An article was written on Bhutan Street Fashion page on the Bangkok seven involving five Bhutanese in Illicit Drug Trafficking by Dichen 'Di' Dicden . And I wrote the following the comments
Me:
It is right that such one isolated incident does not and should not define the image and generalise all Bhutanese like them. But we should also accept the fact that this is the second incident in Thailand. One already serving sentence now a big group. When such continues, it can have lots of impact on any Bhutanese traveling outside no matter how innocent we may be. All Muslims are not terrorists, in fact there are millions of Muslims who are real followers of Islam yet any
Muslim particularly travelling from middle East always seen with suspicions and often subjected to lots of inconvenience and harassment including strip search and hours of detention and isolation at airports across the world not because all Muslims are bad but because some are not. With a population of ours, it's definitely going to have negative impacts and fell into more scaners and profiling the moment we put our foot on foreign soil.
Dichen 'Di' Dicden :
Hi Sonam Tshering, I agree with you; too many of these incidents might set off a trend of profiling of Bhutanese. However, we can not compare this incident to terrorism because this is drug trafficking. It is not apple to apple comparison and it is not fair. Maybe we can still compare Bangkok Seven to Bali Nine (drug trafficking = drug trafficking). Working in the field, maybe both you and I can cite many examples where citizens of certain nations are involved in drug trade, but not all the citizens of those nations are profiled. Australians are not profiled around the world for what the Bali Nine did. More Filipino drug mules are on the death row in China. Yet my Filipino friends travel without being profiled. But, this is a different topic.
Beyond your point, is the way we are reacting to this incident and condemning the offenders (fair) and their families (unfair). Some of us are reacting to this situation as if no Bhutanese has done any wrong or we are inherently incapable of wrong doing (very wrong). As a society and individuals, we should accept that there is something going terribly wrong and what are we doing wrong and what can we do to fix this (next step forward).
We can put forward thousands of argument on this. However, we also need to see if this is what we need to do now or look more closely at what had transpired and learn from it and take action to remedy any problem that might set off such incidents in the future.
Me:
While appreciating your points, I may differ to state that drug trafficking may not be equated to terrorism as u said it is not apple to apple but drug trafficking in general specially like the present modus oprandi involving people from different countries travelling through different countries which is often termed as Organized Drug Trafficking. This type of transnational drug trafficking is equally considered very severe across the world. With my little knowledge such crimes are often serve as of the major sources human trafficking and financing terrorism. It is the reason why we now not only have International Conventions on Narco-terrorism and transnational crimes but also Regional Convention on Narco-Terrorism as eg. SAARC also has convention on terrorism and drug trafficking in one single instrument because their nature of crime. Therefore, these kinds of crimes are definitely considered a serious offence at the global level. The population of Australia and Philippines are not comparable to our population which means more Bhutanese are likely to face more negative impacts due to such crimes. And may be your filipino friend has not faced any problem at airports but that does not mean they are not profiled. Globally, any person even non-filipinos coming from Philippines, Columbia, Mexico, Peru or South Asian Nations or Arab Countries where drug trafficking is common are always profiled by law enforcement agencies. But it does not mean that every citizen of those countries will be subjected to special security checks but definitely they are profiled across the globe. You could possibly see these evidence from the thousands of law enforcement documentaries broadcast by Australian, US, Canada, UK and many more countries, you will realize how serious and severe drug trafficking is viewed across the world by any nation as yourself as law enforcer. It is because drug trafficking is the one of the major source of generating billions of dollars across the world which finance many terrorist as well as other illegal activities including illegal sale of weapons. As you said, you may be knowing more than what little information I have. Regarding Australia, first they are already known across the world as reputed nation with so much population compared to us and yes, these people are also profiled particularly if they coming from or going to the above nations including South Asia for very short trips as Nepal, Myanmar, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are already listed as one of the most vulnerable countries where drug trafficking as well as human trafficking are involved but Bhutan has always listed as least in these areas. But if such incidents continue, definitely Bhutan will also be listed in these categories.
You are right that from one perspective, we should not either condemn those suspects as they are not yet even arrested so they are still completely innocent until proven guilty. And definitely very unfortunate that their families bear the brunt of supposedly involvement of one or some of their family members in this case. And as nation with principles of innocent until proven guilty, we should not jump to the conclusion of condemning them or their families.
However, with the social media, small nation like ours, we can’t run away from such criticisms as a small society and i hope that their families stay strong at this moment.
Having said that, after seeing such reaction and impacts on their families, this incident whether true or not would definitely serve even more deterrence than the laws we have as the whole society has reacted grossly in negative manner in preventing involvement of any Bhutanese in future. Everyone would think twice before they do this..
