Can the Olympic Spirit survive?
When on the 8th of the 8th of 08, yes superstition lives on, the head of state of China opens the Olympic Games, and the world’s “Dignitaries” are at his feet, over one billion Chinese citizens are glued to their TV screens in adulation of their country’s glory, and the world at large has tuned in to watch this spectacle, he will bask in the grandeur of many who have gone before him in opening the ‘Nobel Games’.
This is the pride and glory, the country of the Han Chinese, will claim as recognition of their rightful place in the sun.
How rightful is this place?
Are the ‘dignitaries’ disgracing themselves by even attending these Olympics?
Should the Olympics have been awarded to China in the first place, and is China a worthy host for such a prestigious event?
The Chinese chose “One World one Dream” as the motto of these Olympics, so let’s see what sort of dream they’re referring to.
Here is a small selection of news reports which give but a tiny glimpse of a side of China many may not be aware of, or by all accounts, apparently do not really care about:
“On 15 July, Kunsang Tsering, a 22-year-old monk from Dhargye Langna monastery in Karze county, undertook a peaceful protest in front of the county Public Security Bureau (PSB) office. He was shot during his arrest by the PAP.
Tenzin Lhamo, a girl from Ugyen Mey village in Gaden Choekhor township, Lhundrup county, was given arbitrary sentence to 10 years of imprisonment for merely participating in a peaceful protest in Lhundrup county on 16 March. Samdup, a man from the same locality, was also sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Similarly, three others, including Kalden from Dhey village in Jangkha township, Lhundrup county, were sentenced to 20, 17 and 12 years in prison. Their details are not available.
Lobsang, a monk from Dzongkar monastery in Rebgong county, Tibet, was arrested in March from Lhasa. He was studying at the Drepung monastery in Lhasa during his arrest. Currently, he is being held in a prison in Gormo (Ch: Golmud) where he was also severely beaten.
Similarly, his friend Jigme Phuntsok was also arrested from Drepung monastery as reported earlier and then transferred to a prison in Gormo. It is reported that he died on 22 June from torture in prison.
Ngodup Dorjee, a 25-year youth from Phuk-Yi-Nang-Tsek-Lek village in Lhopa township, Karze county, staged a peaceful protest in the market of the county at 10:30 a.m. on 23 June.
During the protest, he shouted slogans such as “His Holiness the Dalai Lama should be invited to Tibet. We want religious freedom. Tibet belongs to Tibetan.” He was horribly beaten with metal batons by the People’s Armed Police (PAP) and then taken away.
From ABC Radio Australia reporting on a visit to Tibet by Dr. Powers:
Speaker: Dr Powers, a scholar in Tibetan religion and culture at the Australian National University
POWERS: Well, the most striking one was from a monk that I met at a Buddhist pilgrimage spot in China, who had escaped from a monastery in Eastern Tibet and he said that when he was there at his monastery, this was in late March, after the demonstration, some Chinese troops came into his monastery and started shooting the monks, randomly so it wasn’t that they were looking for people in the protest. It was pure retaliation for the fact that they protested. He said that three of his closest friends had been shot dead right in front of him. He started running, and he heard more shots and more monks falling and then he managed to escape travelling by night over the next couple of weeks and he has no idea of what actually happened, because he hasn’t been able to get any information in or out to his monastery.”
In June, Wanglo, a monk from the lower division of Tachok-tsang village in Serthar county, Tibet, was horribly beaten and arrested by the Chinese authorities concerned for taking photo of the ongoing “patriotic re-education” class in his village. When requested by his relatives for his release, the authorities demanded 20,000 Yuans as a punishment. Detailed information is not available.
Jigme Phuntsok, a 22-year monk from Drepung monastery, died from torture in a prison located in Amdo on June 22.
Media reports about transfer of a huge number of monks, who were arrested from Lhasa, Tibet, in March, to Gormo, Lanzhou, and other places are being confirmed.
On June 15, Tenzin was sentenced to 15 years for being one of the leaders of March protests, and Tenzin Gyatso for 13 years for replacing the Chinese flag with the Tibetan flag in a school in Dho-khor township.
