On April 29, the Japanese Embassy in India announced that the Government of Japan, headed by Yoshihide Suga, decided to confer the “Order of the Rising Sun, Gold, and Silver Star Award” to the former Home Minister of Bhutan Dago Tshering.
The Japanese government can surely reserve discretion on who to offer their award. As much as I am happy that one of my fellow Bhutanese is receiving this prestigious honor, at the same time, I am absolutely in disbelief knowing that the recipient is Dago Tshering.
He does not merit any awards.
His actions affected not only the civilian population but also those who served in the uniform. My dad was in the Bhutan Army. He served the country for 18 years with honesty and courage, and he is proud of it. However, with all the sacrifices and services, he was imprisoned for 13 months.
My dad recalls that it was Dago’s decree that put him in prison and caused irreparable injury and damage in his life.
“It was recalcitrant. Hundreds of inmates were cramped together. We were thrown there to rot. No legal representation, no court case, nothing but forceful repression,” he said of his prison days. He further states that the poor sanitation, unhygienic food, lice-infested rooms and inmates were all familiar, part of the daily routine. Prison guards and officers handled him like an “inanimate object.”
For 13 months, my family kept praying for his health and life. We were not told where he was and were not allowed to meet him either. He was sentenced to hard labor until he approved the allegation labeled to him by the Royal Government that he played a part in the rally demanding to reinstate citizenship rights. The census of 1988 stripped off the citizenship of thousands of bona fide Bhutanese citizens who were unable to produce the land tax receipt of 1958. They did not hold the receipt of that year as they had a citizenship card, which sufficiently confirms their nationality.
I have not had this kind of conversation with my dad for many years. But this award brought us together to converse on this topic again. I can see in his eyes, his difficulties in getting things out.
He was finally freed from prison as his health condition went down at the heels and only when he signed a form declaring that he is exiting the country of his own accord. After 30 years in exile, my dad still wants answers and an explanation from the government of Bhutan for why he was disrespected and imprisoned.
Since coming to New Hampshire, we are recovering from the deep-rooted trauma and injury and trying to move on in our lives. Not just me or my family, but many of my friends are appalled by this news.
More than 2,000 Bhutanese are resettled in New Hampshire and nearly 100,000 in the United States. Actions such as this traumatized and re-traumatized us, sometimes by visitors from Bhutan teaching us about happiness and sustainable peace and sometimes by this kind of award.
This time, our peace has been eroded by the announcement of a prestigious award to the man who forcibly expelled us from our home country. As our peace has been disturbed, as exiled Bhutanese, we have started a petition campaign to show our displeasure to the government of Japan.
Krishan Nepal, a former Bhutanese refugee and community worker who lives in Manchester, said “bestowing any awards to an individual like Dago elevates (a)human rights abuser and (is) a direct insult to the victims of ethnic cleansing.”
“I am appalled. How could any governments or individuals think of conferring an award to Dago Tshering, whose policies stripped off the nationality rights of thousands of Bhutanese citizens? Or this award may be presented to the top perpetrators,” said Ghana Sharma, a former Bhutanese refugee who now lives in Concord. He was kept in a detention center for seventy-two days when he was thirteen years old. An army officer forced him to do hard labor such as breaking rocks, cutting trees and logging.
Om Pradhan, a skilled Bhutanese diplomat whose father resettled Nepalis in Bhutan with the express interest of the government, wrote in his book “without consideration of illiteracy of the people, the poor housing conditions, fragile tax receipt papers, and no proper documents, people were asked to produce in 1988 the documents of 1958 to be counted in the census and retain their citizenships.”
Even Dago Tshering in his ignominious circular on Aug. 17, 1990, wrote that the “large number of Southern Bhutanese people” left the country. He further “ordered that a Bhutanese national leaving the country to assist and help the ‘anti-nationals’ shall no longer be considered as a Bhutanese citizen. It must also be made very clear that such people’s family members living under the same household will also be held fully responsible and forfeit their citizenship.”
This policy undercut a fundamental human right: the right to a nationality. Freedom of movement and free assembly was prohibited.
I joined the Global Campaign Coordination Committee 2021 Japan representing New Hampshire and collectively began exposing his past atrocities. The petition was sent to the Japanese Embassies, where former Bhutanese refugees are resettled. The signature campaign on change.org continues to get traction.
Dago’s abject disregard to the rule of law as home minister was not just abhorrent but an affront to the very essence of human rights and democracy that we all cherish. His feat put Bhutan into perpetual conflict and conferred insurmountable pain and suffering to innocent people. The award to him is unconscionable and needs our collective effort to let the Japanese people and government know that he is not the right candidate.
He should not be getting any awards. Instead, investigate options of using the Alien Tort Statute, U.S. federal law adopted in 1789, which offers federal courts authority to consider lawsuits filed for an offense committed in violation of international law.
(Vijay Bhujel is a former Bhutanese refugee who lives in Concord. He is the New Hampshire coordinator for Global Campaign Coordination Committee Japan, 2021.)