Monday, October 31, 2011

Dalai Lama: China policy caused monk immolations


Tibet's exiled Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, pointed to what he called China's "ruthless policy" as prompting the recent deaths of Tibetan monks who set themselves on fire in protest.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate called on Beijing to change its approach to ruling over the Himalayan region.
"For their own interest, not just the interest for certain sort of problem here and there, but for the whole country's sort of future, they have to act (with a) realistic sort of policy," he told reporters Saturday at a Tokyo hotel, while in Japan to visit victims of the devastating March 11 tsunami.
At least nine Tibetans in their late teens and 20s have self-immolated since March in protest of Chinese rule, and five of them have died of their injuries. Many Tibetans consider the Dalai Lama as their rightful leader.
The self-declared Tibetan government-in-exile has described the self-immolations as tragic acts and called for the international community to urge Beijing to open a dialogue on its policies in Tibet and traditionally Tibetan regions of western China.
"Actually, the local leader must look what's the real causes of death," the Dalai Lama said of the China. "It's their own sort of wrong policy, ruthless policy, illogical policy."
Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama and his supporters of encouraging the immolations.
The Dalai Lama fled the Himalayan region in 1959 amid an abortive anti-Beijing uprising and is reviled by China's communist government.
Source Credit: San Francisco Chronicle


Friday, October 28, 2011

Bombing Reported in Tibet


BEIJING — A bomb possibly set by Tibetan independence advocates damaged a municipal building in a town in eastern Tibet this week, according to a report on Friday by Free Tibet, an advocacy group based in London.
The bombing took place at 4 a.m. on Wednesday, when there was apparently no one inside the building, the group said in statement. It said the words “Tibet’s independence” had been scrawled on a wall of the building, located in the town of Gama, or Karma in Tibetan, in the prefecture of Changdu.
Free Tibet,which has a network of informants in Tibet and Tibetan-populated areas in neighboring provinces of China, did not specify the source of its information about the bombing and cautioned that it had not been able to confirm some of the details.
Such acts of violence are rare in Tibet, where Chinese authorities have maintained a harsh repression of any sentiment favoring independence and Tibet's spiritual leader-in-exile, the Dalai Lama.  
An official in Changdu reached by telephone said there was no report of any bombing.
So far this year, Free Tibet has reported self-immolations by 10 Tibetans to protest Chinese policies. All the incidents — by monks, former monks and a nun — have taken place in a Tibetan area of Sichuan Province, east of Changdu.
Source Credit: New York Times

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Govt building bombed in Tibet: Campaigners

Source Credit: Hindustan Times
An overnight bomb blast ripped through a government building in Tibet, causing damage but no injuries, London-based campaign group Save Tibet told AFP on Thursday, citing two sources. "Several sources have confirmed a bomb blast but nothing is known about who carried it out or why," spokeswoman Kate Saunders told AFP by telephone.
"As it was carried out at 4:00 am, it is thought that no one was hurt," she added, saying the blast in Karma town in Chamdo prefecture was either on Wednesday or Thursday morning.
Tibetan news portal www.TibetExpress.net also reported the news, saying "Tibet's independence" had been daubed in red on the damaged walls of the office building and "Free Tibet" fliers had been found at the scene.
"No one is accused or arrested in this connection so far but the entire road access leading to and from Chamdo had been completely cut off including closure of Karma monastery," the source told the website.
The author of the report, journalist Tenzin Wanchuk, said he had received the information from a source in Karma county who said the explosion took place on Wednesday morning.
"We got this information from a person who called us from that area and said he had seen the bombing. The information is authentic but we cannot identify him," he said.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Richard Gere brings message of encouragement and support to Dharamsala


DHARAMSHALA: The measureless and azure skyline above the mighty Dhauladhar mountains that ringed Dharamsala town glowed with a rainbow of flying paragliders. For the gliders, the weather and spacious sky are always encouraging and delight, and which are key to successful flying to their destination.

Meanwhile, the earth in Dharamsala glowed with a celestial star of Hollywood. And for the Tibetan community, Richard Gere brings message of encouragement and support towards their struggle. It was a double delight for the staff members of the Tibetan administration as Mr Gere interacted with them on a range of Tibetan issues.

The staff members gave a thunderous applause as he walked into Gangkyi auditorium accompanied by Kalon Tripa Dr Lobsang Sangay.

