China braces for more Tibet unrest

This year, March 10 will mark the 50th anniversary of the Dalai Lama's escape from Tibet. Tibetans and Tibet experts, however, say that renewed riots on a scale seen in March last year are unlikely with Chinese security so intense, even though the anniversary will be viewed as significant.

A Tibetan in Lhasa who does not wish to be identified told Al Jazeera that the condition in the city "is very, very bad." He said there are armed troops everywhere and many Tibetan pilgrims in Lhasa are being rounded up and sent back to their homes in the countryside.The intense security in Tibetan areas is evidence that China is nervous about more protests this year, say analysts."Undeclared martial law"Dr Lobsang Sangay, a Tibetan-in-exile and a scholar at Harvard, describes the situation on the ground in much of Tibet as "undeclared martial law.""It is a segregated society at the moment in Lhasa – with Tibetans on one side and Chinese on the other… the situation is very, very tense. Even old friends dare not talk to each other."

Such intense security will be maintained, he says, for much of 2009 – a particularly sensitive year as not only is March 10 the 50th anniversary of the Dalai Lama's escape, but June 4 is the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and October 1 is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.Would-be protesters will not have a chance, says Sangay."Even if 10 or 20 Tibetans start to demonstrate, they will be rounded up very quickly. On every block there are military [personnel] armed with loaded AK47s all over Tibet," he explained. "Having said that, I think Tibetans will make their discontent shown through sporadic protests here and there, such as the pasting of posters.

"In March last year, Tibetans in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and other Tibetan regions in neighbouring provinces staged violent protests which killed more than 20 people according to China. The area was sealed off for three months while the military quashed the unrest.Beijing blamed the Dalai Lama and his government-in-exile based in northern India for instigating the wave of protests. The Dalai Lama denied involvement and Tibetan exiles and many Tibetans inside China say they were sparked by years of resentment against Chinese rule.

Woeser, a prominent Tibetan writer living in China, agrees that Beijing is taking extreme measures to prevent more unrest around March 10 in 2009. "At several of the important temples in Lhasa recently, they have posted People's Armed Police units, which are an addition to the normal police that have already been stationed there," said Woeser whose blog writings, including those on the March protests, are blocked inside China."So now many temples are completely controlled by the authorities. Also, recently, pilgrims from other Tibetan regions, including Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces, have not been permitted to make pilgrimages to Lhasa or even to do business there."

Woeser is no stranger to harassment herself. At times the authorities placed her under house arrest at her home in Beijing for her outspokenness.Hope in negotiations

Some Chinese academics are placing their hope in dialogue.Professor Gong Yuxuan at Beijing Foreign Studies University's School of Philosophy and Social Science says trouble is less likely if Beijing can make amends with the exile community."This [the likelihood of more protests] depends on the contact between the Dalai clique and the Chinese government," Gong said. "Take Taiwan, for example, now the Chinese government and Taiwan have established a good relationship… If the Chinese government can do the same with the Dalai clique then it is less likely for any riots to happen in Tibet." This is looking increasingly unlikely, however.

The latest round of negotiations between the Dalai Lama's envoys and Chinese officials ended sourly in November. Beijing accused him of plotting ethnic cleansing against Chinese if he ever regained power in Tibet, while the Dalai Lama said he now had little faith a resolution would ever be hammered out.Cracking down on freedom of expressionWell over 100 monks and laypeople have been given jail sentences for their part in the March protests, according to Chinese media.

The latest, as reported in the Lhasa Evening News, happened on November 8, when seven Tibetans were given prison terms ranging from eight years to life. One of those given life was Wangdu, a Tibetan HIV project officer working for an Australian non-governmental organisation, the Burnet Institute. He was convicted on charges of spying – sending information about the riots overseas.Human rights groups also say that in recent weeks the authorities have been stepping up arrests related to freedom of expression.

