Posted on 03/27/2008 6:32:18 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Tibet monks disrupt China media event
By Geoff Dyer in Lhasa
Published: March 27 2008 12:27 | Last updated: March 27 2008 12:39
The simmering political tensions in Tibet burst into the open on Thursday in one of Lhasas most important temples when a group of 30 young Buddhist monks interrupted a government-organised visit by journalists with shouts about the lack of freedom in Tibet and in support of the Dalai Lama.
The monks were clearly agitated and several wept openly as they accused the authorities of lying to the visiting journalists and promised further demonstrations.
We want a free Tibet, we want a free Tibet, shouted one of the young monks, who was crying at the time.
The remarkable intrusion of the monks, who acknowledged that they were taking considerable personal risks with their acts, undermined a carefully choreographed visit which was designed to show that life was returning to normal in Lhasa following a widespread wave of protests in Tibetan areas against the Chinese government over the last two weeks.
The FT was part of a small group of journalists allowed into the Tibetan capital for the first time since rioting on March 14. With the Olympics taking place in Beijing in August, the Chinese government has been under heavy pressure to allow journalists more freedom to operate.
Tibets government-in-exile, based in northern India, welcomed Chinas decision to allow journalists to visit Lhasa but demanded full freedom to report on the ongoing crisis.
Foreign reporters must be given freedom to visit all the monasteries and prisons in Lhasa and elsewhere in Tibet and interview Tibetans without the presence of Chinese minders, said Tibets government-in-exile in a written statement sent from Dharamsala.
It also pressed for an international investigation into the violent unrest in Tibet, medical assistance and release of all political prisoners. The foreign reporters should ask the Chinese authorities what their response is to these requests, said Tibets government-in-exile.
The Chinese authorities maintain that the riot and other anti-Chinese protests in recent weeks have been stimulated by the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.
The dramatic intervention by the monks took place in the Jokhang Temple, in the centre of Lhasa and one of the holiest in Tibetan Buddhism. The reporters were being briefed by Quzhe, a monk at the temple and deputy director of its administrative office, who said that the citys monasteries had now restored calm.
While he was talking, the younger monks - mostly in their early 20s - pushed in front of the journalists and started to air their grievances. As well as calling for freedom from Chinese rule of Tibet, several monks claimed that the journalists were being manipulated by the authorities. They said that the heavy military presence around the temple had been withdrawn for the visit and claimed that many of the people inside the inner sanctum of the temple were not actually worshippers but had been brought in by officials to make it seem as if normal religious life had returned.
Several monks insisted that the Dalai Lama had nothing to do with the recent wave of demonstrations in Tibetan regions and promised to continue their protests.
The group was soon surrounded by security guards and other officials who started shouting for the discussion to stop and tried to pull away some of the reporters. Several journalists were eventually dragged away from the site to prevent them from talking further with the monks.
We know we will probably be arrested, but we have to keep fighting, said another of the monks.
Ping!
But we’re still going to the Olympics!!! YEAH!!! GO AMERICA!!!/sarcasm off/
Bush41 to Hu Jintao "Give me X number of gold medals, Y number of silver, and Z number of bronze, or I will puke at your business suit."
Bush43 to Hu "My dad is not kidding. He ate too many toxic dumplings and is ready to puke at any moment. "
more here ...
Lhasa monks accuse Beijing of lying over unrest
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080327/ts_nm/china_tibet_dc
These young monks are brave and noble to expose the lies the Red Chinese minders were telling the journalists. If you love freedom and human rights, you have to lend support to the Tibetans. Red China must learn to treat its minority populations with rights equal to those allowed the Han peoples.
You’re talking about a sparseley populated country like Tibet fighting a country like China, war-hardened and with the ability to field waves of millions of troops- the same country that kept the US-led troops from completely running over North Korea (in fact, the Chinese almost managed to do the opposite). Taiwan had its advantages, the most significant of which is that it is an island, and the Taiwanese troops had good experience fighting the Japanese in WW2.