Tibetan escapee recounts the horror of Chinese inhumanity
“There were gun shots and mass chaos while the streets were filled with smoke. I saw people around me fall down and my friend Nyima, was shot in the chest. A nun died in front of my eyes as did six others during the course of the demonstrations. The Army tanks were quick to come and clear up those who were either wounded or dead to dispose of any physical evidence.”
The Chinese raided our houses and confiscated our belongings. I had some 30-40,000 Chinese Yuan from my small business which the officials took away. My family in my native village later told me they had confiscated our ancestral property after they learned I had escaped into India,” he further added.
“Chinese officials torture Tibetan prisoners and extract false confessions out of them. They would only release Tibetans when there is no hope of the victims surviving from the wounds inflicted on them. Needless to say, they die in a day or two after being released from Chinese prisons.”
“In the beginning, many injured Tibetan protesters were taken to Chinese hospitals, where they were treated. Later, when injured Tibetans were taken to hospitals, they were detained instead of receiving medical attention. In fact, on the second day of the protests, even Tibetans who had bruises were treated as suspects and detained. So Tibetans who were injured had no choice but to wait for death … “
“Now, the situation for Tibetans in Lhasa is very tense. If a Tibetan argues over prices with a Chinese grocery-shop owner, the shop owner calls the police and the Tibetan is detained as a suspect. Any Tibetan without a residence permit is also detained. Even elderly Tibetans who cannot walk straight and Tibetan schoolchildren are searched. The Han Chinese don’t need residence permits. Their spoken Mandarin language is itself their permit.”
A report from multiple local sources the following day (also in Times of London) told the actual story. Police descended on the area, where hundreds of Tibetans were taking refuge in the mountains (after hundreds of others had been taken away by the security forces). Police had come to arrest a 22 year-old monk, Choetop, and shot him dead right then and there.
All this because Choetop had pulled down a Chinese flag a month earlier. The mouthpieces had called him an “insurgent leader.”
“When I went to fetch some water for him, I saw another Khampa who had been hit and was bleeding. Later, I heard that the young boy died. He was only around 16. He had not even been in the protests. Even Lhakpa Tsering, who was killed, had gone to the hospital to see his mother and was shot on his way back. There was also a young girl of about 16 who had been shot. Her whole body was covered in blood—we could see only her white hand. Her mother was crying, since the girl was her only child. When other Tibetans tried to console her by putting some money in a box, she threw the box away. She said that her daughter had died in a good cause and that she had no regrets.”
One night, I saw a Tibetan whose hands had been tied and pulled up behind his back. As he was being dragged away, he stumbled over a drain and fell. They beat him, and I heard them saying in Chinese, ‘Shoot him!’ ‘Kill him!’ On March 14 and 15, gunshots could be heard going off just like fireworks during festivities. We weren’t allowed to go out. I also saw many young Chinese and Tibetan girls and women dressed in Tibetan clothes. I was told that they were all Chinese informers and that several of them had been ‘planted’ in the community.”
“…My brother, who suffers from tuberculosis, my sister and two uncles, who have never been involved in any type of demonstration or protest, were detained without cause… My brother and sister were first taken… beaten with rifles, kicked and thrown into a truck. They were taken out of the city to an unknown location, and were put into a small concrete room with 400 other Tibetans. There were no washrooms, and they received no food, nor water for two days and nights. Hardly anyone could stand up by themselves because of the beatings.
When they released my brother and sister, they kept my brother’s watch and his rosary, which had some semi-precious stones, and all the money they had (they don’t use banks and keep most of their money on them)…”
“There may not be any more uprisings: There are troops in every town that has paved roads.
The army marches through town streets three times a day, paralyzing the Tibetans with fear. Surveillance cameras were installed in places that don’t even have running water.”
Most of the Tibetan families whose loved ones were killed could not be traced. It was difficult to know whether they were alive or dead or under detention. Most of the dead bodies were taken away and disposed of by the Chinese.”
Four Tibetans were killed by sniper fire while they were marching near Kirti monastery… Then a little later, another three were killed. They were shot from a distance.