The most notable, according to Human Rights Watch, is the arrest of an 81-year-old printer in Lhasa. Paljor Norbu was secretly sentenced to seven years in November for crimes related to printing "prohibited material." No other details were given to his family.The factor of anniversariesSuch measures will be ramped up further this year, as March approaches and the region will likely be out of bounds to foreigners again, said Sangay."The Chinese really care about anniversaries," and they won't be taking any chances, he added.

Ignoring the climate of fear and heavy security, other observers say the anniversary may still not be enough to spark major riots."This is totally unpredictable," said Andrew Nathan, a China specialist and professor of politics at Columbia University in the US. "I wouldn't classify it as likely. I think it takes more than an anniversary to trigger something as serious as rioting, but a sequence of events could lead to rioting as it has in the past."And while Beijing's blanket security measures may succeed in suppressing all kinds of organised dissent in 2009, such a status quo is unsustainable, say Tibetans."Under such strict conditions any protest will be quickly suppressed. So I believe that it's not possible to see such protest as we saw last year. But I also believe that such harsh conditions will cause more resentment among Tibetans and, much later, much more serious protests will happen in Tibet," said Woeser.

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China releases prisoners for fear of death in custody

China has begun to release Tibetan prisoners who are likely to succumb to injuries of torture and beatings in prison. This has been an old tactic of the Chinese authorities to escape the blame of a prisoner’s death in prison, say right groups.


"They (China) are turning Tibetan prisoners into live corpses, and handing them over to the families to avoid being blamed for their deaths", said Tenzin Choeying of Students for a Free Tibet, India.


According to the Voice of Tibet radio service, China has released a Tibetan named Guru Dorji from Kardze ahead of his prison term after brutally torturing him in prison. Citing reliable sources, the VOT reported that Guru’s villagers were called by prison authorities to pick him up on January 1. The villagers brought him back to his home the next day in a feeble state. Guru’s wife had passed away while he was in prison. He expressed sadness for he could not see her but said he was not worried about his death lingering on him. Anticipating his death, Guru had distributed his properties among his two children and urged his fellow villagers to take care of them. Guru’s villagers who went to fetch him were forced to sign a letter accepting that he would not participate in any protests should he recover from his injuries.
Sources told VOT that Guru vomited what he ate, and that his condition was serious.


In another incident, a girl name Rigden lhamo, 21, from Kardze was handed over to her family around December 25, 2008, as authorities feared she might succumb to her injuries in prison. She was seriously injured during the protests on May 28, 2008 and was later imprisoned.


On December 22, Rinchen and Jampa Dolma of Getsul nunnery in Kardze were also released prior to their scheduled release date. They were arrested along with two other nuns of Getsul nunnery for their participation in protests on May 22 in Kardze. However, the reasons for their release could not be confirmed yet.


Another nun named Dolma Yangtso of Laru nunnery in Sertha had informed her family of her being sentenced to 2 years in prison. She was fatally wounded after she was shot at by Chinese security during a protest on August 10, 2008, in Kardze.

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China to lure tourists to Tibet

China has launched a campaign to attract three million tourists to Tibet this year, after deadly unrest saw a huge drop-off in visitors in 2008, state media reported on Monday.

The government's target is up from the 2.2 million tourists who visited the remote Himalayan region last year, but is still well down on the more than four million who travelled there in 2007, according to the Xinhua news agency.

Unrest broke out in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, on March 14 after four days of peaceful protests against 57 years of Chinese rule. The government immediately sealed off the region to tourists.Authorities only allowed foreign tourists back in at the end of June.

The devastating earthquake in neighbouring Sichuan province in May, which caused a dramatic fall in tourists visiting there, also had an impact on Tibet's tourism industry, according to Xinhua.

Xinhua said the Tibetan government's campaign to lure three million visitors this year involved paying for a "bonus fund" for tourist operators, as well as stepped-up promotion activities.The aim of the government's campaign is to "restore the safe, civilised and healthy image of Tibet as a tourist destination", Xinhua said.

Xinhua gave no other details about the fund or other incentives, or whether the efforts would target foreigners as well as domestic tourists.However a report last week from the state-run Tibet Business News said local authorities had earmarked 50 million yuan (7.3 million dollars) this year to pay for promotions.It also planned to invest 350 million yuan during 2009 and 2010 to improve tourist infrastructure in the region such as road signs, transport hubs and toilets, the report said.