As you said, we should now put in better mechanisms if such thing originates from our country or discourage any of our citizens from getting into such traps of professional criminals from outside in recruiting our innocent people with a false promise of huge sums of money not revealing the actual risk involved in such illegal activities.
To my knowledge, if convicted, as per the Amended Thai Narcotic laws, it can attract a sentence of life imprisonment to death if the quantity is above 20grams. In addition to that, there is a mandatory fine ranging from 1 million Baht to 5 million baht. And I hope that our people do not get convicted even if the events are true atleast not under this scheme of provision.
And finally, I would appreciate if you could also high light some of the things you feel that Bhutan should do either as state or non-state actors in preventing our own people from landing into prey to such transnational narco-trafficking gangs.
Dichen 'Di' Dicden :
thank you for your elaborate explanation. As I said before, I agree with your point. I am not discounting the severity of the act of the Bangkok Seven, neither am I trying to say that drug trafficking is not a concern (covering that in my next post, hence leaving this out). Organised crime and drug syndicate generate revenue that is beyond what we can comprehend, but only estimate. I hope we are all aware of the implications of this global concern. Yes, my concern has been the backlash of our people on social media and this is going to impact us in a big way.
I agree with you about the population of the countries I mentioned against us. Ours will be magnified. At the same time, these issues are not ancient in our country. Maybe we still have time to do something about it. That's where we can accept that we are capable of wrong doing, so are our fellow Bhutanese. Let us try not to cover each other by saying we are innocent people and we are easily duped. While I feel bad for late Ugyen Tshering, was he not aware of what was going inside inside his body? (Just for argument's sake throwing in an assumption) Did the condom break or did someone want it to break?
As for what we can do, I think we should come together as a society, accept we have problems, try to identify the problems and come up with possible fixes/solutions. This may take time, sure, but we need to start somewhere. Maybe while our efforts in drug demand reduction is getting somewhere, we should also do more on the supply reduction front. As you asked me, my personal opinion: I am an educator, so I would suggest we educate ourselves. Of our own drug laws and those of neighbouring countries, highlight the severity and why it is wrong to be involved in such undertaking (hence the severity of the laws and the effects of drugs). We can also educate ourselves to identify prospective drug mule recruiters. Identify signs of falling prey to the drug syndicate. Learn to be cautious. Learn (again) to reach out to our families and neighbours who might be going through something. Teach our children coping skills. And yes, how to communicate.
Me:
It is right that such one isolated incident does not and should not define the image and generalise all Bhutanese like them. But we should also accept the fact that this is the second incident in Thailand. One already serving sentence now a big group. When such continues, it can have lots of impact on any Bhutanese traveling outside no matter how innocent we may be. All Muslims are not terrorists, in fact there are millions of Muslims who are real followers of Islam yet any
Muslim particularly travelling from middle East always seen with suspicions and often subjected to lots of inconvenience and harassment including strip search and hours of detention and isolation at airports across the world not because all Muslims are bad but because some are not. With a population of ours, it's definitely going to have negative impacts and fell into more scaners and profiling the moment we put our foot on foreign soil.
Dichen 'Di' Dicden :
Hi Sonam Tshering, I agree with you; too many of these incidents might set off a trend of profiling of Bhutanese. However, we can not compare this incident to terrorism because this is drug trafficking. It is not apple to apple comparison and it is not fair. Maybe we can still compare Bangkok Seven to Bali Nine (drug trafficking = drug trafficking). Working in the field, maybe both you and I can cite many examples where citizens of certain nations are involved in drug trade, but not all the citizens of those nations are profiled. Australians are not profiled around the world for what the Bali Nine did. More Filipino drug mules are on the death row in China. Yet my Filipino friends travel without being profiled. But, this is a different topic.
Beyond your point, is the way we are reacting to this incident and condemning the offenders (fair) and their families (unfair). Some of us are reacting to this situation as if no Bhutanese has done any wrong or we are inherently incapable of wrong doing (very wrong). As a society and individuals, we should accept that there is something going terribly wrong and what are we doing wrong and what can we do to fix this (next step forward).
We can put forward thousands of argument on this. However, we also need to see if this is what we need to do now or look more closely at what had transpired and learn from it and take action to remedy any problem that might set off such incidents in the future.
