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Tibetan crisis deepens
As the Tibetans over five-decades old movement demanding more autonomy from the ‘repressive’ Chinese regime today stands at a crucial transition phase after the movement’s supreme leader Dalai Lama announced his retirement in March last year, Tibetans in general are now expecting the government and the people from neighbouring India to lend a stronger voice to their unrelenting fight for rights.
“Tibet” which is nicknamed “the roof of the world” or “the land of snows”, has the high-altitude Himalayan plateau associated in popular remembrance with meditation and Buddhist tranquility, and has been in the core of many conflicts ever since it was militarily usurped by China in 1951.
The government in China regards Tibet as an essential part of China and is aware about the lexis of support from Dalai Lama, the former ruler who fled into exile in 1959, after an unsuccessful revolt against Chinese rule. He has accused China of stifling the Tibetan culture. The Chinese reflect on Dalai Lama as a revolutionary supporter of Tibetan independence, although he has said he does not want Independence but greater autonomy for Tibet.
Dalai Lama announced his retirement on March 2011, as he prepared to surrender political power. The next month, Tibet’s government in exile announced the election of a Harvard legal scholar, Lobsang Sangay, as its new prime minister, a choice signaling a generational transfer within the Tibetan movement.
Dalai Lama would continue to be recognized as the leader of the Tibetan cause since he alone can merge and gather together Tibetans inside and outside China. But by formally giving up political power, the Dalai Lama was trying to deepen the authority of the movement’s democratic government, according to analysts.
Many people have resorted to self-immolation to register protest against Chinese rule in Tibet and in the process nearly 50 Tibetans have set fire to themselves since 2009 . On March 26, when Jamphel Yeshi, a Tibetan exile set himself on fire in front of hundreds of people in New Delhi during a protest before a visit by President Hu Jintao of China, who was scheduled to attend an economic summit meeting in New Delhi. Yeshi was taken to a hospital with burns over 98 percent of his body, and died two days later. The shocking images of Yeshi’s self-immolation provided the Tibetan exile movement with a rallying point. Within hours, the pictures had been posted on blogs and social-networking Web sites. After which many more people committed self immolating like Dolkar Kyi, Lobsang Tsultrim etc.
Spasms of instability have coursed through modern Tibetan history in regular intervals. In 1959, thousands perished when troops violently quelled an uprising against Chinese rule that force Dalai Lama to flee to India. Between 1987 and 1989, the region was rocked by protests that were brutally crushed. The most recent crackdown began in March 2008, when rioting in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, led to the death of at least 19 people, most of them Han Chinese. The rioting in 2008 also destroyed Tibetan areas of China, and as said by the rights groups number of artists, intellectuals, students and business people were held and sentenced to prison on charges of subverting state power or looking for a division of Tibet from China. In the weeks and months that followed, exile groups say a far greater number of Tibetans died.
Despite government efforts to restrict the flow of information, citizen journalists and ordinary monks have gathered details and photographs of self-immolators, pole-vaulting them over the country’s so-called Great Firewall. In some cases, blurred images show their final fiery moments or the horrific aftermath before paramilitary police officers drag the protesters out of public view.
In 2009, the Dalai Lama delivered one of his roughest attacks on the Chinese government in recent times, saying the Chinese Communist Party had transformed Tibet into a “hell on earth” and that the Chinese authorities regarded Tibetans as “criminals deserving to be put to death.”
Some Facts About Tibetan Movement
At least 51 Tibetans have set fire to themselves in Tibet since February 27, 2009. Out of 51 Tibetans 43 were men and 8 were women. Forty of all those self-immolated are known to have died. The self-immolators called for freedom for Tibet and the return of His Highness the 14th Dalai Lama. Tibetans, Tibet Groups and Tibet Supporters around the world are working tirelessly to push governments to urgently establish an appropriate and effective multi-lateral mechanism through which future diplomatic actions for Tibet can be implemented.
In a recent function of Shillong Miss Yeshi Chomzom of “Tibetan Women’s Association” Shillong requested fellow Indians to:-
*Publicly condemn China’s use of force against unarmed Tibetan protesters.
*Convey to China in the strongest terms that it must halt its violent crackdown immediately, and withdraw military and security forces from all areas. All Tibetans that have been detained should be released, and those injured be able to obtain medical help without fear of arrest. Call on China to cease al actions and policies that are contributing to the tensions, unrest and self-immolations in Tibet; to allow peaceful protest and to respond positively to the calls of Tibetans for freedom and the return of the His Highness the 14th Dalai Lama.
*Urgently seek to send diplomas to affected Tibetan areas, and demand from China assurances that foreign journalists will be allowed unfettered access to the Tibet Autonomous Region (including during the closure of the TAR from late February to mid-March) and Tibetan areas of Sichuan, Qinghai and Yunnan.
*Vigorously pursue actions in appropriate international forum that will focus the attention of the government of the People ’s Republic of China on the severity of the situation in Tibet.
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TIBET AT A GLANCE Size: 2.5 million sq km. Capital: Lhasa. Major Rivers: Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra in India), Machu (Yellow River in China), Drichu (Yangtse in China), Senge Khabab (Indus in India), Phungchu (Arunachal Pradesh in India), Gyalmo Ngulchu (Salween in Burma) and Zachu (Mekong in Thailand Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos). Legal Status: Occupied. Population: 6 million Tibetans/1.2 Lakhs in India. Language: Tibetan. Average Altitude: 13,000 ft. Provinces: U-Tsang (Central Tibet), Amdo (NE Tibet), Kham (SE Tibet). Bordering Countries: India, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma and China. National Flag: Snow lions with red and blue rays. Outlawed in Tibet. Government-in-Exile: Parliamentary. Head of the State: Kalon Tripa; democratically elected by the people. |
HOW MUCH DOES TIBET MATTER TO INDIA?
*India had ancient cultural, political and religious ties with Tibet, and the two nations shared a peaceful border for many centuries. Following the occupation of Tibet by China, its border relations with China have become increasingly tense and unstable. As concerned Indian citizens, we believe that it is in Indian’s strategic interest to help bring about an end to China’s violent rule in Tibet. A resolution for Tibet will help the long-term stability and peace in the region.
*The Tibetan plateau’s 46,000 glaciers comprise the planet’s third-largest ice mass after the North and South Poles. And this “third pole” is the fount of Asia’s 10 largest rivers, the primary source of fresh water for 11 downstream countries- a region whose population and industrial output are projected to double within 50 years.
*The preservation and management of Tibet, Asia’s water tower, will be one of the most critical issues of the 21st century,” said Indian photographer and Tibetologist, Vijay Kranti, in Bodhgaya, Jan 13, 2012.
*”It is time we recognized that Tibet and India’s destinies are entwined .To sacrifice Tibet’s interest would mean to sacrifice our own. There is no need to go down that road again.” Sonia Jabbar, Journalist, April 15, 2008.
