Tibet Was Never a Part of China but the Middle Way Remains a Viable Solution
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Published by Department of Information and International Relations (DIIR) Central Tibetan Administration Dharamshala-176215 H.P. India Email: [email protected] www.tibet.net Copyright © DIIR 2018 First edition: October 2018 1000 copies ISBN-978-93-82205-12-8 Design & Layout: Kunga Phuntsok / DIIR Printed at New Delhi: Norbu Graphics CONTENTS Foreword------------------------------------------------------------------1 Chapter One: Burning Tibet: Self-immolation Protests in Tibet---------------------5 Chapter Two: The Historical Status of Tibet-------------------------------------------37 Chapter Three: Human Rights Situation in Tibet--------------------------------------69 Chapter Four: Cultural Genocide in Tibet--------------------------------------------107 Chapter Five: The Tibetan Plateau and its Deteriorating Environment---------135 Chapter Six: The True Nature of Economic Development in Tibet-------------159 Chapter Seven: China’s Urbanization in Tibet-----------------------------------------183 Chapter Eight: China’s Master Plan for Tibet: Rule by Reincarnation-------------197 Chapter Nine: Middle Way Approach: The Way Forward--------------------------225 FOREWORD For Tibetans, information is a precious commodity. Severe restric- tions on expression accompanied by a relentless disinformation campaign engenders facts, knowledge and truth to become priceless. This has long been the case with Tibet. At the time of the publication of this report, Tibet has been fully oc- cupied by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for just five months shy of sixty years. As China has sought to develop Tibet in certain ways, largely economically and in Chinese regions, its obsessive re- strictions on the flow of information have only grown more intense. Meanwhile, the PRC has ready answers to fill the gaps created by its information constraints, whether on medieval history or current growth trends. These government versions of the facts are backed ever more fiercely as the nation’s economic and military power grows. For Tibetans, these developments endanger the truths of our nation—our history, our identity, our prosperity, and our rights. The PRC has its own manufactured renditions of each of these concepts. If left unchallenged, they risk supplanting the reality in the minds of the Chinese people, the international community, and even future generations of Tibetans. 1 This report seeks to provide a tool to strengthen the challenge against disinformation on Tibet. As the elected representative of the Tibet- an people, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) must use its platform to set the record straight whenever and wherever possible. Resources such as this publication are a vital means for doing so. It relies on earlier works by the CTA and also sources from other gov- ernments, civil society organizations and scholars around the world who have not shied away from revealing present realities in Tibet. These sources invariably rely on Tibetans inside Tibet who risk their lives and livelihoods to reveal information to the outside world. More than offering a plain statement of facts, this report seeks to erase any hint of abstraction about the subjects discussed here. For Tibetans in Tibet, the effects of the violation of rights and other hardships described here are direct and severe. This is evidenced most dramatically and most tragically by the growing number of Tibetans who have self-immolated. Each of the topics covered in the follow- ing chapters has been a motivating factor in at least one, and often many, self-immolations since 2009. We have included a discussion of these self-immolations not simply for matters of documentation but to illustrate that the transgressions of the PRC against the Ti- betan people are ongoing and frighteningly consequential: over 152 Tibetans have been driven to this act of protest. The report is organized into nine chapters that cover self-immola- tions, historical status of Tibet, human rights, cultural genocide, environment, economic development, urbanization, reincarnation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and the Middle Way Policy. The chapters aim to be comprehensive but digestible. Given that each topic could be a book of its own—and in fact, there are many writ- ten on these subjects—the report serves as an overview of the most pressing issues in Tibet for those involved with or interested in the Tibetan cause. 