“Five Tibetans succumbed to injuries at the nunnery hospital in Lhasa—it’s the Tsangkhug nunnery in Lhasa. Two Tibetans who were at the hospital were injured and they complained their legs were broken. The body of a young boy is still lying here unclaimed. Several other dead bodies were brought, and many of them were claimed by relatives.”—
Today when the Tibetans were demonstrating, many Tibetans were killed. We Tibetans had no weapons to fight back. When the Tibetans were gathered in front of the Jokhang [temple], the Chinese fired at us. I have personally seen more 100 Tibetans killed when the Chinese fired at the Tibetan crowd. It was the Chinese army who fired and that happened in Lhasa and I personally witnessed the tragedy. Many of those killed were young Tibetans, both boys and girls. …It started around 10 a.m.
Tibetan businessmen across China have also been targeted with harsh restrictions. Reports from Beijing indicate that as many as 300 Tibetans in Beijing’s Sunday Market have been told to sell their homes and leave Beijing in the lead up to Olympics, implying that they’re being kicked out for good.”
The fate of thousands of monks and ordinary Tibetans remains unknown.
These people disappeared after being arrested, and their whereabouts or wellbeing is unknown.
Chinese authorities don’t inform relatives of arrested people, this way there is no trace back to summary executions and people who succumb to their torture while in custody of the Chinese.
The bodies of all so deceased torture victims and secretly executed detainees, are being withheld by the Chinese authorities and immediately cremated to avoid proof and photographic evidence being gathered.
The scale of the atrocities in Tibet is immense indeed, the entire Tibetan population of 7 million is being subjected to the most horrendous harassment, intimidation, wanton arrest, dispossession, disenfranchisement, summary execution, and much more.
The arrested are routinely, and almost without exception, tortured in the most horrific ways and countless have been rendered life long cripples, or have died as a result of the injuries sustained.
As a particularly insidious policy and ‘technique’, the occupying Chinese aim to inflict as much internal injuries, so as to render the victim certain to die from internal bleeding.
Is this the sort of county the IOC should have honoured with awarding the Olympics?
The world has been cowered into the most craven servitude to a regime which knows no scruples, shame nor civilities.
The Han Chinese CCP’s rule over a “China’, which is an imperial empire occupying huge swathes of lands which are ethnically distinct and sovereign countries in their own right, is far more brutal and racist than the old South Africa ever was.
The Uighurs, Mongols, Tibetans are not part of this self-assured China, and are unlikely to celebrate this feat of having the entire world cravenly at your feet; all for the sake of lucrative trade with the most populous nation.
Has the IOC ever contemplated the implications of being the facilitators of an Olympics, held under the darkest of clouds of the most overt racism, oppression and secretive mass murder?
These, indeed are the Han Chinese Games of Shame, though this nomer now seems ever more a gross understatement!
The Han Chinese are obliviously complicit, and have unwittingly been manipulated into this racist malevolence, and their culpability extends as far as their denial of it, and their explicit support thereof.
It is time for an honest re-appraisal, and profound soul-searching on part of the perpetrators of such acts of barbaric atrocities in the 21st century.
We all need to constantly assess our own place, and the soundness of our actions, for if we let ourselves to be (mis)led, we will stray into dangerous territory bereft of conscious accountability, though accountability never ceases.
One world, one Nighmare.
Credits and news sources:
http://bhodrangzen.blogspot.com/2008/05/what-witnesses-are-saying.html
http://www.tibetoffice.com.au/update-tibet-25-june/
http://agamsgecko.blogspot.com/2008/07/they-shoot-monks-dont-they-new.html
Letter to Hu Jintao
Mr. President
Let me take you on a mental journey, if you dare.
Instead of being a member of the ruling, and by numbers, the overwhelmingly largest and domineering creed, imagine now that you are a member of a society, race and country that is uniquely distinct and different from all the surrounding peoples and countries, and which is just a small minority, overwhelmed by your own creed.
You only number a few million, but your people are very proud of their own identity, heritage, culture and country, and have conducted all your own affairs for millennia, have fought wars, defeated enemies, conquered territories and occupied lands during your history.
From time to time your country entered into bilateral agreements with neighbouring states which were mutually beneficial to the signatories.
Your country, at all times always knew that you were an independent nation and that these arrangements never meant any impingement on your sovereignty.
Your country ran all the civil services, as any country does, issued your own currency, post stamps and passports, which were accepted by other countries.
There were no foreign diplomats, no government officials, no representatives of any sort at all present in your country from your, by numbers, domineering neighbouring state.
