Tibet trauma set Bhutan on long march to democracy

By Simon Denyer

THIMPU (Reuters) - When its big brother Tibet was invaded by China in 1950, the lesson was not lost on the rulers of the tiny hermit kingdom of Bhutan.

Isolation did not pay, and a gradual process of opening up and modernisation culminated on Monday with the first parliamentary elections in the history of the last independent Himalayan kingdom.

Sandwiched by giant neighbours India and China, Bhutan had always felt very vulnerable, said Kinley Dorji, managing director of the state-owned Kuensel newspaper.

"Our strategy was to hide up in the mountains," he said. "That worked until 1960."

It was then, just a year after the Dalai Lama fled into exile, that Bhutan's third king, Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, opened the doors just a crack.

Shortly after the Chinese invasion, Wangchuck also began to gradually establish more democratic forms of governance.

Bhutan wanted to avoid what it saw as the mistake of Tibet -- having few diplomatic friends and shouldered with a feudal society that gave China the excuse to "liberate" it from serfdom.

Modernisation was a process brought to fruition by Wangchuck's son and grandson, who forced the people of Bhutan on Monday to let the royalty stand aside and democracy take its place.