Tibetan exiles set Olympics date for homeward march

They have been living in exile for almost five decades. Now they are planning to return to their homeland in an effort to reassert their identity and ties.

As the countdown to the 2008 Olympics begins, Tibetan exiles and their supporters all over the world have renewed their resolve to counter China's stranglehold on Tibet. They are bracing for a "return march" to Tibet, which is slated to begin on March 10 from Dharamshala.

With a 100-odd core participants and more joining in on the way in batches, the group plans to reach the border and cross over into Tibet in August, to coincide with the opening of 2008 Olympics in Beijing, in order to attract the attention of the international media present there to cover the sports event. "Our message to the Chinese leadership is loud and clear - that after 50 years, Tibetans in exile are determined to return to their homeland," said Ngawang Woeber, president of the Gu Chu Sum, the ex-political prisoners' association.

Poet and activist Tenzin Tsundue, who has been spearheading various efforts in the fight for a free Tibet, says it's too early to decide the exact point on the 4,000 km-long Indo-Tibetan border for the cross-over, if at all. "The last time I went to Tibet in 1997, I was arrested by the Chinese authorities, beaten up, interrogated, starved and finally thrown out of Tibet after being in their jail for three months in Lhasa. But this time, I am not alone."

Asked if they had taken permission from the Dalai Lama for the march, he says, "Since it will be a peaceful march, inspired by Gandhi's salt march, I do not think anyone - either Indian authorities or Chinese - would impose themselves on us."

Other activists of the group say they will not be seeking the approval of the Dalai Lama, as he has a more moderate position and is okay with Tibet getting partial autonomy rather than complete independence. Officials in the Dalai Lama's office say they are aware of the march but the government-in-exile neither plans to participate nor disrupt the initiative.

B Tsering, spokesperson of the Tibetan Women's Association, says, "We stand at a historic point as two important events approach - the Olympics and the 50th commemoration of the March 10 uprising against China's occupation of Tibet. We need to take this opportunity and give impetus to our freedom movement."

Choeying of Students for a Free Tibet says: "China will use the Olympics to legitimise its colonisation of Tibet. It will parade the Tibetans in colourful costumes along with the people from other occupied countries like Mongolia and the Islamic East Turkistan (Xinjiang) to show ‘unity' in China. We want to participate as an independent nation."

The march is a part of the Tibetan People's Uprising Movement, a united effort by five groups: Tibetan Youth Congress, Tibetan Women's Association, Gu-Chu-Sum Movement of Tibet, National Democratic Party of Tibet and Students for a Free Tibet, India.

Tibetans have been taking special exception to the Beijing Olympics. In August last year, they held a friendly football match between Delhi-XI and Team Tibet, although they had to shift the venue after cops refused permission for the event to held at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Delhi.

divya.aggarwal@timesgroup.com

From Tibet to Kashmir, shahtoosh smuggle thrives

By Sheikh Mushtaq

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters Life!) - Shahtoosh, the world's finest wool, is still being smuggled from Tibet to Kashmir, in defiance of a worldwide ban aimed at saving the highly endangered Tibetan antelope.

Environmentalists say five Tibetan antelopes, or Chiru, are killed to make a two-meter shawl, which weighs only 150 to 170 grams and is so fine it can be passed through a wedding ring.

But the traders and weavers who work amid the lakes and mountains of Kashmir believe the antelopes shed their wool naturally in summer by rubbing against rocks on the Tibetan plateaus where they live, at an altitude of over 14,000 feet.

"Supply of raw wool continues through Nepal and other routes. As long as shahtoosh wool is smuggled from Tibet, the shawl-making will continue in Kashmir," said 45-year-old Riyaz, a shahtoosh trader who declined to give his surname.

"Even after the ban, there is great demand for shahtoosh shawls in India and abroad," he told Reuters at the single-story house that houses his wool store.

The government of Jammu and Kashmir, where tens of thousands have been killed in nearly 19 years of anti-India revolt, reluctantly banned shahtoosh trade 2002.

Shaded by willows and huge chinar trees, Riyaz's house near the banks of the Dal lake can be only reached via a 30-minute boat ride.