Your country knew it was a sovereign nation and conducted itself accordingly on the international stage.
You were so fiercely independent that you refused permission for Allied forces to cross your sovereign country, as you wanted to maintain being a neutral, non-aligned state.
Yet, even so, your country was arbitrarily and illegally invaded by this hugely overwhelming neighbour, without provocation, justification or rationale.
They held a gun to your head and forced you, by threat of complete invasion, to sign an agreement, which they themselves never honoured, not one clause of it.
They’ve destroyed your culture, heritage, massacred your population, and are oppressing you even today, for almost 60 years now, in medieval fashion more akin to ancient barbarism than to 21st century enlightened behaviour.
They’ve reinvented history, falsified and fabricated documents and harked back to ancient times and reinterpreted arrangements between your country and a historical, neighbouring state this creed was only a part of at the time.
Though this past state now no longer exists, as this hegemonistic Empire collapsed over ninety years ago, and with it any contractual arrangements, obligations and claims it may have had, they still claim, by virtue of their fabrications and lies, that they own your country.
You contend that there is something deeply and profoundly perverse and depraved about this other nation and ethnic group, claiming to “own” your land, your soil, your country, and with it your people.
Even if this claim were not based on lies and deceit, which you know it of course is, it would strike you as the most grotesque perversion and violation of all international laws and conventions, and an abject abrogation of any human notion of fairness and moral or ethical conduct.
And that is exactly what all eminent scholars and legal experts have found; your nation was illegally invaded, it was a sovereign, independent country, and to this day has the right to full, unfettered sovereignty based in international law.
Your leaders have attempted, through dialogue and peaceful negotiations, to bring about an improvement to the suffering of your oppressed people.
But your oppressors have never shown even the slightest hint of sincerity and honest intent, and only engage in puerile, disingenuous berating of your leader and question his sincerity and legitimacy of representing your people.
But you know that the questionable legitimacy lies in fact with your oppressors, as they rose, and only hold on to power at the barrel of a gun, and never have been democratically elected. And this ethnic creed holds not just your country, Tibet, under occupation but also the Uighurs, the Mongolians, the Manchus and many other minorities’ lands. This ruling creed has invented the myth of the ‘nation family of 56 ethnic groups’ to justify their occupation and annexation of your, and the other minorities’ lands.
But you know, and experience, that it is only this creed, the Han which holds the power, only the Han have all the rights, only the Han make all the decisions, only the Han language, customs, culture, values has any acceptance and is tolerated under their repressive rule.
In fact all experts and Human Rights organisations have found that this creed is perpetrating the most onerous racist policies in Tibet, far outstripping the old Apartheid Regime in malice and inequity.
The world is in disbelief and utterly aghast over these deplorable contraventions of all accepted standards, international laws and conventions.
But your country has committed itself to a peaceful resolution to this longstanding, illegal occupation and refrained from violent actions or even guerrilla warfare to free itself from this horrific yoke.
All appeals to fairness, justice and adherence to international laws has fallen on deaf ears, and your country is at the end of its tether, for it is at the complete mercy of a recalcitrant regime of the most dissolute and repugnant mindset.
Mr President, by now, if there is a human heart beating inside your chest, your blood might be boiling at the iniquities and injustices perpetrated against your people and nation, and you must be questioning what your country has to do to end this illegal, malevolent occupation and oppression of your people.
Would you call to arms, would you use any tactic from civil disobedience, to guerrilla warfare, to assassinations of the perpetrators, from the President of your occupying regime on down, for he particularly is well remembered by your people as the Butcher of Lhasa for the mass murder of hundreds of innocent, peacefully protesting monks?
And you know in your heart that this is what freedom struggles throughout history have always been; an oppressed peoples’ only recourse, and by all accounts, legitimate means of fighting for their just cause.
But your country has vowed to pursue non-violent means, and is waiting patiently for some semblance of rational and ethical behaviour on the part of your tormentors. Or perhaps a leadership change which would finally see people in charge with a moral and ethical conscience, and sense of integrity and justice commensurate with 21st century enlightened principles.
You wait and hope, and the whole world is crying out and grieving with you and is imploring your oppressors for acceptance and implementations of international laws, conventions and treaties, to which they are subject, and bound to comply with.
