Finding the good in the horrible

If there is anything good to be found in the Chinese government’s murderous crackdown on the pro-independence demonstrations spreading like wildfire across Tibet, it is that the Tibetan people are now more unified than ever in their common identity and common demand for freedom and independence. 

Throughout history, foreign occupation or colonialism has strengthened a subjugated nation’s unity, and this has always been an ominous sign for the oppressor.

Reports the Washington Post:

The groundswell of activity suggests that anger over the Chinese government’s role in Tibet extends far beyond the remote mountainous region, particularly to outlying provinces that are home to an estimated 3 million ethnic Tibetans. Many resent Beijing’s criticism of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and the economic development that has mainly benefited the region’s Han Chinese, China’s dominant ethnic group.

“What we’ve seen is a revitalization of a sense of shared Tibetan identity and cultural and religious pride in the last few days,” said Kate Saunders, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet.

Historically, Tibet has grappled with regionalism between Tibetans living in the three traditional provinces of U-Tsang (itself two distinct regions, U and Tsang), Kham, and Amdo.  With the threat of Chinese invasion in the late 1940s, we saw Tibetans band together, but then after the invasion China chopped Tibet up among the “Tibetan Autonomous Region” and areas incorporated into the provinces of Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan and Gansu.  China has purposely been trying to “divide and conquer” Tibetans ever since.

What we are seeing now, though, is a beautiful, inspiring, powerful sense of unity and togetherness among Tibetans across the Tibetan plateau (and even those studying in Beijing!).  As a Tibetan, it is enough to bring tears to my eyes. 

So to my people in Tibet (forget you, China), I say: Tibetans are united, and Tibet will be free.

Tibet protests “foretell doom for the Chinese empire”

Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post has a brilliant article in Slate.  It is a must-read that explains how what’s happening in Tibet could lead to doom for the modern Chinese empire:

LIVE FROM LHASA: Shaky cell-phone videos from Tibet foretell doom for the Chinese empire 

By Anne Applebaum

Cell-phone photographs and videos from Tibet, blurry and amateur, are circulating on the Internet. Some show clouds of tear gas; others burning buildings and shops; still others purple-robed monks, riot police, and confusion. Watching them, it is impossible not to remember the cell-phone videos and photographs sent out from burning Rangoon only six months ago. Last year Burma, this year Tibet. Next year, will YouTube feature shops burning in Xinjiang, home of China’s Uighur minority? Or riot police rounding up refugees along the Chinese-North Korean border?

That covert cell phones have become the most important means of transmitting news from certain parts of East Asia is no accident. Lhasa, Rangoon, Xinjiang, and North Korea: All of these places are, directly or indirectly, dominated by the same media-shy, publicity-sensitive Chinese regime. Though we don’t usually think of it this way, China is, in fact, a vast, anachronistic, territorial empire, within which one dominant ethnic group, the Han Chinese, rules over a host of reluctant “captive nations.” To keep the peace, the Chinese use methods not so different from those once used by Austro-Hungary or czarist Russia: political manipulation, secret police repression, and military force.

But, then, modern China bears many surprising resemblances to the empires of the past in other ways, too. Like its Soviet imperial predecessor, for example, China encompasses both an “inner” empire, of which Tibet and Xinjiang are the most prominent components, and an “outer” empire, consisting most notably of its Burmese and North Korean clients. Like its French and British predecessors, the Chinese empire must wrestle constantly with nations whose languages, religions, and customs differ sharply from its own and whose behavior is, therefore, unpredictable. And like all its predecessors, the Chinese imperial class cares deeply about the pacification of the imperial periphery, more so than one might think.

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Two Great Videos from CNN

CNN just posted two important videos.

The first shows Chinese tanks rolling through Lhasa, and a statement by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.  It also has a CNN’s reporter suggesting that the bloodshed in Tibet is the biggest crisis to face the Chinese government since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre that almost led to the overthrow of the Chinese Communist Party (click here).

The second, via Hong Kong TV, shows Chinese police conducting house-to-house searches in Lhasa (click here).

Chinese Government Freaks Out

There’s no other way to describe it: the Chinese government has clearly freaked out at the Tibet-wide uprising on its hands.  This issue threatens to derail Olympic plans, years of careful propaganda about Tibet being “part of China,” and even overshadowed Hu Jintao’s rubber-stamp re-election as president of China.  How embarassing to be so helpless and exposed!

