Bhutan Is Ending Centuries Of Isolation

THE TINY HIMALAYAN KINGDOM is wiring up to join the Information Age, including television and the Internet, and its Western-educated king is testing some democratic reforms.

THIMPHU, Bhutan - In this devoutly Buddhist kingdom tucked under the eaves of the Himalayas, four men stood on the roof of their apartment building and committed a crime: They erected a television satellite dish.

They fiddled with wrenches and screwdrivers until a soccer game from a distant foreign field came into focus on a television set they had lugged up to the roof. They cheered and stared at the TV - something many people here have never seen - and they brought this isolated land a little closer to a world that is banging hard on its door.

For centuries, Bhutan has resisted the outside world. Every other Himalayan Buddhist kingdom - Tibet, Sikkim, Ladakh - has been absorbed into neighboring China or India, but Bhutan has refused to let the world in. Both world wars passed virtually unnoticed by most of the farmers, monks and yak herders. And many have never heard of Monica Lewinsky, mostly because of the government's ban on television.

But as the new millennium approaches, one of the last places on Earth virtually untouched by the Information Age is wiring up. Next month, the government will allow TV for the first time and will launch its own Internet server, connecting the Land of the Thunder Dragon to the land of "Baywatch" and eBay.

"The whole world is getting smaller, and we need to be part of the global village," said Foreign Minister Jigmi Thinley. "But how to do it while maintaining our traditions is a challenge."

Thinley, who has a master's degree from Penn State, said his country is bracing for the inevitable. "We are quite happy to be on our own," he said. "But it is very important that the Bhutanese people not remain oblivious to the rest of the world."

TV will let in the world

The changes resisted for decades are coming fast. In the past two months, hundreds of satellite dishes have sprouted on roofs and in back yards. Fifty years after Milton Berle and Arthur Godfrey transformed American culture, Bhutan is preparing for the same kind of revolution.

"If we were to record the language patterns, interests, sense of humor, values, fashions and behavior of our children now and repeat it six months later, we will see a dramatic difference," noted a recent editorial in Kuensel, Bhutan's only newspaper, which urged strict government regulation of television.

Change always has been greeted skeptically here, and television was outlawed as a means of warding off foreign influences and insulating Bhutan's ancient customs and deeply religious way of life.

Officials note that only one of Bhutan's 600,000 people has died from AIDS complications, and there is almost no crime. The military is made up of 5,000 lightly armed soldiers with almost nothing to do.

But many here worry that this will change once the TV sets are plugged in. "Our culture, our religion, our distinctiveness, they all may suffer," said Dodo Tshering, 48, who runs a guest house in Punakha in central Bhutan. "Having all these televisions will change people."

Bhutan's zealous pursuit of isolation hasn't been without controversy. In the early 1990s, the government purged ethnic Nepalese in the southern part of the nation, calling them illegal immigrants. Critics called it ethnic cleansing by a xenophobic government.

To this day, 94,000 of the Nepalese live in refugee camps, and the governments of Bhutan and Nepal are discussing what to do.

Few outsiders ever see Bhutan. Foreign tourists were banned until 1974, and they still are allowed in only sparingly; 6,000 last year was a record.

The introduction of television and the Internet are the latest steps in a long-term program to modernize Bhutan that began in the early 1960s with the current king's father. At that time, Bhutan had no hospitals, electricity, running water, roads, schools, telephones, national currency or postal system.

Today, Bhutan is still poor, but is developing steadily. The per-capita gross domestic product is only $520, but that is twice what it was a decade ago. The literacy rate has risen, and most children are in school. Meanwhile, foreign aid has helped build hospitals, roads and a $48 million digital phone system.

Much of the development has been pushed by King Jigme Singye Wangchuk, 43, a British-educated NBA basketball fanatic who assumed the throne when his father died. Bhutan's first television broadcast will be images from his 25th anniversary celebration.

His Majesty, as he is known to all here, also has promoted democracy - largely by giving away his power. Last year the king turned over day-to-day control of the government to an elected council. More remarkable, he also gave the National Assembly the right to dethrone him.

`His Majesty is very nice'

The king, who has four wives - all sisters - also has dispensed with many of the traditional court rules. His subjects now are allowed to look him in the eye, and they no longer have to bow nine times upon seeing him.

"His Majesty is very nice to all the people. I am happy to have a king like him," said Chen Cho, 64, a Buddhist monk sitting on a bench outside a rural general store.

The monk has never seen television. He can't name the president of the United States and he has never heard of Kosovo. But he would like that to change. "It's better to have television," he said. "That way, I can see what people are doing in other countries."

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Kingdom of Bhutan.

Population: 1,908,307. Ethnic groups: Bhote (50 percent); Nepalese (35 percent) . Languages: Dzongkha, Tibetan, Nepalese dialects. Religions: Lamaistic Buddhist, Hindu. Geography: 18,147 sq. mi.; Himalayan mountains in the north, valleys in the center and forests in the Duar Plain in the south. Capital: Thimphu. Government: Monarchy; King Jigme Singye Wangchuk. Economy: cement, wood products, rice, corn, citrus. Monetary unit: Ngultrum, also Indian rupee. Life expectancy: 52.8 male, 51.8 female. Literacy: 42 percent.