But you and your people might be running out of patience, for you’ve taken the civilized, and compassionate path and displayed the most admirable, inconceivable forbearance, but only run up against a cold, heartless, brutally dissolute concrete wall for far too long with your despotic oppressors.
I leave you now to ponder your accountabilities and the scrutiny of your conscience!
onejustworld
Freedom, Justice, Equity for All – from Tibet to Myanmar, to Darfur to North Korea …..
Tibet’s Loss – China’s gain, the Dorje Shugden controversy!
Now this Dorje Shugden deity controversy is marked with all the intrigues and underhand tactics worthy of a high power play political thriller.
One wonders if these street protesters actually are aware of the whole background to their perceived grievances they so vocally scream out in servitude to their masters.
Do they ever question the motivation behind the rhetoric, the origin to the murky, unsubstantiated allegations or the methods used in their leader’s ‘war’ against the Tibetan people?
These Shugden warriors have sadly become to be the naïve puppets of a much wider power play by the very masters of Deception and Propaganda-Lies, and occupiers of the Tibetan homeland; the CCP.
These unwitting propaganda soldiers are carrying out one of the most despicable and depraved smear campaigns against the Tibetans, the CTA, and particularly the Dalai Lama in order to eliminate their legitimacy to represent the Tibetans and their just cause.
Divide and rule; sow dissent and reap power over a divided society, so the CCP’s motives.
While the CCP is busy exploiting this rift by handing out grants to monks and funding monasteries if they are a hotbed of Shugden worship inside Tibet, they foment this rift in the Tibetan society inside and outside Tibet in order to destroy any unity and opposition to their oppressive rule over Tibet.
Expatriot Tibetan monks of the Shugden persuasion are frequent and welcome visitors to Chinese run, and tightly controlled Shugden monasteries inside Tibet, and carry the seed of dissent and disharmony back to the exiled Tibetan communities.
One only has to look at the methods used by the Kadampa cabal and their servile propaganda warriors carrying placards with their vitriolic slogans to get an idea of what their credentials really are:
Calling press conferences that attract world wide media including, of course, the CCP’s mouth piece Xinhua etc.
Where they decry the Dalai Lama with vitriolic venom copied straight from the CCP’s own Propaganda-Lies Unit.
Court action in Indian Courts against the CTA, the Dalai Lama, and the Tibetan people by proxy.
The release of rancorous press releases with copies sent to the President and Prime Minister of India and Government Ministers to undermine the very tenuous existence the homeless refugee Tibetans manage to cling to.
The dissemination of anonymous pamphlets full of lies, in a smear campaign more like it is coming straight from the CCP’s own Propaganda-Lies Unit.
Propaganda foot soldiers taking to the streets with their bizarre accusations to publicly vilify and embarrass the Dalai Lama , which, by any examination, has no basis in fact whatsoever. And which these marionettes don’t really seem to comprehend.
Just ask, are these the actions of true Buddhists, who by virtue of even just simply claiming to be ‘Buddhists’ would refrain from any of these actions?
Are these the deeds of anyone having even a seed of compassion, concern, or just the least bit of consideration for the effects of their activities, and for the implications to the Tibetan cause?
Or are they so bereft of any morals or ethics, or the slightest bit of insight into the wider issue that they’re incapable of questioning their own motives and actions, and are immune to any pangs of conscience?
Perhaps it is in the nature of their cult, and or the worship of this Shugden guy which has taken hold of their moral compass and blinded them completely from seeking the facts and truth.
Their actions, behaviour and pronunciations are clearly that of a cult in the true sense, complete with servile, perfunctory mob behaviour, slogan shouting and recitation of prescribed propaganda lines and also the sole acceptance of the one “truth”, authority and Guru.
And anyone who’s not exactly of the same belief, mind, or school is a non-believer, deviant and a heretic.
The Dalai Lama now has taken on this role in their corrupted minds, so they can project their non-Buddhist venom, emotions and feelings against this perceived “villain”.
They’ve become so entangled in their referential, circulatory and delusionary thinking, and strayed so far from the path of Dharma, that they’re truly in need of help and compassion.
The sad thing is that probably they’ve started out with sincere motives, wanting to become true Buddhists and serve all sentient beings through their practise of the tenets and ideals of Buddhism.
