'UNCEASINGLY BUILD THE FOUNDATION; RESOLUTELY DISTINGUISH FRIEND AND FOE'

Monks and townspeople exuberantly celebrate the memory of sovereign Tibet, March 17, 2008, in Chigdril County, Amdo, Golog "TAP" (Ch: Qinghai province). Photo: TCHRD

A

couple of brief headlines first.

Members of Japan's royal family are unlikely to attend the Beijing Olympics despite a personal invitation from Chinese Premier Wen Jiaobao, due to concerns over China's repression in Tibet and other issues. Wai commenter news4vip.

More on the delayed reporting of Uyghur unrest over March 23 - 24, from Times Online. Government officials attributed the Khotan protests to the "three evil forces". I can't wait to hear about the "eight represents" again. And the "four no's", and the "seventeen points", and...

TibetInfoNet has a page of continuously updated reports of incidents across the Tibetan plateau. They're sorting out all the brief accounts coming out through various channels, conducting verification research wherever possible, and allowing it to be sorted on that page by location or date. Also available as an rss feed.

Now, where were we... Oh yes, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (reprise edition).

Propaganda work and ideological re-education drives intensify, as the government tries to build anti-separatist attitudes and heap ever more vilification upon Dalai Lama. It's not exactly a smart plan to win the hearts and minds of Tibetans. Local CCP officials who display less than full commitment to the party line can expect harsh punishment.

The Tibet Daily newspaper quoted regional party chief Zhang Qingli as ordering officials to maintain their guard against future plots by the "Dalai clique."

Zhang ordered officials to boost ideological education among young people, focusing on negative portrayals of Tibet prior to the communist invasion in 1950 and continued vilification of the Dalai Lama's political agenda.

"Unceasingly build up the foundation of the masses to oppose separatism," Zhang was quoted as saying.

While China has long claimed overwhelming local support for its policies in Tibet, recent events firmly belie that claim. Therefore, indoctrination must be intensified. They just don't have a clue, and apparently couldn't find one were they in the middle of a clue field, smeared with clue musk and blowing the clue mating call whistle. This is exactly what makes Tibetans angry. "Well," they seem to be thinking, "let's do more of it then."

Tibet "Autonomous" Region party boss Zhang Qingli is now threatening Tibetan CCP cadres.

In an even more revealing statement, Zhang appeared to indicate at least some local officials had shown themselves as insufficiently loyal during the recent unrest.

"We absolutely will not condone violations of political and organizational discipline and will definitely find those responsible and meet out harsh punishment," said Zhang, a protege of president and party chief Hu Jintao, who was the communist boss of Tibet during the last major protests there in 1989.

Formerly a top official in another ethnically troubled region, Xinjiang, Zhang has reportedly already overseen the firing of dozens of ethnically Tibetan officials seen as politically unreliable.

In a recent update of the situation from its own sources, TibetInfoNet describes some of the modern day "struggle sessions" now taking place across the Tibetan region. Soon they'll be breaking out the dunce caps and the "I'm a counter-revolutionary destructive element" signs to be hung around necks.

Along with raids, midnight arrests and house-to-house searches carried out in both rural and urban Tibetan areas, meetings are being held to distinguish between what the Chinese authorities call "friends and foes", proceedings that are reminiscent of the notorious 'class struggle sessions' of the Cultural Revolution. A Tibetan intellectual, who has close contacts with Tibetan and Chinese officials from Siling (Xining), Lanzhou and Lhasa, reported that all Tibetan cadres are being made to attend daily meetings where they have to make confessions or denounce Tibetans who support the "Dalai Lama and the Dalai Clique". They are warned that those who do not inform on or denounce protesters will be charged with the crimes of “counter-revolution and incitement to subvert state power".

In its latest dispatches from within the region, ICT includes some examples of the methods of propaganda work being utilised, and their effects.

In some areas, including Kardze in Sichuan province (Kham) and Lhasa in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), there are signs that the authorities are provoking further unrest and frustration by requiring local people to sign denunciations of the Dalai Lama. According to reliable reports received by ICT, in some rural areas of eastern Tibet many Tibetans have fled villages or nomad encampments and are hiding out elsewhere to avoid arrest.

While the local people are doing everything possible to avoid acting against their consciences, they're far more receptive to the moral leadership of the one they are required to denounce.

Many Tibetans in Tibet are known to have been distressed at the possibility of the Dalai Lama "resigning" if violence continued, following his statement on March 18. Most of the protests on the plateau from March 19 onwards have been noticeably non-violent.

The likelihood of being forced to renounce one's love and respect for Dalai Lama often seems to be the one thing that repels Tibetans more than any other.

Following protests in Machu (Chinese: Maqu) county town in Kanlho TAP in Gansu province, police are carrying out door-to-door searches and taking Tibetans away to unknown locations. One Tibetan from the area said: "No one knows where they are being taken. In some areas, all the men have fled to the mountains to avoid arrest. There is terrible fear everywhere." Another Tibetan source said that in Bora village in Sangchu county in Gansu province: "Chinese security forces are increasing pressure on local people to hand over those who participated in the March 18 protest. Announcements about surrender abound in the area these days but nomads are afraid to give themselves up since they believe that they would be asked to sign denunciation letters against the Dalai Lama."

Forcing people to do these acts, which go against the very core of their beliefs, is just asking for trouble. The Party's mindset, particularly under the extremist hardliner Zhang Qingli who wields supreme authority over the TAR, is not capable of understanding this. They are making it more likely that resentment will increase rather than abate.