In

http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/business/International/China-to-lure-tourists-to-Tibet-1368.html

Taiwan to shelter Tibetans who fled China

Taiwan will offer residency to 110 ethnic Tibetans, many of whom fled political conflict in China, to resolve a complex cross-border flap involving expired visas and lost passports, the government said on Wednesday.

The ethnic Tibetans, former residents of India and Nepal, refugees from China and their children, may stay in Taiwan indefinitely for lack of any other legal place to go, an official with the local Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission said.

The ethnic Tibetans reached relatively well-off Taiwan on work, travel or religious mission visas issued throughout Asia as early as 2001, then overstayed and said they had lost their passports, said commission secretary general Chien Shi-ying.

“If we wanted to send them back some place, there wouldn’t be anywhere to send them,” Chien said. “They’re illegal but we can’t send them out. There’s nothing we can do.”

Most of the Tibetans work in factories in northern Taiwan.
Thousands of people fled Tibet, a region of southwest China, after a failed uprising in 1959 against what they describe as repressive Chinese rule.

About 20,000 Tibetans live in Nepal and an estimated 150,000, including Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, live in India. China has claimed sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan since 1949, when Mao Zedong’s Communists won the Chinese civil war and Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists (KMT) fled to the island. Beijing has vowed to bring Taiwan under its rule, by force if necessary.

In

http://www.tibetsun.com/archive/2008/12/31/taiwan-to-shelter-tibetans-who-fled-china/

O GRUPO DE APOIO AO TIBETE

DESEJA A TODOS OS SEUS

AMIGOS E APOIANTES

UM EXCELENTE 2009:

TIBETE LIVRE !

Indian supporters on nationwide “Free Tibet” yatra

Indian supporters led by Dr Mahesh Yadav, Founder of Mahatma Gandhi Tibet Freedom Movement concerned to-Global Amity Foundation, are on a nationwide 50-day “Free Tibet” campaign.

“Free Tibet, Security of India, and Violence and Terrorism Free World” are the message of this long countrywide “Jago Bharat Jago Tibet Yatra”, started from the Indian city of Bhopal. The yatra, covering India’s twelve biggest states, include regular press conferences, public seminars and discussions on the issues all along its way.

According to the organizers, various programs have been organized in different rural and urban cities like Bhopal, Mandideep, Obeidullahganj, Budhni, Hoshangabad and Itarsi as part of the yatra to educate Indians about the issue of Tibet and accordingly garnering their support for the cause.

MGTFM Free Tibet and Peace Activists, Dr. Manmohan Kurapa and Siddharth Bhatia are taking part in the Yatra.“Indian public, political leaders and media are supporting and appreciating this ‘Jago Bharat Jago Tibet Yatra,” says Dr Yadav, while commencing the yatra on Saturday at Rajghat, in New Delhi.

While addressing media in Delhi, Dr. Yadav urged United Nations, Government of India, world leaders and, all Noble Peace Laureates and Human Rights and Peace-award winners to support the exiled Tibetan leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Tibetan people in their struggle to “save Tibet for world peace”."If we are serious over the rights of animals, and talk about human rights, then why are we silent on the issue of Tibet?” Dr Yadav says.

He warns that failure to support and help fulfill the peaceful and non-violent struggle of Dalai Lama will endanger world peace in the long run.Indian Free Tibet and peace activists flag off a 50-day nationwide “Jago Bharat Jago Tibet Yatra” in Bhopal.

In

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Ensinamento com Tulku Pema Wangyal Rinpoche

É com enorme prazer que vos informamos da presença de Tulku Pema Wangyal Rinpoche em Lisboa, para um dia de Ensinamentos PúblicoS.

Tema: ”Desenvolver a Paz Interior”

Data: Hoje, 28 de Dezembro, pelas 16h

Local: Sala Mediterrânica do hotel Marriott em Lisboa (Av. dos Combatentes nº 45)

A contribuição será de 10 euros, não sendo necessária inscrição prévia.

