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Agam's Gecko
Sunday, June 29, 2008
 
CHUSHI GANGDRUK
Chushi Gangdruk, Lhoka
Chushi Gangdruk Self Defence Forces, Lhokha, U-Tsang Province, 1958.
Photo: Chushi Gangdruk
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efore I head off to the airport, one last post until next weekend.

Chushi Gangdruk ("Land of Four Rivers, Six Ranges") volunteer self-defence force is celebrating 50 years since its establishment in June 1958, in the Lhoka area south of Lhasa. A conference is being held (details at the link) this weekend with guest speakers including Jamyang Norbu, Rebiya Kadeer and Wei Jinsheng.

The organisation has issued an appeal to all member states of the United Nations. The UN has spoken about Tibet in the past, but it's too far in the past to be of much use today. It's time for Tibet to be on the agenda again. As the appeal says, only UN member states who actually believe in the Universal Declaration have the power to bring justice to Tibet's people.

Oh, and member states? Never mind about China's veto. Justice should never be vetoed.

APPEAL LETTER SENT TO ALL 192 UNITED NATIONS MEMBER STATES


TIBET - AN URGENT APPEAL TO THE UNITED NATIONS


Since the forceful occupation of Tibet in 1949, The People's Republic of China has violated every article of the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". The United Nations has stood as a silent spectator to all the atrocities and allowed China to blatantly violate the very principles that the Declaration stands for. Even as the events in Tibet unfold right now, the United Nations still maintains its silence.

Though long overdue, the time has come for the United Nations to open its eyes and take action by immediately sending a fact finding mission into Tibet with full media coverage. Through the eviction of tourists and journalists, China has completely sealed off Tibet from the rest of the world. By controlling the media, China now has free control over an unmonitored and brutal crackdown on the recent demonstrators demanding their freedom and independence of Tibet. A team of observers should be sent to Tibet immediately to oversee the so called 'trial process' of those demonstrators who have been arrested and ensure their unconditional release. (Preamble to the Declaration of Human Rights, Paragraph 3 states: "Whereas it is essential if a man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law).

The Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his speech of 10th December 2007 on the Human Rights Day stated that: "it is our duty to ensure that these rights are a living reality-that they are known, understood and enjoyed by everyone, everywhere. It is often those who most need their human rights protected, who also need to be informed that the Declaration exists and that it exists for them".

On the 3rd March 2008, the Secretary General remarked to the opening session of the Human Rights council in Geneva that: "You must respond to crises as they build up or unfold and address situations of concerns that are neglected or forgotten by the international community".

Sadly, the United Nations has done nothing so far to ensure that these rights are a living reality in Tibet today. We are responding to his remarks requesting him to address the situation in Tibet urgently as the crisis worsens.

Appeal To The Member States Of The United Nations

We are requesting you to exert your privilege as member states to the United Nations despite the veto power of China, to take urgent action as the human rights of our brothers and sisters in Tibet are being severely violated. Only the solidarity of the member states who believe in the true meaning of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights can bring justice to the people of Tibet.

Dhokham Chushi Gangdruk
New York

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- posted by Agam @ 8:34 PM 6 comments

6 Comments:

More informations about Chushi Gangdrik here :
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/xt_kham.html
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/xt.html

By Blogger Rincevent, at 30 June, 2008 03:45  

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Dear Agam,

A fine time for you to go on vacation, leaving us tossing helplessly in the sea of the media's crossed wires and conflicting signals, especially today when exile Envoys Lodi Gyari and Kelsang Gyeltsen are flying off for two days of talks beginning tomorrow in China's capital city of Beijing. Who will tell us about it? How will we stay informed? Will they just be discussing logistics once again? Or will they actually employ their logic in pursuit of justice for the Tibetan people? Guess we'll have to wait until you get back before we will know for sure.

Yours,
Dan

By Blogger Dan, at 30 June, 2008 19:32  

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Agam,

Oh, and to add to Rincevent's comment, there is a fine article about the Four Rivers Six Glaciers by Carole McGranahan in the journal called Journal of Cold War Studies, vol. 8, no. 3 (2006), pp. 102-130.