Dr Sangay described Mr Gere as a weather-tested friend, who though born as an American, is very much Tibetan in heart. His passion for Tibet is well-known to the extent that it jeopardizes his film career with a semi-ban on his visit to China. Dr Sangay said the Tibetans have always been very grateful to him for putting his Hollywood career at risk.

Recounting how he came into contact with the Tibetan cause, Mr Gere said his curiosity and quest for happiness landed him at a small Tibet hamlet in Kathmandu in 1970.

Later, noted writer John F Avedon who wrote "In Exile from the Land of Snows" raised my passion to go to Dharamsala to know more about Tibet, he reminisced.

“It struck me very deeply when His Holiness the Dalai Lama told during our first meeting that the Tibetans need help and that especially from the Western friends,” he said.

He said the Tibetan people have won deep and heartfelt friends across the world for contributing greatly through their rich culture and religion. "We consider you as the best of who you are. We can never repay what Tibetans have contributed to the world," he said with an air of solemnity in his voice.

On asked if he is seeing any changes in forward movement of the Tibetan issue, he said it is of paramount importance to keep the community united. The hearts of the Tibetan people have remained unchanged. The three generations of Tibetans have done very well, especially in education and health, he added.

 
 Richard Gere listens to questions from a senior official of the Central Tibetan Administration during the meeting.

Responding to a question on the previous performances, Mr Gere applauded the administration for making great strides in the fields of micro finance, education, health and communications.

He, however, said the failure is in Tibet. So we should to improve the lives of Tibetans in Tibet, he added.

To another query on what is the Tibetan movement's strength, he said "every staff of the administration has to step up to offer their strength and work together with the Kashag. All of you have a heavy responsibility to shoulder."

In conclusion, Kalon Tripa Dr Lobsang Sangay said Mr Gere saw the preciousness of Tibet, acted on it and became a foremost Western friend to play a pivotal role in internationalizing the Tibetan freedom struggle.

“In the time of crisis, the Tibetan people have a man to bank on,” said Dr Sangay as the auditorium once again reverberated with thunderous applause. 


Source Credit: Tibet Net

Tenth Tibetan monk burns self in west China: group


(Reuters) - A Tibetan Buddhist monk doused himself in fuel and set himself ablaze in far western China on Tuesday, the tenth ethnic Tibetan this year to resort to the extreme form of protest, an overseas advocacy group said.
The Free Tibet group said the latest self-immolation happened outside a monastery in Ganzi in Sichuan province, about 150 km (95 miles) south of Aba, the site of eight of the last nine self-immolations since March to protest against religious controls imposed by the Chinese government.
In a statement emailed late on Tuesday, Free Tibet said it had no information about the monk's name, whereabouts, or whether he survived the incident.
Nor did it specify its sources.
Government officials, police and workers at several hotels in Ganzi, called Kandze by Tibetans, told Reuters they did not know about the reported self-immolation.
"I don't know about this, and even if I did, I couldn't be loose-lipped," said an official in the Ganzi county office.
Most people in Ganzi and neighboring Aba are ethnic Tibetan herders and farmers, and many see themselves as members of a wider Tibetan region encompassing the official Tibetan Autonomous Region and other areas across the vast highlands of China's west.
The string of self-immolations, at least five of them fatal, "represents a wider rejection of China's occupation of Tibet," said Stephanie Brigden, the director of Free Tibet, which campaigns for self-rule for the region.
The group reported "significantly increased numbers of security personnel including in Tibet's capital, Lhasa, hundreds of kilometers away from where the self-immolations have taken place."
For the Chinese government, the protests are a small but destabilizing challenge to its regional policies, which it says have lifted Tibetans out of poverty and servitude.
China has ruled what it calls the Tibet Autonomous Region since Communist troops marched in 1950. It rejects criticisms of rights groups and exiled Tibetans and has condemned the self-immolations as destructive and immoral.
"Encouraging some people to use this kind of extreme and cruel means to injure themselves is a type of violent terrorist act," China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a regular news briefing.
Jiang did not confirm the latest incident but said the protests were out of sync with the wishes of people in the region.
"I think a few individuals inciting a few ignorant people to violate the law and damage local social stability cannot represent the broader desires of the local people," she said.
In March 2008, protests and deadly riots against the Chinese presence spread across Tibetan regions, triggering sometimes deadly confrontations with troops and police.
Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who China condemns as a supporter of violent separatism for his homeland, last week led hundreds of maroon-robed monks, nuns and lay Tibetans in prayer to mourn those who have burned themselves to death or been imprisoned.
The Dalai Lama denies advocating violence and insists he wants only real autonomy for his homeland, from which he fled in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
But the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said the Dalai Lama should take the blame for the burnings, and repeated Beijing's line that Tibetans are free to practice their Buddhist faith.
Source Credit: Reuters