2 The general claim put forth by this publication is not that a life lived in today’s Tibet is one of guaranteed misery, or that every word spo- ken or released by the PRC is a lie. It is that whatever positive, or usually, at best, inoffensive elements of Tibetan wellbeing exist in modern Tibet, they cannot make up for the economic discrimina- tion, disrespect for Tibetan language, culture, and religion, erasure of Tibetan history, and rampant human rights violations that per- vade the region today. In aggregate, these injustices demonstrate that, due to their sheer scale and severity, the PRC is no closer to being the legitimate representative of Tibet in 2018 than it was in 1959. But more than delineating the grievous state of Tibet under the PRC, it is also the CTA’s role to actively pursue the resolution of these issues. Thirty years ago, in an address to the European Parlia- ment in Strasbourg, France on 15 June 1988, His Holiness the Dalai Lama officially announced the Middle Way Policy that remains the CTA’s approach to restoring freedom for Tibetans in Tibet. In the present climate, negotiation with the PRC for genuine autonomy in Tibet is the most viable option for the CTA to achieve a resolution. Unfortunately, this approach has itself been the target of disinforma- tion by the Chinese government, so this report includes a chapter on the Middle Way Policy to again clarify what it calls for. Regardless of how much the PRC attempts to cloud the world’s view of Tibet, as long as Tibetans and their supporters continue to pub- lish and promote information that reveal the truth of what goes on in the region, the push for the rights of Tibetans will continue. This report marks the CTA’s current contribution to this effort. Dr Lobsang Sangay President Central Tibetan Administration October 2018 3 CHAPTER ONE BURNING TIBET: SELF-IMMOLATION PROTESTS IN TIBET On December 23, 2017, when much of the world was in a festive mood to ring in Christmas, elsewhere in the northeast corner of Ti- betan plateau, Konpe, a former Buddhist monk in his 30s, set him- self alight, calling for freedom inside Tibet and the return of His Ho- liness the Dalai Lama to Tibet. A day later, on the eve of Christmas, he succumbed to his injuries. Konpe then became the 151st Tibetan to self-immolate in protest against Chinese rule in Tibet. He became the 129th Tibetan to succumb to his burns. For the last nine years, a fire has been raging on the roof of the world. Why do Tibetans self-immolate? Self-immolation is the act of setting oneself on fire and historically, has been used as a tool for political resistance in other countries such as Vietnam and the Arab world. The self-immolations are carried out with a conscious effort and a specific goal and therefore the entire process of deciding to immo- late, performing the act, and ensuring one’s death do not happen in 5 Tibet was never a part of China but the Middle Way Remains a Viable Solution vain. Further, expressing one’s demands during or before the act are conscious efforts made by the self-immolators; their act of burning themselves alight frame their goals and make an explicit call for im- proved human rights and political reform in Tibet, symbolized by the return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tibet. The spate of self-immolations evinces the fact that the Chinese oc- cupation of Tibet, a historically independent nation, is illegal. This relates to the historical status of Tibet as an independent nation. The deteriorating human rights situation in Tibet amounts to cul- tural genocide and suppression of rights under the guise of develop- mental policies such as urbanization, economic and environmental development, and the politicization of the sacred institution of the reincarnation of religious leaders. These exacerbated conditions in Tibet have created the terrain for Tibetans to commit such extreme measures of political protests. The self-immolators frame their goal by staging the self-immolations at public places and framing their message through the two consistent slogans: We want freedom and We want the return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tibet. In turn, these two slogans can be analyzed through two different frames. The call for freedom is a call for improved human rights conditions. The call for the return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tibet is also a political call given that the successive reincarnations of the Dalai Lama (from 5th to the 14th) have headed the Tibetan political estab- lishment for 376 years, making the Dalai Lama a symbolic represen- tation of political reform in Tibet. The act of self-immolation The sweeping wave of self-immolation began in 2009 in the after- math of the 2008 nationwide uprisings against China. Since then, Tibet has witnessed at least 152 self-immolations. Of these self-im- molators,1 126 were men and 26 women. The burning flame has 1 - Additionally, about 10 self-immolations have occurred outside Tibet, largely in India and Nepal 6 Burning Tibet: Self-Immolation Protests in Tibet consumed 130 lives. Nearly a third of the Tibetans who resorted to self-immolation protest were monks and nuns.2 The rest were lay- people from different regions and from all walks of life: students, farmers, teachers, young parents, grandparents and mothers of sev- eral children. When staging self-immolation protests, the self-immolators pour kerosene/petrol on their bodies and set themselves alight, often in public places. Images and video recordings of self-immolations from Tibet show self-immolators standing stoically with folded hands or carrying the banned Tibetan national flag.