Chinese troops seal off Tibetan protest region

[Ray]

Chinese troops seal off Tibetan protest region

CHINA has effectively sealed off a vast Tibetan area of Sichuan province, sending in troops and cutting off communications to towns where protesters have been killed by security forces in the past week.


In response to the most vicious crackdown by Chinese forces since 2008, Tibetan prime minister-in-exile Lobsang Sangay has exhorted Tibetans not to celebrate Tibetan New Year, which falls on February 22, and called for a worldwide vigil.

"I call on the international community to show solidarity and to raise your voices in support of the fundamental rights of the Tibetan people at this critical time," Mr Sangay said.

"I request that the international community and the United Nations send a fact-finding delegation to Tibet and that the world media be given access to the region as well.

"Stability cannot be restored in Tibet through violence and killings of Tibetans. The only way to resolve the issue and bring about lasting peace is by respecting the rights of the Tibetan people and through dialogue."

A 20-year-old Tibetan student was killed after Chinese forces opened fire on protesters in Sichuan's Aba prefecture, reports said. He was one of at least three who have been killed in the western province. Dozens more have been injured and 136 people arrested, rights groups said.

Susette Cooke, a Tibet expert and researcher at the Sydney University of Technology's China Research Centre, told The Australian the protests suggested broadening anger among Tibetans following self-immolation by 16 people - mainly Buddhist monks and nuns - over Chinese restrictions on their religion and culture.

"The self-immolations have resulted in a second wave of protests by Tibetans who share the same views as the people who have set themselves on fire," Dr Cooke said

Cookies must be enabled | The Australian

A typically Chinese way to ensure that news of violent protest does not reach elsewhere in China and never in the international arena.

As they did for the Tibet Uprising, they have once again sealed off the restive area to blanket out the news and reality and carry out inhuman repression to bring the area under effective control of the Communist machinery!

 

[Yusuf]

Problem is that the Chinese have never lost blood themselves because of the non violent nature of the Tibetan movement. I wonder what will happen if large scale armed movement is kindled? Or should I say rekindled after more than 50 years?

 

[Ray]

Chinese Crackdown Seals Off Ethnic Unrest

CHENGDU, China — This regional metropolis is roughly 200 miles from the wave of protest by ethnic Tibetans that is sweeping the towering mountains of western Sichuan Province. But take a stroll through Chengdu's Tibetan quarter, and the tensions generated by the distant unrest become palpable.

Faced with the largest outbreak of Tibetan unrest since riots in Lhasa and elsewhere in 2008, the government is taking no chances that the turmoil — which has included Chinese forces firing on and killing some demonstrators — will spread.

Armed soldiers in dun-colored camouflage trooped up and down Wuhouci Hengjie, a tree-shaded lane that is home to two government offices. Police cars, vans and even tow trucks, their red-and-blue light bars flashing, were stationed every 50 to 100 yards. Bands of police officers patrolled the sidewalks; on one corner, they upbraided an angry Tibetan man as anxious women grabbed his arms, pulling him away.

Asked about the heavy security, one shopkeeper sarcastically suggested the forces were in town to prevent rowdiness during the spring festival, a traditional Chinese holiday.

He added quietly: "I don't dare talk. The police came to my shop and told me not to spread the word."

But word of the unrest has spread anyway, despite a crackdown that has sealed off outside access to western Sichuan and, by some reports, disabled telephone and Internet communications in some restricted areas.

The Chinese government says it is only defending loyal citizens from revolutionaries who seek to sever Tibet from Chinese rule. Many outsiders, and perhaps most Tibetans, believe otherwise, casting the latest unrest as a continuing struggle against Chinese repression of political and religious freedoms.

The recent troubles appear to have intensified when four Tibetans set themselves on fire this month, accelerating a campaign of self-immolation that has killed at least 11 Tibetans since March 2011.

Groups favoring more freedom for ethnic Tibetans say the shootings started in the middle of the month, when a crowd of Tibetans tried to take away the body of a Tibetan man who had set himself on fire in Aba, or Ngaba in Tibetan, northwest of Chengdu.

Since then, the groups say, they have received reports of protests and more shootings, with three shooting deaths in the past week. Because of the security cordon, those reports could not be independently confirmed. The clashes have unfolded mostly in areas where Buddhist monasteries or schools have long been centers of opposition to Chinese rule.