Monday, October 24, 2011

Dalai Lama invites Suu Kyi to attend meeting in the Czech Republic

Source Credit: Mizzima.com
New Delhi (Mizzima) – Burmese Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has been invited by the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan religious leader, to attend a conference in the Czech Republic.

The National League for Democracy said the meeting in early December would include Nobel Peace laureates and other world leaders.

Since 1988 when Suu Kyi returned to Burma, she has never gone out of the country.

She has received about 100 international awards, but has not attended any of the presentation ceremonies. There is public concern that if she leaves to visit a foreign country, she would not be granted re-entry into Burma.

Normally, Suu Kyi sends a video message to international meetings and conferences or participates in live discussions.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Tibetan monk who set himself on fire seen in video leaked from China after self-immolations

Source Credit: The Washington Post
BEIJING — A teenage Tibetan monk lies partially clothed on the street, his lower legs smoking from setting himself on fire, in a video leaked out of China by exiles who say it was one of several self-immolations in protest of Chinese rule over the region.
At least nine Tibetans in their late teens and 20s have set themselves on fire since March, with five or more of them dying from their injuries.
  • ( Amateur video via APTN / Associated Press ) - In this image made off amateur video filmed on Sept. 26, 2011 according to the source, and made available via APTN on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011, armed policemen watch a man, believed to be teenage monk Lobsang Konchok, lying on the road after he tried to set himself on fire at the Kirti Monastery in Sichuan province’s Aba prefecture, China. Aba has been the scene of numerous protests over the past several years against the Chinese government. Most are led by monks who are fiercely loyal to Tibet’s exiled Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, who fled the Himalayan region in 1959 amid an abortive uprising against the Chinese rule and is reviled by Beijing.
  • ( Manish Swarup / Associated Press ) - Exile Tibetans, with painted bodies and names of monks who self-immolated themselves, shout slogans in a protest march in New Delhi, India, Friday, Oct. 21, 2011. The protest is held to express solidarity with the plight of people in Tibet who set themselves on fire in protest against Chinese rule.
( Amateur video via APTN / Associated Press ) - In this image made off amateur video filmed on Sept. 26, 2011 according to the source, and made available via APTN on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011, armed policemen watch a man, believed to be teenage monk Lobsang Konchok, lying on the road after he tried to set himself on fire at the Kirti Monastery in Sichuan province’s Aba p
The exiles said the man in the video is Lobsang Konchok, who tried to set himself on fire Sept. 26 at Kirti Monastery in Sichuan province’s Aba prefecture, where tensions between monks and the authorities have been high for months.
Chinese state media reported at the time that Lobsang and a second monk both tried to self-immolate. They reported police rescued the men, who were stable with superficial burns afterward.
The shaky 34-second video begins after the fire was doused and shows white fire extinguisher residue covering Lobsang and the ground around him. A woman screams in Tibetan in the background and a police car and several uniformed People’s Armed Police officers are visible behind his prone body, but do not appear to assist him.
One officer then approaches the camera and says in Chinese, “No filming,” before the video ends. The Associated Press released the video Sunday.
The individuals who shared it with AP did so on condition of anonymity for fear the videographer and those who helped get the video out of China could be punished by the Chinese government.
The website of the self-declared Tibetan government-in-exile says Lobsang is 19 and his present condition is unknown.
Aba prefecture has been the scene of numerous protests over the past several years against the Chinese government. Most are led by monks who are fiercely loyal to Tibet’s exiled Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, who fled the Himalayan region in 1959 amid an abortive anti-Beijing uprising and is reviled by China’s communist government.
China’s Foreign Ministry has condemned the immolations and accused the Dalai Lama’s supporters of encouraging them. Last week, ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu called such alleged support “violence and terrorism in disguise.”
Thupten Samphal, spokesman for the Tibetan government-in-exile, denied the Dalai Lama had encouraged Tibetans to burn themselves and said the spiritual leader considers suicide a form of violence.
“What the Tibetans in Tibet are trying to do by burning themselves is to try to attempt to draw international attention to the really grim situation in Tibet,” he said Saturday. “There has been increased repression in all the monasteries in Tibet.”
Tensions in Tibetan areas are being exacerbated by government actions, said Kate Saunders, London-based communications director for the advocacy group International Campaign for Tibet. These actions include the imprisonment and expulsion of monks from Kirti, torture, the killing of laypeople who seek to defend the monasteries, and the disruption of normal Buddhist practices.
“The desperate acts of these individuals are a terrible indictment of China’s Tibet policy and force us to confront the unthinkable repression being endured by Tibetans” in Western China, Saunders said.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

