the Bhutanese refugee problem."

Added Rakesh Chhetri, a Bhutanese security analyst, " King Jigme Singe Wangchuk may have taken this decision only to offset the growing international pressure upon his

regime to honor human rights in Bhutan. He is well known for taking unpredictable steps." According to Chhetri, Indian army has recently entered into Bhutan to flush out ULFA rebels from Bhutanese jungles. "This might have also prompted him to take such steps," he added.

Whatever be the reason, nearly 100,000 Bhutanese refugees living in refugee camps in eastern Nepal don't see any reason to be optimistic. There hasn't been any progress toward the repatriation of the refugees even after eight rounds of ministerial level talks between the governments of Nepal and Bhutan over the last ten years. At the moment, they seem to have little options than to wait for similar surprising move by the absolute Bhutanese monarch.