Tibetans rock the national capital, rallies and lobbying in D.C.

March 10th, 2009
Washington, DC

Over the last two days, over 150 Tibtans and Tibet supporters have been taking the halls of Congress by storm, meeting with elected officials and their staff in 24 states.  In groups of 2 and 5 and 15, they have walked through the doors of their Senators and Representatives offices and poignantly brought the plight of the Tibetan people front and center in the minds of these men and women of power.  They have urged their public officials to push the Chinese government toward meaningful dialogue with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and to prioritize a multilateral effort to pressure China to end its human rights abuses in Tibet.

Meanwhile, on March 9th, hundreds of protesters took to the streets of DC with a moving rally at Lafayette square that then marched to the Chinese Embassy a few miles up the road.  Former Drapchi nun political prisoner Nawang Sondrol spoke (from AFP in the Washington Post)

AFP– “The protesters outside the White House included Ngawang Sandrol, who was a young nun when she was arrested in 1992 for chanting “Long live the Dalai Lama.”  She recounted her time in prison, saying that guards beat her and came to her with “a strange object that looks like a telephone.

‘They asked me, ‘Do you want to call your home?’ And I said my home doesn’t have a telephone,’ she told the rally in a hushed voice.  ‘Then he put the strange object into my shirt and turned it on. My entire body shook in a way I couldn’t control. That was my first time with electric shock and I was 13 years old.’

Under international pressure, China in 2002 freed Ngawang and later allowed her to move to the United States.

‘I know from my own experience that it is helpful when free people in free nations put pressure on the Chinese government,’ she said. ”

On the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan Uprising, we know that this pressure is working.  There are global marches today.  And lobbying around the world.  And Tibetans inside Tibet remain as courageous as ever under brutal circumstances.  The power of the Tibet movement grows each year, each day, each moment.  And there is so much more to come.