They’ve been led astray by amoral leaders pursuing their unholy vendetta and aims, and in the process their beliefs have become an insidious meme.
And once such a pernicious meme has gotten hold of a feeble mind, it is but a puppet on a string at the command of the puppeteer, with the puppet unaware of the surreptitious manipulation.
To complete the picture, they’re completely afraid of even investigating the issue and questioning their leader’s motives for fear of having their beliefs shaken and loosing that soother of a meme.
By the sweetest irony of all, they, the Shugden cult themselves are the ultimate rationale and attestation for the Dalai Lama’s advice to refrain form propitiating this Shugden deity.
By their very inappropriate, inconsiderate, deplorable, and downright un-Buddhist actions they’ve demonstrated just the very point; the objectionable disharmony, sectarianisms and split they’ve wreaked on the Tibetan society at a time they just don’t need any such externally incited torment.
But that’s just the CCP’s game-plan; the Shugden puppets have taken the bait, hook, line and sinker and even gone to extraordinary lengths to serve the CCP’s heinous purpose.
1:0 to the CCP, and an irreparable setback to the Tibetan cause!
Well done Shugdeneers!
More background information about this cult:
http://info-buddhism.com/Western_Shugden_Society_unlocked.html
http://www.tibetinfonet.net/content/update/116
China’s Crackdown
There is so much mention of a “harsh crackdown” by the Chinese in Tibet.
But what does this really mean, and is it just a ‘severe’ form of restriction of movement, or the arrest of some ‘hooligans’ which attacked some Han Chinese shops?
Well, best to let a Tibetan speak and reveal a glimpse of what life in Tibet under Han Chinese occupation really means.
(Details omitted to protect the identity of the person)
“On (*) March, around one hundred soldiers came to my house, broke down five doors, checked everything and threw it all on the floor and hit everyone present there. It was like a robbery or burglary. There were a lot of firearms and they were very rough with us. I was arrested. They took me with them, with my thumbs tied behind my back, very tightly, resulting in the whole area being numb since then”
“They treated us very harshly. Talking to each other, they said, “This is our chance”, and they beat us. At first I thought that they were going to kill me, they hit my head a lot, and skull can be broken easily. It is not like the rest of the body. They took me to prison. For four days they didn’t ask me anything, they just threw me in. They gave us half a steamed bun a day. That’s very small. Everyone was very thirsty and a lot of people drank their urine [the detainees were not provided with water]. We had no clothes, no blankets, nothing to lie down on, nothing [just cement floors] and it was very cold. For four days nobody spoke to us, they just left us there.”
“We heard a lot of things. Many people had their arms or legs broken or had gunshot wounds inflicted, but they weren’t taken to hospital. They were there with us. It was really terrible. I can’t believe that we are in the 21st century. For instance, one boy who was shot four times, one from here to there [the bullet entered from the left side of his back and exited from the left side of his chest, near his heart], one from here to here [from inner left elbow to inner left wrist], and one here [a horizontal wound on his upper right arm]. Some people had their ribs broken. One man was punched in his [right] eye, and it was all swollen and black and blue, very bad. People had their teeth broken, these are just examples. A lot of terrible things were done.”
“The worst thing – this is Gondzhe [the name of the prison], in Lhasa there are nineteen prisons, the biggest is Drapchi and there is one in Chushul [Ch: Qushu County], they are empty, they showed the visitors that nobody is in prison, it’s just for show. Usually there is no prison at the train station, but they rented a very big building and they put people there and in Du-Long [Toelung Dechen County] and at the train station, and in Gondzhe; they put people in these three places. At night they bring a big bus, and many soldiers come, and one hundred to one hundred and fifteen go to Du-Long. They say it’s time to go home, “You haven’t done anything wrong, you’re going home,” but they put them in a huge bus to Du-Long or to the train station.”
“Some monks had sacks put over their heads and they were taken away and didn’t come back, so maybe they were killed”.
“A brother and sister from (*), the brother was younger, were sleeping in the same room and all of a sudden soldiers came and threw them out of the window from a high floor to the ground, the brother was killed on the spot. Yes, right outside the building. The sister didn’t die, but she can’t lie down, she has to remain in a sitting position all the time. They took the body away and told her that she is forbidden to tell anyone. (*).These are just a few examples. There are many problems like this.”
