Five-minute briefing: TIBET - Choosing the perfect occasion
Five-minute briefing: TIBET
Choosing the perfect occasion
Tibet, a mainly Buddhist territory known as the ‘roof of the world’, is governed as an autonomous region of China today.
The Tibetan people now stand at an important junction - the 50th commemoration of the March 1959 uprising against China’s occupation of Tibet and the Beijing 2008 Olympics in China. The Chinese government is allegedly attempting to use the Olympic Games as a platform to gain acceptance as a global leader and to promote its propaganda on Tibet. Beijing sees this moment as an opportunity to legitimize its rule in Tibet once and for all, says Tibetan People’s Uprising Movement (http://tibetanuprising.org).
The website claims: The Tibetan People’s Uprising Movement is a global movement of Tibetans inside and outside of Tibet taking control of their political destiny by engaging in direct action to end China’s occupation of the country. Through unified and strategic campaigns they will seize the Olympic spotlight and shine it on China’s repression inside Tibet, thereby denying China the international acceptance and approval it so fervently desires.
In 1959, after a failed anti-Chinese uprising, the 14th Dalai Lama fled Tibet and set up a government in exile in India. Most of Tibet’s monasteries were destroyed in the 1960s and 1970s during China’s Cultural Revolution. Thousands of Tibetans are believed to have been killed during periods of repression and martial law, as per media reports.
China sent troops to Tibet in 1950 and since then there have been periods of unrest and sporadic uprisings as resentment of Beijing’s rule has persisted.
News reports from amnesty.org and phayul.com say that there have been human rights violation in and out of Tibet and journalists are restricted to enter the country.
The latest round of anti-China protests began in Tibet’s main city, Lhasa, on 10 March - the 49th anniversary of a failed uprising - and gradually escalated.
Lhasa saw at least two days of violence and there have also been protests in provinces which border Tibet.
According to BBC, what sparked the protests, it says, Buddhist monks marched from monasteries in and around Lhasa on March 10 to mark the 49th anniversary of a Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.
According to reports, security forces arrested some of the marchers, and the following day more monks marched through the streets to appeal for their colleagues to be freed.
As the protests escalated, economic and social grievances came to the fore, and more members of the general Tibetan population became involved in the monks’ protests.
China says 19 people were killed by rioters and accuses Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama of inciting the violence.
But Tibetan government-in-exile based in India said today that the Tibetan death toll from the demonstrations in Tibet had risen to 140 and further released the names and details of 44 identified people killed during the brutal crackdowns by Chinese government since March 10 demonstration till March 25, says phayul.com.
A French organisation - Reporters Without Borders (www.rsf.org) say that three reporters without borders representatives, including their secretary-general Robert Ménard, on March 25 unfurled a banner showing the Olympic rings transformed into handcuffs at the official Olympic torch-lighting ceremony in Olympia, in Greece. Security forces arrested the three human rights activists, who are now being held at a police station in Pyrgos, around 80 kilometres from Olympia.
Wasfia Nazreen, director of Bangladesh students for a free Tibet (BDSFT), and a journalist with the first exiled-Tibetan news archive phayul.com, says ‘since China occupied Tibet, there has been over one million Tibetans killed and over 6000 monasteries destroyed. There is no religious or political freedom, and event as little as possessing an image of His Holiness Dalai Lama (HHDL) - the spiritual and political head for Tibetans for centuries, is considered a crime. The whereabouts of hundreds of political prisoners still remain unknown’.
Wasfia added more that, ‘China’s one-party government uses a highly-skilled censoring regime controlling media in mainland China. For example, if you type ‘Tiananmen Square’ from inside China in Google, all one can find is happy tourist images around this historic place of the massacre of 1989. Similarly, the current situation inside Tibet is strictly being controlled by people’s liberation army (PLA), thousands of troops have been deployed and Tibet has been shut off from tourists and foreign journalists’.
Asking about Tibetans seeking autonomy or complete independence, Wasfia relayed a view echoed in the Tibetan People’s freedom struggle. She says HHDL, after continuous failed attempts to process a dialogue with Beijing about independence, settled to ‘The Middle Way Approach’ in 1986. This seeks for genuine autonomy inside a portion of Tibet where Tibetan culture and religion can be preserved, and a mutual relationship between Chinese and Tibetans can be developed to peacefully resolve for the betterment of both. However, there is another school of thought amongst Tibetans, where freedom-fighters involved in the struggle are still seeking complete independence.