TAKLUNG TSETRÜL PEMA WANGYAL RINPOCHE

Rinpoche foi reconhecido pelo 16º Karmapa e outros Mestres tibetanos como o 8º Tsétrül Rinpoche, lider da tradição Taklung Kagyu.Nasceu no Tibete e desde a infância estudou com os mais eminentes mestres budistas do nosso tempo, tal como Kangyur Rinpoche (seu pai), Dudjom Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche e o Karmapa. Desde a sua chegada à Europa em 1975, o Rinpoche estabeleceu na Dordgone (França), vários centros de retiros, e organiza regularmente sessões de formação com vários dos maiores Lamas tibetanos deste século de todas as 4 escolas budistas.Em todas as suas actividades o seu objectivo principal é o de partilhar a sabedoria e técnicas das autênticas tradições budistas com todos aqueles que a queiram estudar e praticar.

China relocates over 300,000 Tibetans in 2008: Report

Chinese government has moved some 300,000 Tibetan farmers and herders from 57,800 families into permanent brick houses in Tibet this year, under a government-led program, Chinese state-controlled news agency said Saturday, a controversial practice rights groups say has been marked by gross abuses.

“Another 312,000 farmers and herders from 57,800 families moved from shanty homes into new solid brick houses in Tibet this year under a government-subsidized housing project aimed at improving living conditions,” China’s Xinhua news agency reported Saturday.

"I only spent 18,000 yuan (2,647 U.S. dollars) on the construction of my new house, and the rest, totaling more than 40,000 yuan, were all granted by the government," the report cited Drolkar, a resident of the Yamda Village near Tibetan capital Lhasa as saying.

The report said, like Drolkar, all 208 families in the village moved into new brick houses this year.

To date, 860,000 farmers and herders from 170,000 families have moved into the new houses, the government statistics show, the report said.

The report said the five-year housing project was started in 2006 with a plan to build “solid homes for 220,000 families.”

Once finished, it would mean housing for 80 percent of the region's farmers and herders by the end of 2010, the report said of the controversial resettlement program that recalls the socialist engineering of an earlier era.

China calls the project the "comfortable housing program," and its stated aim is to present a more modern face for Tibet, which China has controlled since 1950 after sending troops to occupy the region.

It claims that the new housing on main roads, sometimes only a mile from previous homes, will enable small farmers and herders to have access to schools and jobs, as well as for the sake of ecological conservation and for the health of the farmers and herders.

Saying Tibet has been experiencing double-digit economic growth for the last 16 years; the Xinhua report quoted a communist official as saying: “Farmers and herds people re the beneficiaries of the economic development" under China.

Independent reports however, indicate otherwise.

China’s broader aim seems to be remaking Tibet - a region with its own culture, language and religious traditions - in order to have firmer political control over its population.

Forceful resettlement of nomadic Tibetans in Tibet and in adjacent ethnic Tibetan areas of Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai provinces actually began way back in 2000 and have taken place more intensively since 2003.

Observers say the massive mass relocation is linked to Beijing's effort, launched in 1999, to develop China's poor, restive west and bind it to the bustling east. Since then, human rights groups say, China has also been forcing nomadic Tibetan herders to settle in towns to clear land for development, while leaving many unable to earn living.

To prepare for an influx of millions of tourists in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the resettlement drive was more vigorously implemented across the Tibetan plateau.

Ahead of the Beijing Olympics, Chinese state media reported of increasing relocation of nomadic herdsmen in Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu provinces and the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) into fixed residences, but said they were done so to help protect the environment and boost their living standards.

Between 2006 and 2007 alone, Chinese government relocated some 250,000 Tibetan farmers and herders, nearly one-tenth of the population, to resettle to new "socialist villages" from scattered rural hamlets. Reports show they were often ordered to build new housing largely at their own expense and without their consent.In doing so, these Tibetan nomads have been forced to abandon their traditional lifestyles with many driven to frustration and despair, unable to cope up with the pressures of earning their livelihood through means alien to their traditions and upbringing.