U.S. Congressman arrives to discuss protection of Tibetan refugees




Source Credit: NepalNews
Photo Credit: The Examiner
U.S. Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner arrived in Kathmandu Tuesday for a two-day visit.

During his visit, he will meet with senior government officials, parliamentarians, and Tibetan civil society leaders to discuss a range of issues, including U.S.-Nepal relations and the protection of Tibetan refugees in Nepal, according to a press release issued by the U.S Embassy in Kathmandu.
Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner has represented the Fifth Congressional District of Wisconsin since 1978, after serving ten years in the Wisconsin State Legislature.
The Congressman currently serves as the Vice Chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology and as Chairman of the Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary.
Congressman Sensenbrenner earned his law degree at the       University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1968.

This is Congressman Sensenbrenner’s first official visit to Nepal. 

Monday, October 17, 2011

Ninth Tibetan, a Nun, Immolates Herself in Anti-China Protest


Source  Credit: The New York Times
BEIJING — A Tibetan nun killed herself Monday by setting herself on fire in a Tibetan town in western China while calling for religious freedom and the return of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, according to a statement by an advocacy group based in London.
The nun, Tenzin Wangmo, 20, was the ninth Tibetan to commit self-immolation since March, the fifth of those to die, and the first Tibetan woman to kill herself in this way, said the group, Free Tibet. The self-immolations have all taken place in restive Tibetan areas of Sichuan Province. All the previous acts involved monks or former monks; the most recent one took place on Saturday, when a 19-year-old former monk from Kirti Monastery set himself on fire but lived.
Kirti is in the town of Aba, known as Ngaba in Tibetan, and is the focal point of a long-running repression by Chinese security forces. Kirti was involved in the widespread Tibetan uprising of 2008, and security around the monastery has tightened considerably since then. Seven of the eight monks who committed self-immolation this year came from Kirti.
Tenzin’s nunnery, called Dechen Chokorling, was just three kilometers outside Aba and near Kirti. Tenzin set herself on fire outside the nunnery around 1 p.m. on Monday, said the report by Free Tibet, which advocates for Tibetan autonomy and has functioned as an outlet for people inside the Tibetan areas to report news.
“The acts of self-immolation are not taking place in isolation, protests have been reported in the surrounding region and calls for wider protests are growing,” said Stephanie Brigden, director of Free Tibet.
The group also reported that two Tibetans were shot and wounded by security forces during a protest on Sunday outside a police station in the town of Kege, known in Tibetan as Khekor. The town is located in the prefecture of Ganzi, or Kandze in Tibetan. A 29-year-old monk in Ganzi killed himself in August by setting himself on fire.
Free Tibet identified the two Tibetans wounded on Sunday as Dawa and Druklo. One was shot in the leg and the other in the torso, though it is unclear who suffered what injury. It is also unclear why security forces opened fire. The condition of the two Tibetans was unknown early Tuesday morning.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Tibet shocked by increase in monks setting themselves on fire



Tibet shocked by increase in monks setting themselves on fire

Source Credit: The Telegraph

Four Tibetans from a monastery in western China have succumbed to their injuries after setting themselves on fire, the Tibetan government-in-exile has claimed.

A series of self-immolations this year has shocked Tibet, with seven monks, or former monks, now having set themselves on fire.
In the last fortnight alone there have been five cases in the town of Aba, the site of an important monastery.
The Tibetan parliament, based in Dharamsala, blamed the suicide cluster on a "deteriorating situation" in Tibet and said that the victims had found "China's occupation and repression intolerable".
It said four of the seven monks had died, including Kaying, 18, and Choephel, 19, who had left the Kirti monastery and were dressed in laymen's clothes when they set themselves on fire last week. It said the condition of the other three men is "still unknown".
The claim contradicts reports in the official Chinese media, which said that four of the monks are being treated for "light wounds".