Last Monday, the London-based advocacy group Free Tibet said, Chinese forces killed at least one person and wounded at least 34 in Luhuo, or Draggo, a monastery town west of Chengdu.


On Tuesday, another man is said to have died in Sertar, or Seda, a town that had been a center of Buddhist teachings, hosting nearly 9,000 students, until Chinese authorities ordered most of the Larung Gar religious academy vacated in the last decade.

And last Thursday, a man in Rangtang township, or Dzamtang, was fatally shot as Tibetans tried to stop the authorities from detaining another man accused of distributing leaflets about the self-immolations.

The government has acknowledged the shootings in Sertar, but it said its forces fired on protesters after demonstrators fired on them, wounding 14 officers.

It is likely that protests have also occurred elsewhere, both Tibetans and officials of advocacy groups said last week. "We heard from people coming from our hometown that people of our ethnic group have clashed with the People's Liberation Army," said one woman from Ganzi Prefecture. "We can't fight them. There are too many."

A reporter who sought on Thursday to drive to Ganzi was halted at a police checkpoint halfway to his goal and, after inspection of his journalist's visa, politely but firmly turned away.

"There is thick ice ahead," the police said. "It is not suitable for foreign guests."

Two backpackers were also ordered to turn around, but were told that the area was unsafe because "the Tibetans are in revolt."

By week's end, a full-scale lockdown of the restive area appeared to be in effect, with milder restrictions from Chengdu to Lhasa, Tibet's capital and the scene of the worst riots in 2008.

The Chinese government has said 18 civilians and a policeman died during violence that was directed at Han Chinese migrants, whose growing presence angered many native Tibetans. Tibetan groups say the violence left scores of Tibetans dead at the hands of Han Chinese residents and government security forces.

Security patrols have been significantly beefed up in Lhasa, and the authorities are conducting house-to-house searches to document the identities of residents, said Stephanie Brigden, the director of Free Tibet.

She said officials were letting residents know that they knew who had relatives outside the country, and that they expected the residents not to tell those relatives what was happening.


"They say that they know if they are making international telephone calls, and if they are, they shouldn't discuss anything political," Ms. Brigden said. "They're really using intimidating tactics to make sure information isn't disseminated."

But some inside the locked-down area are getting their information out in other ways. Posts on Twitter and Chinese microblogs documented some of the local reaction to the strife before being deleted from Chinese sites.

"A cold morning in Danba County town," one post stated. "It's all very chaotic over here, with the police searching all nonlocal vehicles and all the hotels aren't being allowed to accept Tibetans or foreigners."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/w...-tibetan-unrest.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

 

[Ray]

Problem is that the Chinese have never lost blood themselves because of the non violent nature of the Tibetan movement. I wonder what will happen if large scale armed movement is kindled? Or should I say rekindled after more than 50 years?

The Han Chinese are known for their ruthlessness and barbaric tendencies.

To them life is cheap.

They will if need be undertake a more thorough genetic cleansing.

 

[Ray]

This report from China Post, Taiwan

Despair, crackdowns breed violence in Tibet

BEIJING -- A young man posts his photo with a leaflet demanding freedom for Tibet and telling Chinese police, come and get me. Protesters rise up to defend him, and demonstrations break out in two other Tibetan areas of western China to support the same cause.

Each time, police respond with bullets.

The three clashes, all in the past week, killed several Tibetans and injured dozens. They mark an escalation of a protest movement that for months expressed itself mainly through scattered individual self-immolations.

It's the result of growing desperation among Tibetans and a harsh crackdown by security forces that scholars and pro-Tibet activists contend only breeds more rage and despair.

That leaves authorities with the stark choice of either cracking down even harder or meeting Tibetan demands for greater freedom and a return of their Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama — something Beijing has shown zero willingness to do.

"By not responding constructively when it was faced with peaceful one-person protests, the (Communist) Party has created the conditions for violent, large-scale protests," said Robbie Barnett, head of modern Tibetan studies at New York's Columbia University.

This is the region's most violent period since 2008, when deadly rioting in Tibet's capital Lhasa spread to Tibetan areas in adjoining provinces. China responded by flooding the area with troops and closing Tibetan regions entirely to foreigners for about a year. Special permission is still required for non-Chinese visitors to Tibet, and the Himalayan region remains closed off entirely for the weeks surrounding the March 14 anniversary of the riots that left 22 people dead.