In one township of Drango (Chinese: Luhuo) county, local villagers and monks clashed with a work team requiring them to sign a written document denouncing the Dalai Lama. More than ten monks were beaten and arrested, according to sources, and several hundred soldiers deployed in the town. One exiled Tibetan source with close contacts in the area told ICT: "Nobody is willing to sign the documents denouncing the Dalai Lama, which may lead to another bloody crackdown."

On March 23 - 24, a group of senior Party and government officials came to Lhasa. The delegation was led by Minister of Public Security Meng Jianzhu. He told the (CCP-mandated) "Democratic Management Committees" of Drepung and Sera monasteries on the outskirts of Lhasa, and Jokhang temple in the city centre:

Dalai Lama is "unfit to be a true follower of Buddhism," and that the Party and government would "deepen education in patriotism" in monasteries.

Sure, that'll work. His problem is that it will work well to alienate Tibetans ever further from their Chinese rulers, if that were possible. After enough of this wrong-headed strategy, even Dalai Lama may find it difficult to keep his people on the Middle Way path.

The Tibetan Government reports that the bodies of those people shot to death by Chinese military and police are being confiscated and destroyed. Reports of this activity have also come from other sources. It's exactly what the Burmese junta did after killing its own people, including Buddhist monks, in the streets of Rangoon. Collect up the evidence, and keep the crematoria running until its all gone.

Lhakpa Tsering was killed in Lu-ghug Street with a shot to his forehead during the demonstration in Lhasa on March 14, 2008. He was a resident of Lhasa, around 30 years of age and used to work as a tourist vehicle driver. He was born in Lhoka Prefecture.

The Pubic Security Bureau (PSB) forcefully took the body of Lhakpa Tsering from his family telling them that some investigations needed to be done at the Peoples Procuratorates. His body was later cremated in Toelung (west of Lhasa) and only his ashes were returned to his family in a plastic bag with his name written on it.

On March 24, Kunga (a monk from Chokri monastery) in Drakgo (Ch: Luhuo) County, Karze "Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture," Sichuan province, was shot and killed during a demonstration at Chokri Monastery. On March 25, his body was forcefully taken from Chokri monastery and cremated nearby. It can be inferred that such incidents, whereby the Chinese are trying to get rid of evidence by cremating the bodies of those killed during the demonstrations, have occurred many times since the start of the demonstrations in Tibet where the death toll now stands over 140.

The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy has a couple of new photos of the military build-up in Sertha County, Kardze (Ch: Sichuan province).

Labels: China, Tibet

- posted by Agam @ 7:03 PM 4 comments

4 Comments:

Hi Agam-laa,

Your title today struck me as so resolutely 'at odds' with His Holiness the Dalai Lama's own practice, the Lojong practice that has been transmitted in Tibet for almost a thousand years, and that He often teaches both in Dharamsala and abroad, which includes a technique known as equalization. You bring to mind a friend and place him or her on your right side and hear her or him saying all kinds of nice things. Then you bring to mind an enemy and place him or her on your left side and hear her or him saying mean things to you, maybe even threatening things, maybe holding a sword or something.

The idea of equalization is to develop the kind of deep human compassion that can be extended to all, without regard for any self-centered motivations or social frictions. Knowing this to be true of His Holiness, it particularly pains me to hear the 'heart of the beast' rhetoric, which does indeed point back to the speaker rather than the object of his vitriol. I wish I could have something remotely approaching the ability of H.H. in this practice.

Lojong is not only anti-violence, it goes right to the factors of the human being that enable violence and neutralizes them, replacing them with the traits most highly valued among humans when & where they can find them: love and compassion that is free of prejudice.

But no, I'm really not thinking that Hu is ready to follow the Bodhisattva path in this life. Very unlikely. But I'm thinking in small doses; he & his comrades could really use a few weekend anger management seminars to help them handle their tongues and tanks so they won't screw up our world any more than they already have.

I think by now Beijing is aware they didn't fool anyone with their fake story about an Uighur terror attack back in February 9. And Samdhong Rinpoche is perfectly correct to fear the Beijing boys might very well try and do it again and blame it on Tibetans this time. That truly is their aim, to tar all the minorities with the same "terrorism" brush so they can massacre them right in front of the eyes of the world, pretending to have a clear conscience.

With the Dalai Lama they've more than met their match. Nobody outside the PRC even pretends to take them seriously any more. They've shot their own feet, and the overheated language isn't helping them one bit. I'll stop now before I start feeling sorry for them.

By  Anonymous, at 03 April, 2008 20:52  

* * * * * * *

Dava,

Yeah, I'm not very cultivated I guess. It's all I can do to (try) to keep up with events, and I'm not thinking much about Hu et al's reasons. The 'every square inch' factor is my guess. I'd just like to know what they're doing.

But anger management sessions is a good idea. I hope (imagining) that there are serious policy discussions behind closed doors. Surely some can see what this is doing to China.

Maybe we do need to have sympathy for them. I still have a hard time with that one.

By  Agam, at 03 April, 2008 21:32  

* * * * * * *

Hi Agam,

That practice surely can be tough. However, as far as I know, all major religions teach that our positive and negative actions will have consequences for us later (be that in heaven, hell or in a later rebirth).

When I think of the unbelievable amount of suffering the leaders of China (and not only China of course) are incurring to who they count as their own population, the negative consequences to themselves are likely to be beyond imagination. That is one trick to feel compassion even for the worst of people.

Unbelievable as it may sound, Tibetans also pray for the welfare of their torturers...

With deep bows.

By  Rudy, at 04 April, 2008 05:45  

* * * * * * *

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

By  niharika, at 04 April, 2008 12:15  

* * * * * * *

Post a Comment