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Study Points to Heavy-Handed Repression of Tibetan Area in China



Source Credit: The New York Times
BEIJING — The rise in anti-Chinese tensions and protests in a restive Tibetan region of Sichuan Province, including a startling wave of monk self-immolations, has taken place in the aftermath of sharp increases in the security budget for the area, which indicates the conflict is partly a result of heavy-handed tactics by the local security forces, according to an assessment by Human Rights Watch.
The Tibetan region, Aba prefecture, has been in the spotlight recently because six of seven self-immolations by monks in Sichuan this year have taken place there, in or around the Kirti Monastery. The monks all set themselves on fire to protest what Tibetan advocacy groups have called harsh Chinese policies.
The latest self-immolations took place on Oct. 7, when two teenagers described as former monks set themselves on fire. One of them, Choepel, 19, later died, according to an account of the incident by Free Tibet, a rights group in London.
The expenditures on security-related activity in Aba, known as Ngaba in Tibetan, have been growing since 2002, Human Rights Watch said in its assessment, released Tuesday. Citing official statistics it had examined, the group said that from 2002 to 2006, the public security spending in Aba was three times the average for non-Tibetan parts of Sichuan. That went up to 4.5 times in 2006. In 2007, a new “anti-terrorist” unit was established in Aba, and it took part in a “strike hard” campaign.
Significant unrest did not afflict the area until the spring of 2008, when many Tibetans across the plateau, including in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, took to the streets to protest Chinese rule.
“These findings suggest that the increase in government spending on security has contributed to provocative policing techniques such as monastery blockades and the mass detentions of monks that have repeatedly contributed to local discontent and unrest,” Human Rights Watch said.
At least 10 Tibetans were shot dead in Aba by security forces during the 2008 uprising, advocacy groups have said. After the unrest, spending on security rose again. By 2009, per-capita spending on security in Aba was 779 renminbi, or $120, five times the average in non-Tibetan areas of Sichuan and twice as much as in Chengdu, the provincial capital, the Human Rights Watch report said. The new measures taken included surrounding monasteries with security forces, raiding monasteries in the middle of the night and detaining monks en masse.
On April 12, about 300 monks were taken from Kirti for weeks of “patriotic re-education,” Human Rights Watch said, and many have not returned. It estimated about 2,000 fewer monks now live at Kirti compared to the total number in March.
The first self-immolation at Kirti took place on March 16, by a 20-year-old monk named Phuntsog. He was the first monk to kill himself by self-immolation to protest Chinese rule in Tibet, according to historians.
In August, Tsewang Norbu, a 29-year-old monk at Nyitso Monastery in Ganzi, another Tibetan region of Sichuan, also committed suicide by setting himself on fire. Like in Aba, the security budget of Ganzi, known in Tibetan as Karze, also increased sharply after 2002, Human Rights Watch said. In total, at least four Tibetans have killed themselves through self-immolation this year, all monks in Sichuan.
China seized control of Tibet in the 1950s and considers the former kingdom an inseparable part of the country. The Chinese authorities forced Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to flee into exile in 1959 and have no tolerance for Tibetan separatist sentiment in Tibet or adjoining provinces populated by ethnic Tibetans.
On Tuesday, China’s Foreign Ministry responded to the spate of self-immolations, condemning what it called the “Dalai clique” for publicizing them as a way to inspire more Tibetans to kill themselves in this way.
“They publicly played it up, spread rumors and incited more people to follow suit,” the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Weimin, told reporters at a daily news briefing in Beijing. He also called the self-immolations part of a separatist plot against Chinese rule in Tibet.
On Wednesday, the parliament and the cabinet of the Tibetan government in exile, based in Dharamsala, India, released a statement expressing deep concern over what it called the deteriorating situation in Tibet. The statement said: “We express our solidarity with all those who lost their lives and with all other Tibetans who are incarcerated for their courage to speak up for the rights of the Tibetan people.”
A new prime minister, Lobsang Sangay, formerly a research fellow at Harvard Law School, recently took charge of the exile government after being elected to his post. The Dalai Lama, 76, has said he is ceding all political power to the government.