Tibet: sweeps continue at monasteries
A court in Tibet sentenced 30 people to prison terms ranging from three years to life April 29 in charges related to the March uprising. (NYT, April 30) China has detained scores of Buddhist monks over the past month, according to the International Campaign for Tibet. The group said more than 160 people were detained from several monasteries in the Lhasa area in April. Authorities detained at least six monks from the Nechung monastery, eight from the Nalanda monastery and some 60 from the Pangsa monastery. The group also said up to 100 monks were detained at the Rongwu monastery in Qinghai province. (AP, April 30)
As for the torch spectacle, Mount Everest appears to be the new symbolic battleground. From The Independent, May 2:
William Holland was only thinking of the photograph. When he got to the top of Everest he planned to take the rolled-up flag saying "Free Tibet" from his rucksack, pose for posterity with the banner as a backdrop and then roll it away again before starting back down. He was not looking to make a scene.
But that is exactly what transpired. Someone in the group he was climbing with informed the Nepalese authorities of Mr Holland's flag. When he reached Everest Base Camp he was ordered from the mountain and told to go straight to Kathmandu. From there he was deported from Nepal with an order not to return for two years.
The 26-year-old US climber's treatment at the hands of the Nepalese authorities is just one indication of how the world's highest mountain has in recent days become engulfed by the politics and controversy surrounding China and its relationship with Tibet.
As Chinese climbers seek to reach Everest's summit carrying a replica of the Olympic torch, the Nepalese government has closed down the upper areas of the mountain within its own borders and ordered everyone to stay away from the summit. It has even told the dozens of security personnel dispatched to the mountain they can shoot protesters seeking to disrupt the Chinese ascent.
See our last post on Tibet.
What the hell does that prove?
Why don't you read up on the history for some context on why the 1951 agreement fell apart?
"Dalai Liar." Very cute. We'd be very interested in any evidence or arguments that refute his claims.
If we are "on bandwagen [sic] of neo-con's geopolitical agenda," funny that we support the Zapatistas. We support indigenous peoples, including the Tibetans. It is the Beijing bureaucracy which supports the neocon agenda.
Well, it is not black and white, isn't it?
You see, if any evidence is coming from Chinese government, you will say it is false and propaganda, right? Chinese government is certainly not good at sophisticated propaganda. They don't have to be. They controlled the media and had a closed environment. But they are opening up, so they are learning from western media :-) Anyway, it is side point.
Here is link that I read from PBS, maybe you will find a few things that contradict to what your reference presents.
Both sides have done thing wrong, and are continuing doing wrong things, or doing in the wrong ways. This is my view.
If you want to find more, there are plenty of them on web outside of China. Trouble is, you seem to already made up your mind.
Not "black and white"—but yes, right and wrong
I do not dismiss claims from the Chinese government, but examine them with a critical eye, just as I do claims from any other government. On the demographic question:
The comment you link to cites Wikipedia (an unreliable source) citing the Chinese census (let's give it the benefit of the doubt) as giving the "number of Tibetans in Tibet Autonomous Region as 2.4 million, as opposed to 190,000 non-Tibetans, and the number of Tibetans in all Tibetan autonomous entities combined (slightly smaller than the Greater Tibet claimed by exiled Tibetans) as 5.0 million, as opposed to 2.3 million non-Tibetans."
What this fails to consider is that Tibet is a vast and sparsely inhabited territory, and of course the program of colonization is going to begin in Lhasa, the traditional center of culture and political power. From a March 29 AP story:
Chinese government policy of "demographic aggression" is threatening Tibetan culture as increasing numbers of non-Tibetan Chinese move into the region, the Dalai Lama said Saturday.
He also told reporters that China risks instability because of its human rights record.
In Lhasa, the region's ancient capital, there are now 100,000 Tibetans but twice as many outsiders, the Tibetan spiritual leader said. The majority of those are Han Chinese, the country's ethnic majority.
"There is evidence the Chinese people in Tibet are increasing month by month," he told reporters, calling the population shift a "form of cultural genocide."
He also said that a million more people are expected to be settled in Tibet after this summer's Olympics.
So, if we give the Dalai Lama the same benefit of the doubt that we give the Chinese census, the Tibetans are indeed being overwhelmed with Han settlers.
Carole Reckinger's assertion that "It is estimated that the immigrant Han Chinese now outnumber the Tibetans in their own land" may not apply to the entire TAR, but it does seem to apply to Lhasa. This is compounded by the claim that Han settlers dominate the job market and economy.
Israeli settlers constitute less than 20% of the population of the West Bank, but I don't hear any "progressives" offering apologias for that.
Jaundiced phrases like "black and white" miss the point—which is that, whatever errors the Tibetan leadership has committed, there is a right and wrong. Yes, I certainly have made up my mind about that.
The dark side of the Tibetan revolt
Since the revolt in Tibet, the majority of the mass media (with few exceptions) have based their reports of the Tibetan uprising through the lens of such a stereotype and their myopia of the reality of Tibet. The stories report the revolt principally as a struggle for independence from the oppressive power of China which started in October 1950. Surely, there is some truth in this. But the mass media, as unfortunately academics, and even anthropologists specialised in Tibetan Buddhism, have hidden what I call the ‘dark ethnic side’ of the revolt. I have tried to explain this in my last post
Best wishes
Gabriele
Dark side of your brain is more like it
Checked out your link. That's pretty hilarious. It is the Beijing bureaucracy which has embraced the methods and ideology of the US "war on terror," and joined Washington in demonizing the Uighur self-determination struggle—as we have repeatedly pointed out.
Why argueing so much with
Why argueing so much with you who only like to be spoonfed by Dalai Liar. To prove you are only the foot-soldiers on bandwagen of neo-con's geopolitical agenda, one document should be enough as follows, the full text of the Dalai's 1951 telegram to Mao:
"Chairman Mao of the Central People's Government:
This year the local government of Tibet sent five delegates with full authority headed by Kaloon Ngapoi to Beijing in late April 1951 to conduct peace talks with delegates with full authority appointed by the Central People's Government.
On the basis of friendship, delegates on both sides concluded the Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet on May 23,1951.
The local government of Tibet as well as the Tibetan monks and laymen unanimously support this agreement, and under the leadership of Chairman Mao and the Central People's Government, will actively assist the People's Liberation Army in Tibet to consolidate national defence, drive imperialist influences out of Tibet and safeguard the unification of the territory and the sovereignty of the motherland. I hereby send this cable to inform you of this. “