China’s official Xinhua News Agency issued a vitriolic editorial against the Dalai Lama, where one can almost feel the fury, bile, and rabid helplessness.  Here are the best (worst?) parts:

The Nobel laurel was tainted, and the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal proved nothing but a fig leaf of the Dalai Lama when on Friday rioters, backed by the self-proclaimed peace preacher, turned the tranquil holy city of Lhasa into a land of terror. …

Yet, this impudent politician did not show any sign of shame when he disassociated himself from the conspiracy as an innocent monk, leaving his followers standing as cat’s paws by persuading them, in a canting manner, “not to resort to violence” reportedly in a statement after the serene abode of the gods was disturbed….     

But the monk in a crimson cassock has many tools for disguise to survive the international criticism against violence and terror: his preaching of peace, tolerance and benevolence to the Nobel honor and U.S. medal which added to his undeserved aura.

Now the blaze and blood in Lhasa has unclad the nature of the Dalai Lama, and it’s time for the international community to recheck their stance toward the group under the camouflage of non-violence, if they do not want to be willingly misled.

The Dalai Lama and his clique have never for a day refrained from violence and terror. …

By attempting to pin the blame for the Tibet unrest on the Dalai Lama, the Chinese government is doing two things.  One, it’s exposing itself to worldwide ridicule.  Two, it’s condemning Tibet to a cycle of oppression and resistance, since China refuses to face up to the the true issue of the Tibetan people’s unfilfilled desire for freedom and independence. 

Truly a Tibet-Wide Uprising

Pro-independence demonstrations continue to spread across the whole of Tibet, not just in Lhasa or what the Chinese government calls the “Tibetan Autonomous Region.”  Chinese authorities must be freaking out that the whole of Tibet is ablaze with resistance.  This is an irrefutable sign of how widespread is the Tibetan desire for freedom and independence.

According to the Washington Post:

Violence in Tibet spilled over into neighboring provinces Sunday where Tibetan protesters defied a Chinese government crackdown… Protests against Chinese rule of Tibet were reported in neighboring Sichuan and Qinghai provinces and also in western Gansu province…

In Sichuan province, Tibetan monks and police clashed Sunday in Aba county after the monks staged a protest…  [O]ne policeman had been killed and three or four police vans had been set on fire…  [A]t least seven people have been shot dead in the county…

In Qinghai province, 100 monks defied a directive confining them to Rongwo Monastery in Tongren city by climbing a hill behind the monastery, where they set off fireworks and burned incense to protest the crackdown in Tibet. …

In western Gansu province, more than 100 students protested at a university in Lanzhou ….

A curfew was imposed in Xiahe city in Gansu province on Sunday, a day after police fired tear gas on a 1,000 protesters, including Buddhist monks and ordinary citizens, who had marched from the historic Labrang monastery.

Large communities of ethnic Tibetans live far outside modern Tibet in areas that were the Himalayan region’s eastern and northeastern provinces of Amdo and Kham until the communist takeover in 1951. Those areas were later split off by Beijing to become the Chinese province of Qinghai and part of Sichuan province

Eyewitness Reports from RFA

Radio Free Asia just posted these eyewitness reports from across Tibet:

Tibetans Report More Deaths, Spreading Protests As China Clamps Down

2008.03.15

Numerous sources interviewed by RFA’s Tibetan service have reported that anti-Chinese protests have spread further from the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, into the Amdo and Kham regions in Qinghai and Sichuan provinces, respectively. Witnesses notably reported a crowd of thousands at the Labrang monastery in Amdo. In Xiahe, where Labrang is located, protesters were said to have smashed doors and windows at the county government offices and police station until they were dispersed by tear-gas. Following are excerpted interviews from Tibetan sources who spoke with RFA on Saturday, March 15, 2008:

“I am in the Lhasa area. There was shooting today. Many Tibetans who were dead and barely alive were collected at the TAR [Tibet Autonomous Region] Security Office area, and I heard from a reliable source that there were 67 bodies. Some were alive and most were dead when they were brought in… This included male and female, and I don’t have the details… But it’s confirmed that there were in total about 67 bodies collected at this place. I cannot tell you the source of my information, but 67 bodies were seen by my source. It was officially announced by TAR officials that martial law was imposed. Right now I can hear shootings. We saw many tanks. Sometimes they fire in the air to threaten the Tibetans. At some places, like the Karma Kunsel area [near Lhasa], they are firing right now. Every Tibetan is stopped and their IDs are checked. Even Tibetan government workers are checked, but the Chinese are free to move around. Many Tibetans who were arrested were taken toward the Toelung area and several other jails in different parts of Lhasa. Even in Penpo, six monks were arrested last night and today there were demonstrations and Chinese shops were burnt. I think they might impose these restrictions for at least another seven to eight days. If they are not allowed to move around, the Tibetans won’t get food supplies, and the Tibetans are already suffering shortages of food. Right now the Chinese authorities are cracking down, but there are indications that this could spread further in rural areas. …There is no indication of any organization planning these demonstrations. It was a spontaneous response of Tibetans, and they jumped into the rally. They were shouting ‘Long live the Dalai Lama’ and ‘Independence for Tibet,’ and burning Chinese flags. Right now I was told that Tibetan monks in Samye monastery in Lokha are protesting too.”—Source in Lhasa