Video smuggled out by activists shows paramilitary troops equipped with assault rifles and armored cars making pre-dawn arrests. Huge convoys of heavily armored troops are seen driving along mountain roads and monks accused of sedition being frog-marched to waiting trucks.

For the past year, self-immolations have been a common form of protest in the region. At least 16 monks, nuns and former clergy set themselves on fire after chanting for Tibetan freedom and the return of the Dalai Lama, who fled to India amid an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

China, fiercely critical of the Dalai Lama, says Tibet has been under its rule for centuries, but many Tibetans say the region was functionally independent for most of that time.

In a change from the individual protests, several thousand Tibetans marched to government offices Monday in Ganzi prefecture in Sichuan province. Police opened fire into the crowd, killing up to three people, witnesses and activist groups said.

Despair, crackdowns breed violence in Tibet - The China Post

 

[The Messiah]

how can sri lankan buddhits jump into same bed with chinis after seeing how brutally china is treating buddhits in tibet ?

 

[Ray]

Returning pilgrims whisked away on a train bound for China

DHARAMSHALA, January 31: Hundreds of Tibetan pilgrims returning to Tibet from Nepal have been arrested by Chinese security personnel and forcibly taken to an undisclosed location.

Citing sources from inside Tibet, the Dharamshala based Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) said that the detained pilgrims were whisked away in a train bound for China.

"At around 10 am (Tibet time) January 31, Chinese security forces surrounded those Tibetans at the railway station in Tibet's capital Lhasa and then put them in a train bound for China," CTA said.

There were earlier reports that many Tibetans returning from pilgrimage in Nepal and India had gone missing and were yet to arrive at their homes.

CTA further said that the arrested Tibetans will face interrogation at an unknown location.

China has specially set up 12 security checkpoints from the town of Dram (Ch:Zhangmu) at the Nepal-Tibet border all the way to Tibet's capital Lhasa. The checkpoints manned by Public Security Bureau officials were placed to scrutinise and investigate Tibetan pilgrims returning back from Indian and Nepal.

A Tibetan from Tibet had earlier told Phayul that the pilgrims were being "stopped, harassed and threatened at gun point."

In an earlier report the CTA had said that Chinese security officials were "forcefully confiscating medicines and religious artefacts being carried by the pilgrims" including even rosaries which are carried by almost every Tibetan.

Adding to the fears of arrest and interrogations at the special security checkpoints, China has already announced plans of once again shutting down Tibet from the outside world.

The duration of the ban, from mid-February to late March, encompasses two important events; the Tibetan New Year from February 22-24 and the Tibetan national uprising day commemorated on March 10.

As of now, there are no further details are available on the current whereabouts and well being of the arrested Tibetans.

Returning pilgrims whisked away on a train bound for China - www.phayul.com

It is obvious that given the unrest in Sichuan, the Chinese are worried that the Tibetans returning may have been enthused by the Tibetan organisations outside China to organise further unrest that will embarrass the Chinese Govt or create worse law and order situations.

It is obvious that they will be investigated and interrogated very vigorously.

 

[Ray]

CNN crew detained and thrown out of restive Tibetan region

DHARAMSHALA, January 31: With reports coming in of heightening tension and growing security clampdown in eastern Tibet, media crew from the US based Cable News Channel (CNN) on Tuesday were detained and thrown out of the troubled region by Chinese authorities.

A video clip released by CNN shows its crew members apprehended by Chinese security personnel while trying to enter the besieged Kardze region in eastern Tibet from the city of Chengdu, further east. The crew reports that the city itself has police vehicles stationed on every corner with armed police patrolling the streets.

"Our hope is to get to the Tibetan autonomous zone, in the mountainous region of Sichuan province," CNN crew Stan Grant reports, explaining that the region has been locked down in an ever-growing wave of self-immolations and violent retaliation by Chinese police on Tibetan protests.

"We're so close, only an hour or so away. And then the light. Within minutes, we grind to a halt. A policeman is flashing a flashlight in my face. Our Chinese driver is already outside the car. We won't be going any farther tonight," Stan Grant said in a three-minute, forty-second video clip.

Since March 2011, 16 Tibetans have set themselves on fire in Tibet calling for the return of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama and protesting China's continued occupation of Tibet.

Following the fiery wave of self-immolations, Tibetans have come out on the streets, expressing solidarity with the self-immolaters and calling for continued activism and a boycott of celebrations during the Tibetan new year 'Losar' next month.