When did the Taiwanese fight the Japanese in WWII? Taiwan was part of the Imperial Japanese Empire (1895 thru 1945). The Taiwanese (along with the Manchurians, Koreans and Chinese in Japanese occupied areas) were drafted by Japan to serve as occupation and construction troops for the Imeperial Japanese Army. These non Japanese people were part of the Japanese Empire and had no choice but to serve when they were drafted. Today, China and Taiwan do not have any veterans of any major wars, thus their militaries for all practical purposes is green. Tibetans are unfortunately located in the wrong place (between two rising powers China and India), sparsely populated holding a large region (7 million Tibetans against 1 billion Chinese). The best the Tibetans can do is find the proper time to fight and the proper time to lay low, so their culture will survive until the Han Chinese replace their oppressive/corrupt government with a democratic one. Only then the Tibetan rights and possible independence/autonomy can be addressed. Right now, fighting is going to be awfully tough because the Communist Chinese after the Olympics will severely crush them.
No, the government in Taiwan is what was left of the non-Communist, non-PRC China, who fled there when the Communists under Mao took over. It was these Nationalist Chinese who ruled China when Japan had attacked it.
The current permenant seat at the Security Council which PRC holds, was originally held by Nationalist China- who now rule Taiwan under the name, ‘Republic of China’.
Red China took advantage of Soviet support, and the WW2- Imperial Japan-weakened Nationalist military.
Whether they had banded together or not, Tibet had no chance.
You are referring to the Nationalist Chinese (KMT) forces. Many pro independence Taiwanese do not consider themselves Chinese and view the Nationalist Chineses as outsiders. Any way, the last time the Nationalist fought a full scale war was during the Chinese Civil War (1948-49) and many of the youngest vets are in their 70’s. The Nationalist do not have any combat vets left in their military (neither does the Chicoms). I consider both of their militaries well equipped, but combat inexperience from enlisted up to general.
That's like faulting Luxembourg for not resisting the Nazis.
Yes, I understand that the ethnic composition of Taiwan is different from that of the P.R.C.
On that same note, there were many war criminals that swung from the gallows after WWII because they were afraid of resisting Hitler during his rise to power.
The ethnic makeup of Taiwan is 98% ethnically Chinese and 2% aborigines. Of course, in a democracy, there will always be some people with different opinions. Some members in the sub-ethnic Chinese group, the Hoklo-speakers, are pushing for Taiwan Independence and dissolution of ROC. They argue for a new Taiwanese identity, although personally, I think their arguments are invalid and silly at times; exp. some argue they really dont know where their ancestors came from :)
In 1950 Tibet had an 8,000 man army in Chamdo and they fought to the last man with 18th century rifles against machine guns. In the Lhasa uprising of 1959 3,000 Tibetan army men, 10,000 Khampas, and 20,000 Buddhist monks fought the communist Chinese troops. By the time the uprising was suppressed in '67 over 87,000 Tibetans had been killed. The CIA armed and trained Tibetan soldiers from 1957 to about 1965 until the State Dept. ended the program in spite of the CIAs assessment that it had been very productive and successful. There have been other instances of armed resistance in Tibet since then.
Since the U.S. abandoned Tibet's armed resistance in 1965 who is going to help them? The Continental Army wouldn't have succeeded in our Revolutionary War if it had not been for assistance from France. They are still obviously willing to give their lives for freedom. Your insinuation that they are only now looking for world attention is false and self-serving.
Actually Taiwan is an excellent example why the US should retain the electoral college system versus popular vote system. Taiwn been part of China since 1622. Under late Ming, throughout Qin rule, Taiwan was treated as a peripheral province and suffered benign neglect. The best governors were appointed to the richest and most populated provinces, investments from empire wide taxes were sent to these favored provinces, while Taiwan was a place to send an official if he pissed off his superiors in the Imperial Court. From 1895 to 1945 Imperial Japan ruled Taiwan, though the Chinese in Taiwan were treated as second citizens (like the Koreans), but the Japanese invested in roads, factories and public education. That is why a number of native Taiwanese have pro Japanese attitudes. When Taiwan was returned to the Nationalist Chinese rule after the defeat of Japan in WWII, the Chinese Civil War broke out and the defeated Nationalist Army vacated the mainland to Taiwan in 1949. Facing shortage of money to keep his soldiers paid, Chang Kai Sek seized the property of wealthy Taiwanese families under the pretext that these families supported Japan during World War II when Taiwan was part of Imperial Japan. This act made relations between the established Taiwanese families of Chinese descent and the newly arrived Nationalist Chinese worst and added to the fuel to Taiwanese separatism. Taiwan is really divided between the Chinese descendents of 1622 versus the Chinese descendents of the mainland Nationalists of 1949.
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