You can find it here and possibly download it, but only if you use a university server that subscribes to Muse:

http://tinyurl.com/4q2cvh

Once years ago I happened to see a very unusual book about the 4 Rivers 6 Glaciers, and should have just xeroxed it when I had the chance since I've never been able to see it again. I'm not even sure if it's a history or a novel (a historical novel??). I wrote down the details of it:

BAMBI, R.P.
The Crusaders of Tibet, Khampa Pocket Books (Dalhousie, India, no date given).

Guess there isn't much hope Amazon would have it. Does anybody have any idea about this?

Yours,
Dan

By Blogger Dan, at 30 June, 2008 20:06  

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Sorry I made this careless technical mistake. It should be Four Rivers Six Ranges (or Ridges, sgang), not Glaciers (gangs). I'll try and be more careful.

By Blogger Dan, at 03 July, 2008 03:25  

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Thanks for the feedback folks. Good pages on the Chushi Gangdruk and Tibetan flags from Rincevent. Unfortunately I can't get at that journal article from this shabby net cafe ("warnet" - warung internet) here in lovely downtown Jakarta. But Dan, I wonder if the book might be able to be found in India, since it was published there. I'll ask a friend in D'sala to keep an eye out for it.

Sorry for leaving you all tossing about for a few days, but it looks like we could have predicted the course of events this week without even reading the crossed-wire media. "Beijing slams His Holiness before, during and after the talks." Some of the compiled short "opinion pieces" from Xinhua, as I see on WTN, are even more shrill and silly than the last time.

But maybe it's just a tough front to soften his invitation to Beijing, for the masses? An Indian paper carries the rumour that they may do that, to ensure a smooth Olympics. I'll believe it when I see it.

I'm heading to the airport in a few hours, and back to the Big Mango. Charged up and ready to go again. I've met some great friends of the Tibetan people here this time, very encouraging. You can read about one of them here in an April 23 article, "Jakarta Holds a Closed Relay..." Enrico and some of his friends went to Tibet 5 or 6 years ago and met His Holiness a couple of years later in Dharamsala. I'm very honoured to call him now a friend.

Events in Tibet haven't stopped, and that will be the first order of business when I can post again this weekend. The CCP is just playing games with these talks. "More difficult than usual" say the envoys. Bush is going to the Olympic opening, Sarkozy has been declared unwelcome in any case. And the media seems to have uncrossed itself and chosen a side.

This came from Reuters: "The radical Tibet Youth Congress has vowed to use violence and terrorism to achieve Tibet independence and the Dalai Lama has said he was unable to influence the group's actions." Those are the words of Reuters, not Zhang Qingli or any of those bozos, Reuters.

What kind of reporting is that?

By Blogger Agam, at 04 July, 2008 15:27  

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Dear Agam,

Just for the innocents who can easily, perhaps understandably, imagine that the words 'opinion piece' and 'editorial' mean the same thing to Xinhua as they do to the rest of the world, here is some required reading:

http://www.beijingnewspeak.com/category/censorship/

and especially this one, which is more relevant to Tibet coverage Xinhua-style:

http://tinyurl.com/36b9w2

The so-called opinion page is handed down to the newspaper editors from above. It is in fact the most highly government-controlled type of newspaper piece (of course so-called self-censorship plays a large role... you know that if you will surely lose your job or be otherwise severely punished for publishing something you know to be not approved, you will hesitate once or twice or more).

Seeing the anti-His Holiness blather with all those different names attached takes on totally different significance once you've read the testimony of the English "polisher" in the above links. In the PRC nobody takes Xinhua 'editorials' seriously as such. The rest of the world may need to learn this.

Oh, another matter. I think tomorrow we will get a press release from Dharamsala about what happened in the 2-day talks earlier this week (I don't hold much hope of it being all that informative, do you? And what about those rumors that seem to be emanating from the Indian press? What got that started?).

Yours,
Dan

By Blogger Dan, at 04 July, 2008 16:04  

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