Author: B. Raman
Publication: South Asia Analysis Group
Date: February 22, 2009
URL: http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers31/paper3065.html
Tibetan youth organizations in Tibet and other
Tibetan-inhabited areas of China have kept up their campaign for the observance
of the Tibetan New Year's Day (Losar) on February 25, 2009, as a day of mourning
in homage to those killed by the Chinese security forces in the run-up to
the Beijing Olympics of August,2008, and March 10, 2009, as a day of the Tibetan
resistance struggle to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the flight of
His Holiness the Dalai Lama from Tibet and the completion of what they describe
as the occupation of Tibet by the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA).
2. Appeals have been issued to Tibetan youth
all over the world to express their solidarity with the people of Tibet by
observing these anniversaries in the manner indicated by them. While the Tibetan
youth organizations in China as well as outside have been repeatedly saying
that the observance of these two anniversaries will be peaceful and dignified,
one cannot rule out the possibility of violent incidents as had happened last
year.
3. The Chinese authorities in the Tibetan-inhabited
areas of China are taking no chances. They have sent reinforcements of security
forces from the adjoining provinces to Tibet and other Tibetan-inhabited areas
and continue to make a large number of preventive arrests of Tibetan youth
and monks suspected of being sympathetic to the Dalai Lama. House searches
have been undertaken to seize and destroy pictures of the Dalai Lama.
4. Reports of sporadic public protests and
alleged police excesses against Tibetan youth and monks continue to come in
with increasing frequency as the two anniversaries approach. Apart from preventing
any violent or embarrassing incident, the Chinese authorities are also trying
to ensure that large numbers of Tibetans and Han Chinese participate in the
celebration of Losar being organized by them. Boycott of these officially-organised
Losar celebrations is being treated as a crime. There is a danger that the
Chinese effort to force the Tibetan youth and monks to participate in the
official celebrations may lead to street clashes.
5. This year, the situation is more unfavourable
to the Tibetan youth and monks than it was last year as a result of the Maoists
coming to power in Nepal. Last year, many Tibetan refugees from Nepal managed
to cross over into Tibet and participate in the anti-Beijing protests. This
year, in response to Chinese requests, the Maoist Government in Kathmandu
has tightened up surveillance and movement restrictions on the Tibetan refugees
to prevent their entering into Tibet. Telephone communications between Tibet
and Nepal are being strictly controlled and watched to prevent any pre-Losar
interactions between the Tibetan youth and monks in Nepal and Tibet. Internet
links are also subject to similar controls.
6. Enterprising Tibetan youth in Western countries
have been managing to circumvent these controls in order to remain in touch
with the youth and monks in China. The Chinese security agencies have encouraged
a number of Han Chinese co-operating with the Government agencies to start
their own blogspots and chat groups by posing as alienated Tibetans and interact
with foreign-based Tibetans in order to identify them and collect information
about the plans for the protests.
7. Overseas Tibetan youth organizations have
started web broadcasts to the Tibetans in China. These broadcasts, which have
managed to evade jamming or other technical disruptions by the Chinese, have
been disseminating messages for the observance of the two anniversaries as
days of mourning. They say that March 14, 2008, saw the beginning of a new
phase of the Tibetan resistance struggle and assert that the Chinese will
not be able to crush it.
8. In the run-up to the Losar, the most restive
area has been the Kardze [in Chinese, Ganzi] Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
of the Sichuan province. There are under-currents of social tensions in the
Sichuan province due to the return to the province of a large number of Chinese
who lost their jobs in the coastal areas due to the economic crisis. The tensions
in the Tibetan community due to religious and ethnic reasons and those in
the local Han Chinese community due to economic reasons could become a dangerous
mix in the weeks to come.
9. While media reports that the Chinese authorities
have imposed a curfew in Lhasa have not been confirmed, it has been reported
by independent sources that Western parts of the Gansu, Sichuan, and Qinghai
provinces, which have large Tibetan communities, are again closed to foreign
tourists.
10. There is growing disenchantment among
Tibetan youth and monks over what they see as the attempts by President Barack
Obama and Mrs.Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, to play down the
violations of the human rights of the Tibetans. Mrs.Clinton's visit to Beijing
from February 20 to 22, 2009, came five days before the Losar. The Tibetan
youth and monks were expecting that she would reiterate forcefully the US
interest in ensuring respect for the human rights of the Tibetans. Her remarks
on the human rights issue were very general and lacking forceful articulation.
The Tibetans have been describing Obama as a two-issue President with his
entire focus on setting right the economy and reversing the deterioration
of the situation in Afghanistan. For the sake of Chinese co-operation in setting
right the economy, Obama and Mrs.Clinton are prepared to close their eyes
to the human rights situation in Tibet. So, they say.
10. Attempts may be made by angry Tibetan
youth to create embarrassing situations outside Chinese diplomatic missions
in India. Security for them needs to be tightened.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd),
Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director,
Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai
Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