“You know that they say that there are no soldiers in Lhasa, but they’re in civilian dress and they check identity papers.”
“I want to talk and that people should know what’s happening in Tibet. If they beat me that’s okay [he means that his family may be hurt as well], I didn’t do anything bad in Lhasa. “
“Many young people in Lhasa, for example, if we were together on the 14th [of March], I was beaten, so I was “sold” and then you’re with me [with the prison warden doing the beating]. But I have friends in (*) monastery, I would rather die than give them away. I saw a lot of things that they did in prison. “
“A guy from Dhadezhe [possibly Dartsedo County] had a new jacket, so they beat him and he died, because of the jacket, because it was very new, so they said he stole it, so because of his new coat he was killed.”
“There are a lot of high school students from Sauko . A seventeen-year-old who had not participated in the events of the 14th [of March], all his clothes were taken away, they tied his hands and they pushed a wagon at him until he fell, there are all kinds of torture methods. This kid was very young and he didn’t even do anything. Afterwards he said that he’d done all kinds of things, that happens to a lot of people, they pressure people to admit things they never did. “
“And one day, a Chinese man was asked some questions, someone called and asked how many people had been arrested and he said less than Ten Thousand, and that doesn’t include Drepung, Sera, Ramoche, Jokhang. After they let us out they arrested the monks. When I got out [of prison] I heard that many were arrested at Drepung Monastery. “
“A boy named (*), aged (*), from Anishim near Lhasa, is in prison, and two of his friends were shot to death. He and his 18 year-old brother were from Phenpo. In the prison at Gondzhe there are a lot of people from Phenpo.”
“During the day it’s very quiet, everything happens at night, everything’s very secret.
“Outwardly they show people that everything is very nice but inside it’s really terrible. People did really bad things and forced us to make this problem. At Ramoche they didn’t do anything, but thousands of soldiers surrounded the monastery and all the temples, and many vehicles closed off the gates like a prison. We can’t be tolerant anymore, we should be tolerant but we can’t be tolerant anymore. There are no human rights and cultural genocide is the reality,, for instance in Lhasa, on a main street like Beijing Lu [Lu means street in Chinese], or Gengshu Lu, how many Tibetans have businesses on streets like those? “
“I’m worried about the small Tibetan population. Many people are dying today or being crippled with broken arms and legs, and that’s very bad. And people are in prison, like me, and I think about the people in prison all the time. I think about the terrible state they are in. Young people, 16 or 17 years old, crying all the time – it makes me really sad. I saw people with broken limbs and people who’d been shot – seeing their pale faces is very, very sad.”
This, of course, is but one account, the Han Chinese Communists also widely planted ‘evidence’ in many monasteries to further discredit the monks, and in order to arrest even more, and shut down monasteries completely they perceive to be trouble spots of resistance to their occupation.
They’ve arrested Tens of Thousands all over Tibet and keep them under the most barbaric conditions without proper care, provisions or amenities.
The arrested face the most horrific brutality, torture and degradation.
Countless have been rendered cripples, beaten beyond recognition, had inflicted horrific internal and external injuries and are left to die a slow and agonising death, or have been murdered outright, if they’re lucky.
Amnesty International has confirmed that over 1,000 Tibetans are missing and are unaccounted for since they’ve been arrested and disappeared in the Han Chinese occupation system.
There has been absolutely no letup in this crackdown, with daily reports trickling out of wanton arrests of monks, who just seem to endure the misfortune of having fallen foul of the Han Chinese occupying “authorities”.
Tibetans desperately seeking information about their missing loved ones have nowhere to turn to. Should they dare to voice their concerns, they risk disappearing themselves and end up in a secret mass grave somewhere beyond the gaze of any critical eyes.
(And then there is the “Execution for organs on order” trade that has widely been verified by various groups; but that’s for another story.)
Of course China has obstinately refused any outside investigation by the UN, or anyone at all for that matter!
Or even made good on its promise to the IOC of free access for journalists across China.
Let the Olympics begin!
Original post can be viewed here:
http://www.tchrd.org/press/2008/pr20080519.html
Cultural Genocide?