Me:
While appreciating your points, I may differ to state that drug trafficking may not be equated to terrorism as u said it is not apple to apple but drug trafficking in general specially like the present modus oprandi involving people from different countries travelling through different countries which is often termed as Organized Drug Trafficking. This type of transnational drug trafficking is equally considered very severe across the world. With my little knowledge such crimes are often serve as of the major sources human trafficking and financing terrorism. It is the reason why we now not only have International Conventions on Narco-terrorism and transnational crimes but also Regional Convention on Narco-Terrorism as eg. SAARC also has convention on terrorism and drug trafficking in one single instrument because their nature of crime. Therefore, these kinds of crimes are definitely considered a serious offence at the global level. The population of Australia and Philippines are not comparable to our population which means more Bhutanese are likely to face more negative impacts due to such crimes. And may be your filipino friend has not faced any problem at airports but that does not mean they are not profiled. Globally, any person even non-filipinos coming from Philippines, Columbia, Mexico, Peru or South Asian Nations or Arab Countries where drug trafficking is common are always profiled by law enforcement agencies. But it does not mean that every citizen of those countries will be subjected to special security checks but definitely they are profiled across the globe. You could possibly see these evidence from the thousands of law enforcement documentaries broadcast by Australian, US, Canada, UK and many more countries, you will realize how serious and severe drug trafficking is viewed across the world by any nation as yourself as law enforcer. It is because drug trafficking is the one of the major source of generating billions of dollars across the world which finance many terrorist as well as other illegal activities including illegal sale of weapons. As you said, you may be knowing more than what little information I have. Regarding Australia, first they are already known across the world as reputed nation with so much population compared to us and yes, these people are also profiled particularly if they coming from or going to the above nations including South Asia for very short trips as Nepal, Myanmar, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are already listed as one of the most vulnerable countries where drug trafficking as well as human trafficking are involved but Bhutan has always listed as least in these areas. But if such incidents continue, definitely Bhutan will also be listed in these categories.
You are right that from one perspective, we should not either condemn those suspects as they are not yet even arrested so they are still completely innocent until proven guilty. And definitely very unfortunate that their families bear the brunt of supposedly involvement of one or some of their family members in this case. And as nation with principles of innocent until proven guilty, we should not jump to the conclusion of condemning them or their families.
However, with the social media, small nation like ours, we can’t run away from such criticisms as a small society and i hope that their families stay strong at this moment.
Having said that, after seeing such reaction and impacts on their families, this incident whether true or not would definitely serve even more deterrence than the laws we have as the whole society has reacted grossly in negative manner in preventing involvement of any Bhutanese in future. Everyone would think twice before they do this..
As you said, we should now put in better mechanisms if such thing originates from our country or discourage any of our citizens from getting into such traps of professional criminals from outside in recruiting our innocent people with a false promise of huge sums of money not revealing the actual risk involved in such illegal activities.
To my knowledge, if convicted, as per the Amended Thai Narcotic laws, it can attract a sentence of life imprisonment to death if the quantity is above 20grams. In addition to that, there is a mandatory fine ranging from 1 million Baht to 5 million baht. And I hope that our people do not get convicted even if the events are true atleast not under this scheme of provision.
And finally, I would appreciate if you could also high light some of the things you feel that Bhutan should do either as state or non-state actors in preventing our own people from landing into prey to such transnational narco-trafficking gangs.
Dichen 'Di' Dicden :
thank you for your elaborate explanation. As I said before, I agree with your point. I am not discounting the severity of the act of the Bangkok Seven, neither am I trying to say that drug trafficking is not a concern (covering that in my next post, hence leaving this out). Organised crime and drug syndicate generate revenue that is beyond what we can comprehend, but only estimate. I hope we are all aware of the implications of this global concern. Yes, my concern has been the backlash of our people on social media and this is going to impact us in a big way.
I agree with you about the population of the countries I mentioned against us. Ours will be magnified. At the same time, these issues are not ancient in our country. Maybe we still have time to do something about it. That's where we can accept that we are capable of wrong doing, so are our fellow Bhutanese. Let us try not to cover each other by saying we are innocent people and we are easily duped. While I feel bad for late Ugyen Tshering, was he not aware of what was going inside inside his body? (Just for argument's sake throwing in an assumption) Did the condom break or did someone want it to break?
As for what we can do, I think we should come together as a society, accept we have problems, try to identify the problems and come up with possible fixes/solutions. This may take time, sure, but we need to start somewhere. Maybe while our efforts in drug demand reduction is getting somewhere, we should also do more on the supply reduction front. As you asked me, my personal opinion: I am an educator, so I would suggest we educate ourselves. Of our own drug laws and those of neighbouring countries, highlight the severity and why it is wrong to be involved in such undertaking (hence the severity of the laws and the effects of drugs). We can also educate ourselves to identify prospective drug mule recruiters. Identify signs of falling prey to the drug syndicate. Learn to be cautious. Learn (again) to reach out to our families and neighbours who might be going through something. Teach our children coping skills. And yes, how to communicate.
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