Tibet -- Lest We Forget China's Evil Face

China celebrated the 50th annuversary of its creation of the Tibet Autonomous Region yesterday. It was pure Chinese Communist propaganda -- highlighted by a tirade against Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. Yu Zhengsheng, in charge of religious groups and ethnic minorities and number four in the ruling Communist Party, called the Dalai Lama -- who fled China in 1959 after a popular uprising against Chinese rule was viciously crushed -- a violent separatist. The 14th Dalai Lama, based in India since 1959, says he is merely seeking greater autonomy for his Himalayan homeland. The Chinese version that Yu gave on Tuesday was : "People of all ethnicities are steadfastly engaged in a struggle against separatism, continuously thwarting the Dalai clique and foreign hostile forces' splittist and sabotage activities." Yu spoke in front of Lhasa's grand Potala Palace, once the home of the Dalai Lama, and the highest palace in the world. Yu, who led the Chinese government delegation to Tibet, spoke to officials, Tibetans dressed in ethnic costumes and students waving Chinese flags. A procession of gaudy floats celebrating Communist Party achievements and others showing famous Tibet landmarks such as the Potala Palace paraded after the speeches. Earlier, Yu urged army, police and judicial staff in Tibet to be ready to "fight a protracted battle against the clique of the 14th Dalai Lama," Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported. The Global Times, a tabloid owned by the ruling Communist Party's official newspaper the People's Daily, called the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, a "cheater" and a "cruel ruler in exile." ~~~~~ Theis year marks several sensitive anniversaries for the mountain nation that China has ruled with an iron fist since 1950, when Communist troops marched in and took control in what Beijing calls a "peaceful liberation." It also marks the 80th birthday of the Dalai Lama and the 20th anniversary of the disappearance of a young Tibetan who was chosen by the Dalai Lama as the Panchen Lama, the second-highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism. The Panchen Lama and his family disappeared into Chinese custody and have not surfaced even once during the last 20 years. On Sunday, a senior Chinese official said the young man, six years old when he disappeared, was "living a normal life," although China has always refused to give any evidence that the Panchen Lama is alive. On Monday, the Free Tibet rights group denounced the celebrations, saying they "may be dressed up in 21st century PR but they belong in the era of Mao," referring to the founder of Communist China Mao Zedong. Tibet remains under heavy security, with visits by foreign media tightly restricted, making an independent assessment of the situation difficult. ~~~~~ The tragedy of Tibet began in 1950. Tibet was a sovereign state. The Tibetans were a distinct people with their own language, culture, religion, history and customs. But, in 1950, Tibet was invaded by the army of The People's Republic of China. It has been occupied by the Communist Chinese since then. The Tibetan people refused to accept Chinese occupation and unrest escalated, culminating in the Tibetan Uprising of 1959. According to Chinese sources 80,000 Tibetans died in Central Tibet during and immediately after the uprising. It is estimated that since 1959, Tibetan deaths as a direct result of Chinese invasion and occupation are between 400,000 and 1.5 million. In 1959, many thousands of Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama, sought asylum in India. The exodus of Tibetans from Tibet continues, wirh several thousand escaping every year. Today, more than 200,000 Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama, live in exile in India, Nepal, Bhutan Switzerland, the United States and Canada, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. ~~~~~ In 1960, after reviewing accounts of Chinese atrocities in Tibet, including the widespread use of summary execution, torture and general abuse that included the forced sterilization of women, the International Commission of Jurists found that the Chinese were committing genocide and that 16 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were being violated by the Chinese. The Commission reported that the Chinese were guilty of "the most pernicious crime that any individual or nation can be accused of, viz. a wilful attempt to annihilate an entire people." ~~~~~ In the decades following 1959, particularly during the Cultural Revolution that began in 1966, there was wholesale destruction of Tibetan buildings and religious artifacts. All but 12 of Tibet's 6,000 monasteries were destroyed, many of them used as target practice by Chinese artillery. A thousand years' worth of priceless Buddhist literature, religious paintings and artifacts were either destroyed or have been sold for millions of dollars on the international market by the Chinese to raise foreign currency and to wipe out Tibet's rich heritage. ~~~~~ Since the 1980s, the Chinese have had the goal of re-populating Tibet with Chinese. Today, Tibetans are a minority in their own country -- and inducements of higher pay and other privileges continue to bring a stream of Chinese settlers into Tibet. The goal is to forcibly seal China's territorial claims over Tibet by means of a massive and irreversible population shift. In May 1993, an official Chinese government document, leaked to the Tibetan Government in Exile, indicated that Chinese authorities proposed another massive population transfer as one element in what they termed "a final solution" to their "Tibetan problem." In 1996, the South China Morning Post reported official sources in Beijing as saying that a further 500,000 ethnic Chinese would be moved into Tibet. This large-scale population transfer has resulted in a very high inflation rate in Tibet, a two-class society sharply divided along racial lines, and high unemployment among ethnic Tibetans who don't speak the required Chinese. ~~~~~ Further, Tibet, once a peaceful buffer state between India and China, has been transformed into a militarized zone. There are at least 300,000 Chinese troops stationed in Tibet at any tine. A part of China's arsenal of nuclear missiles are located at 5 different Tibet missile bases. It is believed that approximately 3,000 religious and political prisoners are held in prisons and forced labor camps where torture is common. There are reports that Tibetan women are subject en masse to forced abortions and sterilization. Russian dissident leader Alexander Solzhenitsyn described China's administration of Tibet as "more brutal and inhumane than any other communist regime in the world." There are strong concerns, voiced internationally, that China is using Tibet as a dumping ground for nuclear waste. In the 1990s, Tibetan farmers complained that "fertilizer" they were forced to use on their fields destroyed crops and killed birds and animals. Tibet's natural resources and ecology are being irreversibly destroyed. Wildlife, including the Tibetan snow leopard and the wild blue Tibetan sheep, has been decimated. Forests have been clear-cut and transported to China -- since 1950, 68% of Tibet's forests have been felled, causing grave concern in Bangladesh and India, now both frequently devastated by flooding. China severely restricts the teaching and study of Buddhism, an essential core of Tibetan culture. The Communist Party regulates the admission of monks and nuns into the monasteries and "political education" is compulsory. Though for a period after the Cultural Revolution there appeared to be a liberalizing of the Chinese attitude to religious life, a new report released by the International Campaign for Tibet indicates that China has shifted its religious policy to actively suppress and restrict further religious growth, including halting the unauthorized rebuilding of monasteries destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, setting limits on the number of monks and nuns in all monasteries, enforcing restrictions on youths joining monasteries, prohibiting Tibetan Party members from practising religion, and strengthening the control of the government and the Communist Party over each monastery. Chinese authorities reportedly prohibit pictures of the Dalai Lama in monasteries and temples, as well as schools and private homes. There have been reports of house-to-house searches checking for possession of photographs of the Dalai Lama. ~~~~~ Dear readers, the chilling truth behind the rape and destruction of Tibet is that the world sees China as "too big to fail" and Tibet as "too small to be saved." The failure to save Tibet is the greatest sin committed against innocence by the 20th century "free world."