In the same area, in a dimly lit room, 50-year-old Ghulam Mustafa and his teenage son Farooq Ahmad sit hunched over two handlooms, painstakingly weaving shahtoosh shawls.
"I feel sorry if the animal is killed for wool, but we believe that animal sheds its wool in summer," Mustufa said. "And it is these wisps of shahtoosh that are collected."

In this area, dozens of wooden shuttle looms hum in the hands of shahtoosh weavers.

NO WOOL, NO JOBS

For centuries, Indian Kashmir has been the only place in the world where shahtoosh is spun and later woven into a shawl. The shawls fetch as much as $18,000 in luxury boutiques in Europe, the United States and Gulf countries, traders say.

In India, a shahtoosh shawl sells for $3,000 to $5,000, depending on the quality, they say.

Kashmiri legend has it that shahtoosh shawls came to Europe after French emperor Napoleon presented one to Josephine more than two centuries ago.

"Shahtoosh trading is illegal and once it comes to our notice we raid the place, arrest the traders or weavers and confiscate the material," said Farooq Geelani, Kashmir's wildlife warden.

Another wildlife official, who declined to be identified, admitted there are still many people who secretly engage in shahtoosh trade.

"Most of the people have given up. Many traders were punished and a large quantity of shahtoosh was confiscated since the state ordered a ban," the official added.
Traders and weavers say the shahtoosh-weaving craft was brought to region from central Asia centuries ago.

And they say the ban has ruined the lives of thousands of Kashmiris working in the shahtoosh industry -- many of them women.

"I learned it from my grandmother, and I have been spinning shahtoosh for the past 50 to 55 years. I taught it to my daughter, but from the last four years there is no work for either of us," 65-year-old Fatima Khan said.

(Editing by Sophie Hardach)

Dalai Lama begins discourse on Jataka tales

Dharamsala (Himachal Pradesh), Feb 22 (IANS) Buddhists have gathered in large numbers in Himachal Pradesh to listen to the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama speak on Lord Buddha’s timeless 34 Jataka tales. “His Holiness spoke on the importance of training our minds and developing a positive mental attitude such as compassion,” a spokesman of the Dalai Lama’s office here said Friday.

The annual spring teachings of the Dalai Lama began here Thursday and will continue for 10 more days.

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet with thousands of his followers after a failed a coup attempt against the Communist regime in 1959.

The Tibetan government-in-exile is based in hill town of Dharamsala in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.

Rep. Tom Lantos dies of cancer

Rep. Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor elected to Congress and for 27 years a champion of human rights as representative for a district stretching from San Francisco's west side to San Carlos, died today of complications from esophageal cancer, his office said. He was 80.
Long time supporter of Tibet and human right, tibetans all over the world will miss his support for Tibet's cause.

BROADCASTTIBET.COM sends its heartfelt condolences to his berieved family.

China jails Tibetan monk for "inciting masses

BEIJING (Reuters) - The abbot of a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in southwest China has been jailed for three years on charges of endangering national security by inciting the masses, a group monitoring human rights in the Himalayan region said.

Khenpo Jinpa, 37, abbot of Chogtsang Talung Monastery in Sichuan province, was sentenced last July, but the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy only reported his imprisonment in a statement seen on Monday.

The centre did not give a reason for the delay, but the authorities are keen to keep politically sensitive Tibetan issues under wraps. The court could not be reached for comment.

Police detained Khenpo Jinpa in August 2006 on suspicion of distributing leaflets calling for Tibet's independence and the Dalai Lama's long life at a festival the previous year, the centre said in a statement faxed to Reuters.

The Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, has lived in exile in India since 1959 when he fled his predominantly Buddhist homeland after an abortive uprising against Communist rule.

Khenpo Jinpa was born to a nomadic family and ordained as a monk at at a young age. In 1992 he enrolled at the Serthar Buddhist Institute.

In 2001, hundreds of monks' huts at the institute were destroyed by paramilitary police and a ceiling of 1,000 monks was imposed against the total enrolment of about 10,000.