At least a dozen Tibetans are feared to have been killed in Chinese police firings on unarmed Tibetan demonstrators in three separate incidents in Serthar, Ngaba and Drongo region of eastern Tibet.

"Don't you know what has happened there? It's not safe and you must leave," Chinese police on patrol told the CNN crew as all cars entering Kardze are being stopped.

Checking identification papers, police were shown turning away reporters and those with foreign passports.

Chinese authorities have already banned foreigners from visiting central Tibet from mid-February through March.

The ban encompasses two important events; the Tibetan New Year from February 22-24 and the Tibetan national uprising day commemorated on March 10. Three years ago, demonstrations on March 10, 2008 had led to the biggest ever pan-Tibet uprisings seen for many decades.

CNN further reported that thousands of Chinese security forces have flooded the area with additional military reinforcements deployed in an effort to "impose order" in the region.

CNN also confirmed earlier reports from sources in exile that all telephone lines and mobile connections in Ngaba and Kardze regions were cut, throwing the entire area into a perilous isolation form the world.
The video clip recorded minutes before the crew were detained for five hours says: "There is hysteria, bigotry and fear here."

"It is fueled by government secrecy and a constant stream of military and police vehicles. Much of the province is in lockdown," CNN reported.

Later, Chinese authorities blacked out CNNI in China when the report was aired.
CNN crew detained and thrown out of restive Tibetan region - www.phayul.com

CNN was never liked in China. Therefore, it is not a very unusual an action for the Chinese to take.

It is also a normal practice for China to seal off regions where there is turmoil. It happened in Tibet also. All tourists and foreign media are thrown out and none allowed to enter.

Having sealed the area of off, the Chinese go into action in the Chinese style to quell the rebellion.

 

[Ray]

Tibetan monasteries forced to display communist leaders' photos

DHARAMSHALA, January 29: Even as Chinese security personnel were shooting unarmed Tibetan protesters in eastern Tibet on January 23, Chinese authorities in central Tibet were distributing Chinese flags and photos of China's leaders to local Tibetans.

Coinciding with the Chinese new year, official Xinhua news agency had reported that over a million Chinese national flags and portraits depicting the four generations of China's top leadership were distributed to monasteries, schools, offices, and rural households.

The distribution of the flags and portraits carry strong political connotations, as households and temples deciding against its display run the risk of offending local communist party workers and leaders.

This was made evident when Padma Choling, Beijing appointed chairman of the regional government said that the hanging of the portrait was meant to express the "heartfelt gratitude of Tibetans for the PRC central government and the Communist Party of China".

Phayul had reported last year that China was planning to send 20,000 Chinese officials to Tibetan villages in the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region to "re-sculpture the minds of Tibetans".

These Chinese officials will stay one year in the Tibetan villages to "espouse patriotism and love for China" while handing out Chinese national flags and photos of Chinese leaders in large quantities in all Tibetan villages.

This move of penetrating Tibetan villages along with the "Nine Must-Haves" policy introduced in December last, which requires nine items, including portraits of Communist leaders, the Communist flag and a copy of the state-run People's Daily to be displayed in all temples are amongst the many policies being employed by the newly appointed Chinese party boss in Tibet, Chen Quanguo.

Following the fiery wave of self-immolation that has seen 16 Tibetans set themselves on fire since March 2011, at least a dozen Tibetans are feared to have been killed in Chinese police firings in three separate incidents in Serthar, Ngaba and Drongo region of Tibet, this week alone.

Tibetan monasteries forced to display communist leaders' photos - www.phayul.com

An ingenuous way to install a new 'Buddha'.

Budha mil gaya!

It is very nice of Padma Choling, Beijing appointed chairman of the regional government to have said to convey that the hanging of the portrait was meant to express the "heartfelt gratitude of Tibetans for the PRC central government and the Communist Party of China".

Setting themselves on fire and protesting makes me wonder what so heartfelt gratitude that they are showing to China?

 

[Ray]

Who is fanning Tibet's flames?

It was just a few minutes to one in the afternoon last Thursday.

Standing at a road junction in a town in Sichuan, in south-western China, was a young woman.

Without warning, she doused herself in petrol - she may even have drunk some - and then set fire to herself.

Tibetans say her name was Palden Choetso; she was 35 years old and had been a Tibetan Buddhist nun since the age of 20. Official Chinese reports gave her name in Chinese as Qiu Xiang.