Many Tibetans inside Tibet – monks, nuns and lay people seek independence and their leaders to return back to Tibet, who was forced to escape and has been living as a refugee in Dharamsala in Northern tip of India. Both of these schools of thought respect each other and work independently in harmony in their non-violent struggle.
TIME LINE
1913 - Tibet reasserts independence after decades of rebuffing attempts by Britain and China to establish control.
1935 - The 14th Dalai Lama is born.
1949 - Mao Zedong proclaims the founding of the People’s Republic of China and threatens Tibet with ‘liberation’. China enforces a long-held claim to Tibet.
1951 - Tibetan leaders are forced to sign a treaty, known as the ‘Seventeen Point Agreement’, which professes to guarantee Tibetan autonomy and to respect the Buddhist religion, but also allows the establishment of Chinese civil and military headquarters at Lhasa.
1959 March - Full-scale uprising breaks out in Lhasa. Thousands are said to have died during the suppression of the revolt. The Dalai Lama and most of his ministers flee to northern India, to be followed by some 80,000 other Tibetans.
1963 - Foreign visitors are banned from Tibet.
1965 - Chinese government establishes Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR).
1966 - The Cultural Revolution reaches Tibet and results in the destruction of a large number of monasteries and cultural artefacts.
1971 - Foreign visitors are again allowed to enter the country.
Late 1970s - End of Cultural Revolution leads to some easing of repression, though large-scale relocation of Han Chinese into Tibet continues.
1980s - China introduces ‘Open Door’ reforms and boosts investment while resisting any move towards greater autonomy for Tibet.
1988 - China imposes martial law after riots break out.
1989 - The Dalai Lama is awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.
1993 - Talks between China and the Dalai Lama break down.
1995 - The Dalai Lama names a six-year-old boy, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, as the true reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism. The Chinese authorities place the boy under house arrest and designate another six-year-old boy, Gyancain Norbu, as their officially sanctioned Panchen Lama.
2006 July - A new railway linking Lhasa and the Chinese city of Golmud is opened. The Chinese authorities hail it as a feat of engineering, but critics say it will significantly increase Han Chinese traffic to Tibet and accelerate the undermining of traditional Tibetan culture.
2008 March - Anti-China riots in Lhasa. Dozens of people are reportedly killed.
Choosing the perfect occasion
Tibet, a mainly Buddhist territory known as the ‘roof of the world’, is governed as an autonomous region of China today.
The Tibetan people now stand at an important junction - the 50th commemoration of the March 1959 uprising against China’s occupation of Tibet and the Beijing 2008 Olympics in China. The Chinese government is allegedly attempting to use the Olympic Games as a platform to gain acceptance as a global leader and to promote its propaganda on Tibet. Beijing sees this moment as an opportunity to legitimize its rule in Tibet once and for all, says Tibetan People’s Uprising Movement (http://tibetanuprising.org).
The website claims: The Tibetan People’s Uprising Movement is a global movement of Tibetans inside and outside of Tibet taking control of their political destiny by engaging in direct action to end China’s occupation of the country. Through unified and strategic campaigns they will seize the Olympic spotlight and shine it on China’s repression inside Tibet, thereby denying China the international acceptance and approval it so fervently desires.
In 1959, after a failed anti-Chinese uprising, the 14th Dalai Lama fled Tibet and set up a government in exile in India. Most of Tibet’s monasteries were destroyed in the 1960s and 1970s during China’s Cultural Revolution. Thousands of Tibetans are believed to have been killed during periods of repression and martial law, as per media reports.
China sent troops to Tibet in 1950 and since then there have been periods of unrest and sporadic uprisings as resentment of Beijing’s rule has persisted.
News reports from amnesty.org and phayul.com say that there have been human rights violation in and out of Tibet and journalists are restricted to enter the country.
The latest round of anti-China protests began in Tibet’s main city, Lhasa, on 10 March - the 49th anniversary of a failed uprising - and gradually escalated.
Lhasa saw at least two days of violence and there have also been protests in provinces which border Tibet.
According to BBC, what sparked the protests, it says, Buddhist monks marched from monasteries in and around Lhasa on March 10 to mark the 49th anniversary of a Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.
According to reports, security forces arrested some of the marchers, and the following day more monks marched through the streets to appeal for their colleagues to be freed.
As the protests escalated, economic and social grievances came to the fore, and more members of the general Tibetan population became involved in the monks’ protests.
China says 19 people were killed by rioters and accuses Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama of inciting the violence.