Is the Dalai Lama justified in his claim of Cultural Genocide in Tibet? This ‘faceless’ trio, with the expressed urging and encouragement of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, have been devising and implementing a meticulously planned attack on Tibet, Tibetans and their identity and culture.
Wang Lequan, Li Dezhu and Zhang Qingli have systematically implemented policies which are designed to pave the way for, an even bigger than to date, mass Han Chinese migration, and wipe out Tibetan identity once and for all.
And with it of course, the desire of a distinct people to be free, and their legitimate demand for genuine Autonomy and Independence.
To quote Li Dezhu: “The Problem with minorities will definitively be solved by mass Han Chinese migration once and for all”.
China’s “Final Solution” for Tibetans!
Dezhu has been behind the official policy of “abandoning the preservation of ethnic identities” and to ruthlessly eradicate any vestiges of culture and ethnicity with which ethnic minorities could identify with.
He is also behind the policy labelled “Destroying ethnic cultures and disintegrating religious minorities through the promotion of materialism”.
Zhang Qingli, protégé of Hu Jintao and Bovver Boy for the CCP in Tibet has ruthlessly attacked the Tibetan culture and identity by introducing policies to “change man” and to refashion them, in the truly archaic, Maoist doctrine mould.
He reinforced “patriotic education”, which is code for the repetition by rote of the CCP’s doctrine of “Love for the Chinese Motherland”, and denouncing the Dalai Lama and anything Tibetan. These gruelling sessions have to be endured for over half the available time, up to 20 days per month for monks.
To quote this guy: “For China the Tibetans are children which must be indoctrinated with the love for China…… The real Buddha for Tibetans is the Central Party Committee.”
Wang Lequan has ample experience in eradicating the Uyghur identity and to dilute and wipe them out through his ruthless policies:
The deportation of hundreds of thousands of young girls of marriageable age, 16 to 23, to east coast factories to prevent ‘ethnic breeding’.
The outlawing of the Uyghur language in schools and a forced mass migration of Han Chinese into the Uyghur territory to dilute and destroy their identity once and for all.
He since has turned his “skills” in cultural genocide to Tibet with intensified vigour and brutality and extended these policies.
These policies have robbed the Tibetans of their basis for cultural identity; the loss of their language in school, commerce, in dealings with authority, news, and even entertainment.
They have lost the right to the free practising of their beloved religion, the adherence to the Tibetan way of life, their once sacred, pristine environment, and their confidence as a people, for they’re truly treated as third class citizens in their own country under Han Chinese occupation.
From here it is a small step to the complete eradication of a once unique and proud, contented and confident people through the marginalisation by mass migration, which would render them an insignificant minority. A minority that can be completely overlooked and ignored, for the Han Chinese hold all the power; economic, military, financial and political.
The Han Chinese “reasoning” goes, that once Tibetans no longer exist as a distinct people, and their land is settled with a majority of Han Chinese, China will have “legitimised” their illegal occupation and annexation of Tibet.
The looting and pillaging of natural resources of Tibet of course has long since escalated into a feeding frenzy.
With no environmental controls or regulations to speak of, Han Chinese are stripping the land bare of forests, minerals, gold and anything of value with all of it shipped east back to the China.
Tibetans have an innate desire to follow their customs and traditions, to be left alone and to self determination.
Independence is a dream that will never die, but with China’s complete intransigence and puerile obstinacy, pragmatism would dictate that the least they could hope for is some form of Autonomy within China.
An autonomy which was signed by China as part of the ‘17 Point Agreement’, and which is enshrined in the Chinese Constitution.
However talk, and paper, is cheap, and it is unlikely that this leopard will ever change its spots.
There shouldn’t be any delusion that China has any honourable intentions in Tibet, or is even sincere with the talks now being held.
The ‘stakes’ are far too high for the Han Chinese Communists; Tibet is a prize they’ll never let go without a huge fight.
Militarily highly strategic
Vast, sparsely populated land mass
Huge natural resources
Source of vital river systems
Though anachronistic, China is, and has always been an imperialistic power; a power without a conscience.
The invention of the ‘Nation of a family of 56 ethnic groups’ is a grotesque fantasy, that has always been just a smokescreen to masquerade Han Chinese imperialism, and the forceful subjugation of all the other, hapless minorities!