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UN Fact-Finding Mission and Olympic Boycott

Imagine for a moment that the carnage and chaos we are seeing in Tibet occurred in another country.

Wouldn’t there be frantic calls for a UN fact finding mission, especially when the numbers and causes of deaths remain disputed? Even a regime as isolated and odious as Burma accepted a UN mission.

So it is completely right that there are calls for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to send a UN fact finding mission to Tibet. If China really feels it has nothing to hide, it should prove it.

Now back to our hypothetical: imagine that the other country were being occupied by a third country, who happened to be hosting the Olympics in five months… Would there be an Olympic boycott?

Almost certainly! The Moscow Olympics were boycotted because the USSR invaded Afghanistan, so what about China’s brutal Tiananmen-style carnage in Tibet? That’s the logic of Richard Gere, and he has a point:

he said it was his personal opinion that it would be “unconscionable” to attend the Beijing Games if China failed to deal peacefully with unrest in the Himalayan region — protests that have turned to riots and already claimed several lives.

Informants, Threats and Ultimatums

Chinese authorities in Tibet have resorted to trying to use threats, issue ultimatums, and bribe informants to regain control.  This is a completely typical reaction: subterfuge, intimidation, and false promises of leniency to lure people to turn themselves in.

The Washington Post reports on the crackdown in the monasteries and nunneries:

Official statements suggested the government reaction in coming days would be tough, with Tibetan Buddhist monasteries — traditional focal point of opposition to Beijing’s rule — and nunneries being brought under tighter control.

The regional communist-controlled government said those who harbored protesters would be punished and it offered rewards and protection to informers.

UK’s The Telegraph similarly reports on China’s efforts to bribe informants and trick Tibetans with promises of leniency:

The Chinese authorities set a surrender deadline of Monday midnight for protestors to turn themselves in. Rewards and protection were being offered to potential informants.

Should we believe China’s promises of leniency?  Can pigs fly?  The following is a historical lesson from TCHRD:

The tactic is a clear ‘ploy’ by the Chinese authorities to trap the Tibetan demonstrators by inciting fear and intimidating the demonstrators to give in. The Chinese authorities will not live up to their promise of offering leniency to those who surrender, as it was the case in 1987- 1989 demonstrations in Lhasa.

Senator Obama “Condemns” China’s Use of Force in Tibet

Senator Barack Obama is the first U.S. presidential candidate to issue a statement on China’s crackdown in Tibet (issued March 14):

I am deeply disturbed by reports of a crackdown and arrests ordered by Chinese authorities in the wake of peaceful protests by Tibetan Buddhist monks. I condemn the use of violence to put down peaceful protests, and call on the Chinese government to respect the basic human rights of the people of Tibet, and to account for the whereabouts of detained Buddhist monks.

These events come on the 49th anniversary of the exile of the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, the Dalai Lama. They demonstrate the continuing frustration of the Tibetan people at the way in which Beijing has ruled Tibet. [...]

Tibet should enjoy genuine and meaningful autonomy. [...] Now is the time to respect the human rights and religious freedom of the people of Tibet.

On the whole, this was a strong statement, definitely more powerful than the the tepid official U.S. reaction. Thank you, Senator Obama.

However, Senator Obama does miss something major. Tibetans aren’t just frustrated at “the way in which Beijing has ruled Tibet.” Tibetans are fundamentally opposed to Chinese rule in the first place. They are calling for independence, not “better” rule by Beijing.

Also, Senator Obama misses the significance of March 10, 1959; in addition to being when His Holiness the Dalai Lama fled into exile, it was when Tibetans across Tibet rose up against the Chinese occupation of their country. So while we appreciate Senator Obama’s support for Tibetan autonomy, we would be much happier if he recognized and supported what Tibetans are literally dying for in the streets: independence.

(As and when other presidential candidates make statements on Tibet, we will post them here.)

New York Times video on “worldwide Tibetan protests”

Jim Yardley of the New York Times narrates a short video about “worldwide Tibetan protests.” Click here to watch.