Tibet Factor: Confrontation With Tyranny

Police have fired teargas to disperse Buddhist monks and others staging a second day of protests in sympathy with anti-Chinese demonstrations in Lhasa that has left at least 30 dead. Unconfirmed reports say the figure is closer to 130.

Several hundred monks marched out of the historic Labrang monastery and into the town of Xiahe this morning, gathering other Tibetans with them as they went. Teargas was fired after the crowd, described as the largest demonstrations in Tibet for 20 years, attacked government buildings and smashed windows in the county police headquarters. A London-based Tibetan activist group, the Free Tibet Campaign, citing unidentified sources in Xiahe, said 20 people were arrested.

BEIJING – China set a “surrender” deadline after riots in Lhasa that it said killed 10 innocent people, launching a crackdown on Saturday after the worst unrest in Tibet for two decades.

The world has watched and morned since China destroyed a stable country and culture. Can we blame the movie Lost Horizon? The concept of a utopia called Shangri-La is but a dream. The ‘free’ world must decide whether the idea of Shangri-La is worth defending. Tibet is the battleground for global consciousness. Tibet must no longer be a spectator sport for the world to mourn. The story of Shangri-La is based on the concept of Shambhala, a mystical city in Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The hippies of the 1960s were hip to this idea … sadly, many of those hippies have become mainstream neocons who prefer to stroke Chinese economic advantages than defend human rights.

“The British government must now pull its head out of the sand. The government must make very strong representations to China. Up to now the government’s silence has only emboldened China to act with impunity.” Matt Whitticase, spokesman for the Free Tibet Campaign in the UK.

China claims: The protests since March 10 have been staged by `law- breaking monks and nuns,” and are part of a political scheme by the `Dalai Lama organization” to destabilize the lives of all ethnic groups in Tibet, the local Tibetan government said in a Chinese-language statement on its Web site today. Chinese troops sealed off three of Lhasa’s largest monasteries after Tibet’s biggest protests in almost 20 years deteriorated into violence, with shops and police cars set ablaze.

“These protests are a manifestation of the deep-rooted resentment of the Tibetan people under the present governance,” the Nobel peace laureate said in a statement yesterday. “I therefore appeal to the Chinese leadership to stop using force and address the long-simmering resentment of the Tibetan people.”

The protests in Lhasa have spread outside Tibet into other areas of China, and come amid a growing international campaign by Tibetans to challenge Beijing’s rule of the Himalayan region ahead of the Olympic Games in August.

The Dalai Lama was suffering from flu and canceled all appointments for the next week, although the illness was not serious, AFP reported.

China gives Tibetan protesters surrender ultimatum – China on Saturday gave Tibetan independence protesters an ultimatum to surrender after riots in Lhasa that killed at least 10 people in the worst unrest in the region for two decades.

During Friday’s riot, many local Tibetans came to the help of the Han Chinese and, together, they braced the rioters who went on a frenzied spree of destruction.

Tibet’s exiled government said Saturday that about 30 people had been killed during unrest in Lhasa, as Chinese troops locked down the city amid fierce international scrutiny ahead of the Olympics.

BossKitty finds it difficult to remain objective to both sides of this developing story. The starting point begins with China annexing Tibet and forcing Communist ideology onto the population between 1949-1959. This bloody suppression of an ancient culture is the subject of ‘lip service’ by the international community. No one dares to step in. The United Nations voices concerns but does nothing to help the suppressed. The world is so distracted by oil conflicts that human rights remains but a footnote of concern. Shangri-La remains but a child’s fantasy trumped by geo-political realities. The 2008 China Olympics are a sad symbol of contradiction, too similar to the 1936 Summer Olympics preceding WWII. How will the world respond to the China Olympic masquerade?