Tibet
No matter how “oppressed” I might feel about my situation in Florida it is an annoyance compared to the tragedy that is Tibet.
CNN reports Dalai Lama: China causing ‘cultural genocide’
(CNN) — The Dalai Lama on Sunday called for an international probe of China’s treatment of Tibet, which he said is causing “cultural genocide” of his people.
The exiled spiritual leader of Tibet spoke at a news conference Sunday in Dharamsala, India, two days after violent clashes between pro-autonomy demonstrators and Chinese security forces in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital.
A spokesman for the self-declared Tibetan exile government said it has confirmed at least 80 deaths in Friday’s violence and that protests were continuing outside the capital Sunday, further undermining China’s hopes of a smooth run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. China’s official Xinhua news agency put the death toll at 13.
Tibet Watch, a group based in Dharamsala, India, said 34 people have died in the Nwaga County area of Sichuan province in western China.
The dead include women and children, the group said in an e-mail, adding they were killed by Chinese police attempting to stop the protests.
There is nothing that the current US government can do because they are in hock to the Chinese, having mortgaged the country to finance their war. People can boycott the Olympics, but that did little good when a boycott was organized against the Soviet Union over Afghanistan, although individual athletes may decide not to compete in protest.
The Chinese have been ruthless in their suppression of anything that is perceived as Tibetan and flooded the area with Chinese immigrants to eliminate the uniqueness of the people, while the world stands by and watches, apparently helpless to take action.
1 comment
Tibet has been condemned to poor government for the past two hundred years. When the Chinese invaded, most Tibetans were slaves to the monastical estates. Yep, slavery, in the 1950’s. The reason the Tibetan Army collapsed so quickly when confronted with the Red Army is because it was organized around the need to put down slave uprisings, not to repel foreign invaders. The reason a concerted guerilla movement never took hold despite massive CIA foreign aid is because the vast majority of the population of Tibet actually welcomed the Chinese invasion — slaves rarely are grateful to their enslavers.
Of course, Chinese rule of Tibet has been no bed of roses. But by all accounts Tibet is doing at least as well today under Chinese rule as it was doing under monastical rule. While the former slaves aren’t much more free under Chinese rule than they were under monastical rule, at least they do have some access to advanced health care and education, access they didn’t have under monastical rule.
The real solution to the problems of Tibet is democracy for China — including in Tibet. The notion of allowing the Delai Lama, who owned slaves when he ruled Tibet, to return to power in Tibet is laughable. The only people who want that are the remnants of the monastical class who relish the thought of putting back together their vast estates again — it certainly isn’t the desire of most or even many average Tibetans, who, like all people everywhere, mostly just want to be left alone to live their lives in peace.
– Badtux the History Penguin