Also resettlement often involve the slaughter of animals belonging to the mostly nomadic herders, relocation to poorly built accommodation and inability to find work due to lack of skills, US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said its June 2007 report.

Others are forcibly evicted to make room for public works projects, like dams and roads, the group said in the report.

China says its presence in Tibet has resulted in modernization of the predominantly Buddhist Himalayan country.

Critics rubbish the claim and say modernisation in Tibet has been crushingly imposed by the Chinese authorities along with draconian measures that restrict freedom of expression, freedom to follow a religion of choice and curtailment of opportunity.

While pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into road-building and development projects in Tibet, China is maintaining a large military presence and keeping close tabs on the citizenry through a vast security apparatus of cameras and informants on urban streets and in the monasteries to contain its tight grip on the restive Himalayan region and to quell any impending demonstrations, like the one that broke out in March, against its rule.

Xinhua’s latest report on relocation of Tibetans appears to be part of a major propaganda drive on Tibet launched by China last month to highlight what it calls the “social and economic development of Tibet over the last 30 years.”

Chinese media report last month said starting November 5th China’s top nine state-run media, including the official Xinhua news agency and People's Daily Online, will start “a series report on the last 30 years of Tibet after the reform and opening-up policy in China.”

The massive state-sponsored drive was described as a move to “help international readers to better understand Tibet”. The report said the purposeful coverage activity on Tibet would be jointly sponsored by the Publicity Department of Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and the Publicity Department of the Party Committee of TAR, with the network sponsorship of China Tibet Information Centre.

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A coordinated international response might soften Chinese intransigence over Tibet

After years of talking to Tibetan exiles about conditions in their homeland, Chinese officials have made it clear that they were not serious about it. Unless the international community adopts a coordinated position on Tibet¹s autonomy this may not bode well for either Tibet or for China¹s relations with the world.

During the March uprising in Tibet, Chinese officials were pushed to reopen six-year old discussions with the Dalai Lama. Deng Xiaoping had years ago said "anything was negotiable except independence," and Tibetans had long ago abandoned their earlier claim to independence in favor of autonomy. With no progress after six rounds of discussions, Deng¹s words rang hollow and the Dalai Lama had largely given up on Beijing. The tragic March crackdown moved him to try again in talks in May, July and November. After the Olympics, however, the Chinese remained indifferent and the talks broke down. In the past couple week, Chinese public pressure to stop European leaders from meeting the Dalai Lama has created a problem that will surely not go away. Though European leaders ignored such pressure this time, the international community needs to develop a coordinated response to reject such bullying and encourage a Chinese rethink.

Chinese indifference was on display in the recent breakdown. After a July Chinese request that Tibetans outline under the PRC constitution the autonomy they seek, Tibetan representatives produced a "Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People." The memorandum elaborates Tibetan "aspirations" for autonomy in 11 policy areas, including language, culture, religion, education, environmental protection, utilization of natural resources, economic development and trade, public health, public security, population migration and cultural, educational and religious exchanges with other countries. All of these are covered by existing unfulfilled national ethnic autonomy policies enacted under Article 4 of the PRC Constitution, except those relating to public security, migration and external exchanges, which appear instead to track the Article 31 "one country, two systems" Hong Kong formula.

The Chinese government has long refused to apply Article 31 to Tibet, though the language of the article offers no justification for this. Such model is believed to have been fashioned after the failed 1950 Sino-Tibetan "17-point Agreement," under which China originally committed to Tibetan autonomy. Though a few outside critics have criticized the Tibetan for demanding too much, no reason is offered as to why they should accept less than genuine autonomy. Because of China¹s refusal to provide any significant degree of autonomy under its national ethnic minority laws, Tibetans have proposed a hybrid combining elements of both formulas.