But Tibetan government-in-exile based in India said today that the Tibetan death toll from the demonstrations in Tibet had risen to 140 and further released the names and details of 44 identified people killed during the brutal crackdowns by Chinese government since March 10 demonstration till March 25, says phayul.com.
A French organisation - Reporters Without Borders (www.rsf.org) say that three reporters without borders representatives, including their secretary-general Robert Ménard, on March 25 unfurled a banner showing the Olympic rings transformed into handcuffs at the official Olympic torch-lighting ceremony in Olympia, in Greece. Security forces arrested the three human rights activists, who are now being held at a police station in Pyrgos, around 80 kilometres from Olympia.
Wasfia Nazreen, director of Bangladesh students for a free Tibet (BDSFT), and a journalist with the first exiled-Tibetan news archive phayul.com, says ‘since China occupied Tibet, there has been over one million Tibetans killed and over 6000 monasteries destroyed. There is no religious or political freedom, and event as little as possessing an image of His Holiness Dalai Lama (HHDL) - the spiritual and political head for Tibetans for centuries, is considered a crime. The whereabouts of hundreds of political prisoners still remain unknown’.
Wasfia added more that, ‘China’s one-party government uses a highly-skilled censoring regime controlling media in mainland China. For example, if you type ‘Tiananmen Square’ from inside China in Google, all one can find is happy tourist images around this historic place of the massacre of 1989. Similarly, the current situation inside Tibet is strictly being controlled by people’s liberation army (PLA), thousands of troops have been deployed and Tibet has been shut off from tourists and foreign journalists’.
Asking about Tibetans seeking autonomy or complete independence, Wasfia relayed a view echoed in the Tibetan People’s freedom struggle. She says HHDL, after continuous failed attempts to process a dialogue with Beijing about independence, settled to ‘The Middle Way Approach’ in 1986. This seeks for genuine autonomy inside a portion of Tibet where Tibetan culture and religion can be preserved, and a mutual relationship between Chinese and Tibetans can be developed to peacefully resolve for the betterment of both. However, there is another school of thought amongst Tibetans, where freedom-fighters involved in the struggle are still seeking complete independence.
Many Tibetans inside Tibet – monks, nuns and lay people seek independence and their leaders to return back to Tibet, who was forced to escape and has been living as a refugee in Dharamsala in Northern tip of India. Both of these schools of thought respect each other and work independently in harmony in their non-violent struggle.
TIME LINE
1913 - Tibet reasserts independence after decades of rebuffing attempts by Britain and China to establish control.
1935 - The 14th Dalai Lama is born.
1949 - Mao Zedong proclaims the founding of the People’s Republic of China and threatens Tibet with ‘liberation’. China enforces a long-held claim to Tibet.
1951 - Tibetan leaders are forced to sign a treaty, known as the ‘Seventeen Point Agreement’, which professes to guarantee Tibetan autonomy and to respect the Buddhist religion, but also allows the establishment of Chinese civil and military headquarters at Lhasa.
1959 March - Full-scale uprising breaks out in Lhasa. Thousands are said to have died during the suppression of the revolt. The Dalai Lama and most of his ministers flee to northern India, to be followed by some 80,000 other Tibetans.
1963 - Foreign visitors are banned from Tibet.
1965 - Chinese government establishes Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR).
1966 - The Cultural Revolution reaches Tibet and results in the destruction of a large number of monasteries and cultural artefacts.
1971 - Foreign visitors are again allowed to enter the country.
Late 1970s - End of Cultural Revolution leads to some easing of repression, though large-scale relocation of Han Chinese into Tibet continues.
1980s - China introduces ‘Open Door’ reforms and boosts investment while resisting any move towards greater autonomy for Tibet.
1988 - China imposes martial law after riots break out.
1989 - The Dalai Lama is awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.
1993 - Talks between China and the Dalai Lama break down.
1995 - The Dalai Lama names a six-year-old boy, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, as the true reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism. The Chinese authorities place the boy under house arrest and designate another six-year-old boy, Gyancain Norbu, as their officially sanctioned Panchen Lama.
2006 July - A new railway linking Lhasa and the Chinese city of Golmud is opened. The Chinese authorities hail it as a feat of engineering, but critics say it will significantly increase Han Chinese traffic to Tibet and accelerate the undermining of traditional Tibetan culture.
2008 March - Anti-China riots in Lhasa. Dozens of people are reportedly killed.
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this. "It is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions."
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