Her death, it is thought, was swift and, one can only imagine, agonising.

So what drives someone to such an awful, desperate step? In fact, what drives 11 people to willingly burn themselves like this?
'Desperate situation'

That is what has happened so far this year in Aba and Garze (known in Tibetan as Ngaba and Kardze), both Tibetan areas of Sichuan.

Two of those who set fire to themselves have been nuns; nine of them were men, monks or former monks. Six of the eleven have died, the fate of the others is not know.

Palden Choetso (or Qiu Xiang) was the oldest; the youngest was 18.

This wave of self-immolations is unprecedented. So what is happening in these Tibetan communities? Who or what is fanning the flames?

China is keeping foreign journalists out of the areas. Tibet's exiled leadership says those who set fire to themselves shouted slogans as they did so: "Long live his holiness the Dalai Lama", "Let the Dalai Lama return to Tibet", and "Freedom for Tibet".

On Monday the Dalai Lama, speaking in Japan, said: "Some kind of cultural genocide is taking place... that is why you see these sorts of sad incidents happen, due to the desperateness of the situation."

Tibet's Prime Minister-in-exile Lobsang Sangay has been more explicit. "The monks and nuns who immolated themselves were sacrificing their bodies to draw the world's attention to Chinese repression in Tibet," he said.

"While the leadership in exile does not encourage self-immolation," Mr Sangay added, "we must focus on the causes... the continuing occupation of Tibet and the Chinese policies of cultural repression, cultural assimilation, economic marginalisation and environmental destruction."
'Inciting'

Unsurprisingly, China has pointed the finger straight back. The Xinhua news agency said of Qiu Xiang's death that "initial investigation showed the case was masterminded and instigated by the Dalai Lama clique, which has plotted a chain of self-immolations in the past months for splitting motives".

China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei criticised the exiled leaders for "refusing to denounce the self-immolations", charging that instead "they are publicising these events, and inciting further immolations".

The US Department of State has weighed in too, saying it has "repeatedly urged the Chinese government to address its counter-productive policies in Tibetan areas that have created tensions".

Amid the finger-pointing one thing is clear. The immolations have gone on and on.

The first was by a 20-year-old monk called Phuntsog in March. China responded by deploying thousands of armed police, locking down monasteries, pressuring many monks to undergo "patriotic re-education", and shipping hundreds more away to an unknown fate.

But none of that has stopped the burning. There is, it seems despair among some Tibetans. Why else would a 20-year-old, or a 35-year-old, choose - willingly, it seems - to die in petrol-fuelled flames lit by their own hands?

Are they a few manipulated by leaders outside Tibet or are they indicative of broader discontent?

China says it is working to bring progress and development to Tibetan areas. It is hoping those, and a firm hand when it comes to security, will end the tensions. But what if its policies are not working?

The question we should perhaps be asking then is not so much who is fanning the flames, but rather what will douse them?

BBC News - Who is fanning Tibet's flames?

 

[bhramos]

 

[mylegend]

A theocracy of Tibetan Exiles.

 

[mylegend]

In 1957, the Chinese leaders decided to end slavery in Tibet. Then, only about 5 percent of the Tibetans were monks or nuns, or belonged to the small noble class or free nomadic hunting tribes. The rest were slaves who had to toil to feed the non-productive elite of the population. That's why the monasteries, the house of the elites, saw the abolition of slavery as a catastrophe.

Posted else where, not my own word.

 

[SADAKHUSH]

In 1957, the Chinese leaders decided to end slavery in Tibet. Then, only about 5 percent of the Tibetans were monks or nuns, or belonged to the small noble class or free nomadic hunting tribes. The rest were slaves who had to toil to feed the non-productive elite of the population. That's why the monasteries, the house of the elites, saw the abolition of slavery as a catastrophe.

Posted else where, not my own word.

No matter how you twist the facts the truth rises above all the manipulation of your CCP thugs. If they were slaves before you abolished it than how come they did not protest or self immolation took place. Have you checked the manufacturing plants around your country and the working conditions along with the age group of workers? I would suggest you to do so and you will be exposed to the truth. The movement for freedom in Tibet is going to gain momentum in the near future and you can not stop it.

When foreigners occupy a land whose natives had no Army to defend themselves than justify by saying they are here to free slaves from elites of the land. After that they start changing the demographics and force women to abort (MURDER) unborn child, I call this kind of treatment as a proof of true "SLAVERY".