Similar to Hong Kong, their proposal includes a specification that local laws within the scope of autonomy not be subject to central approval ­ as now required in minority areas ­ and that the terms of their agreement with the Central Government not be subject to the Central Government¹s unilateral amendment. They further seek Hong Kong ­style control over immigration into the Tibetan areas and local public security, as well as control over external relations in non-sensitive commercial and cultural areas. Such autonomy is typically expected for indigenous peoples under international practice, as is spelled out in the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Tibetans have also proposed to unify contiguous Tibetan areas. Chinese officials frequently emphasize that this would constitute one quarter of the landmass of the present day PRC. These large, mostly mountainous, and often arid areas are in fact already designated as Tibetan areas by the PRC ­being divided into 13 contiguous areas instead of one. This proposal, like all others, is subject to negotiation, which China has so far refused.

To everyone¹s dismay, the Tibetan memorandum only met with Beijing's derision and became the basis for the worldwide campaign of isolation. It seems the discussions were only designed to smoke out and block Tibetan aspirations. In the Chinese official statement issued on November 10, 2008, the Tibetan request for "genuine autonomy" is treated as a request for "a high degree of autonomy," as promised to Hong Kong. China accuses Tibetans, in seeking such "high degree of autonomy," of seeking "half-independence" and "covert independence." No explanation is given why the exact same language applied to Hong Kong means only autonomy.

The Tibetans are further accused of continuing to "collude with such dregs as 'democracy activists', 'falunkun (falun gong) elements' and 'Eastern Turkistan terrorists,'" though no evidence of this is given. In seeking control over Chinese migration into Tibet, the Dalai Lama is accused of "ethnic cleansing."The exile government is characterized as a "small group of splittists," and the meetings are cast as private meetings designed to persuade the Dalai Lama to "give up his splitting activities." The statement declared, "We never discussed the so-called ŒTibet issue" and will "never make a concession."

Despite China¹s dismissive attitude, a large mid-November Tibetan exile meeting in Dharamsala, India, decided to continue efforts at genuine autonomy ­ determined to suspend this fruitless series of talks and find more effective nonviolent strategies.

That this problem will persist is made clear by recent Chinese bullying of foreign leaders not to meet the Dalai Lama. To dissuade French and current EU President Nicolas Sarkozy from meeting the Dalai Lama, China called off a December Sino-EU summit slated to discuss the financial crisis. Similar bullying tactics have targeted Germany, the UK, the US, the Vatican, Poland, India and the Czech Republic ­ the latter being next scheduled to take up the EU presidency.

As with the fiasco over the Olympic torch last summer, Chinese bloggers have again called for a boycott of French goods. While Chinese officials cautioned people to react ³calmly,² their tendency to manipulate such nationalist outbursts is transparent. They may, however, be cool to a Chinese boycott of French goods, given the risk that Europeans could react in kind or Tibetans could react by calling for a global boycott of Chinese goods ­ probably a more daunting prospect for the Chinese than for the other side.

The Dalai Lama is clearly winning the battle for hearts and minds in the West. A recent public opinion poll on the popularity of world leaders, commissioned by the International Herald Tribune, found the Dalai Lama was the most respected world leader among Western Europeans and Americans. The Chinese leader languished near the bottom. Perhaps Beijing has not fully considered the cost of their unseemly attacks on this revered Tibetan monk.

Of course, Western business leaders concerned about Chinese trade sanctions stand on the other side, posing a difficult dilemma for Western leaders. Dothey have the moral integrity to meet with the Dalai Lama in the face of China¹s condemnation and possible commercial sanctions?

Coordinated effort by national leaders worldwide may be the only way to cut the cost of such political virtue. This should not be conceived as conspiracy, but rather as a coordinated effort to maintain an open door to the Dalai Lama and reject Chinese efforts to isolate him. This should be accompanied by constructive efforts to help China to better understand its international obligations to this indigenous national minority.

*Michael C. Davis is a professor of law at Chinese University of Hong Kong. For further analysis of this issue see Michael C. Davis, Establishing a Workable Autonomy in Tibet, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol 30, 227-58, May 2008. Click here to read the article: http://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/human_rights_quarterly/30.2Tibet.pdf

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http://www.savetibet.org/media-center/tibet-news/a-coordinated-international-response-might-soften-chinese-intransigence-over-tibet