South East Asia: Human Rights Seminar on Tibet (1998)
The
implications of the situation in Tibet is not limited to the Tibetans’
homeland. The effects are relevant to all of mankind - it is in the
interests of all humanity to respect human dignity and equality of all
peoples. To engage in meaningful dialogue on Tibet from a human rights
perspective and to create awareness on the human rights situation in Tibet,
the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, in collaboration with
the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre, organised “South East
Asia: NGO Human Rights Seminar on Tibet” in Dharamsala, India from June
17 to 20, 1998.
Thirty-six
representatives from 12 South Asian and South-East Asian nations attended
the seminar and there were also 50 individuals who sat in as observers
during the seminar.
The
decision to hold this conference is based on the belief that human rights
organisaitons should work together to achieve their common goals and a
regionally united stand will promote peace and respect for fundamental
freedoms not only in Tibet but in the region as a whole.
This
publication is the compilation of the speeches given by specialists during
the Seminar and hope that this would provide insight information on different
aspects of human rights violations in Tibet to a larger public.
The
Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy would like to thank to the
South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre and to all those who contributed
to making this Seminar a sucess. We hope that this Seminar has helped
strengthen links between the nations represented and has helped create
the foundations for meaningful relations based on shared interests of peace
and equality.
Lobsang
Nyandak
Executive
Director
Tibetan
Centre for Human Rights and Democracy
October
1998
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Tempa
Tsering, Vice Chairman
Tibetan
Centre for Human Rights and Democracy
Honourable
T.C. Tethong; Mr Ravi Nair, Executive Director of the South Asia Human
Rights Documentation Centre (SAHRDC); Mr Lobsang Nyandak, Executive Director
of the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD); and friends.
First
of all I would like to very warmly welcome you all to Dharamsala and also
would like to take this opportunity to say how grateful we are for you
to come here to participate in this first seminar on Tibet. The seminar,
as Mr Lobsang Nyandak has just mentioned, is jointly organised by TCHRD
and SAHRDC. Dharamsala, as you must have experienced, is a very remote
place and communication is not always easy; it is inaccessible, it is difficult.
But the fact that you have chosen to come all the way to Dharamsala and
to participate in this seminar I think clearly indicates your deeper interest
and sympathy for Tibet and we appreciate this very much.
Before
I make a general introduction on the Tibetan situation, as the Vice-Chairman
of this Centre I would like to say a few words on the Centre itself. The
TCHRD was founded in 1996, a little over two years ago. The Centre is a
non-governmental organisation and is registered with the Indian Societies
Registration Act of 1861. The patron is His Holiness the Dalai Lama and
the Chairman is appointed by him. The Centre functions under the guidance
of a 12-member Board of Directors which includes professors, representatives
of organisations, individuals and institutions. The Centre also has a five-member
International Board of Advisors which includes some Nobel laureates, a
Chinese scholar plus other international experts on human rights.
The
basic objective of the centre is to promote human rights, to monitor human
rights in Tibet, to educate about human rights and to instil values of
human rights among our own people. In Tibet before the Chinese invasion
in 1949, the concept of human rights as we understand it eings as precious
and sacred - especially to be born as a human being is sacred - and
also believe in the law of dharma. I think it is this belief that we are
able to protect human rights in Tibet, of which there are not many violations.
As for the future, there are uncertainties. Because of these uncertainties,
one of the main purposes of the Centre is to educate our people on the
protection of human rights in accordance with the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights and also in accordance with the Buddhist law. In the past
I think that human rights protection came from within because of their
belief in karma, the law of karma, the sacredness of all living beings,
rather than coming from international laws and conventions. So for the
future I think we have to try and work in both ways. Firstly, to educate
our people in accordance with international norms and secondly to revive
past traditions by which we can again protect human rights. This is an
effort that the centre is trying to make.
As for democracy, the principle of democracy is not alien to the Tibetan
society; this principle has been practised in our monasteries. But democracy
as a system of government is new to us. Because of this, since 1960 His
Holiness - after his arrival in India - has been trying to bring about
a democratic system of government. Now we have a democratic functioning
government in exile. Yet at the same time, instilling in people and educating
the values, rights and responsibilities of responsible democrats is not
easy and we are also making efforts in this.
So these then are some of the basic objectives of the Centre. The Centre
has for the past two years - it’s not that I’m the Vice-Chairman of the
Centre - done extremely well. The credit for this really largely goes to
the Executive Director, Mr Lobsang Nyandak, and the dedicated staff that
he has, including quite a few volunteers from different parts of the world.
We are grateful to the Director and the staff for having done extremely
well during this short period of time.
Now, having said this, as I mentioned earlier, I would like to say something
about the general situation of Tibet. Although the time we have is very
limited, I will try to give a very brief overview of Tibet so that you
will have a better understanding of the situation.
Tibet had a recorded history of over 2000 years and during this long period
the Tibetan nation had many ups and downs, many developments. Before the
introduction of Buddhism in the seventh century Tibet was a great military
power. There were times when the Tibetan king marched into the east,
into Chinese territory, and in fact in 763 a Tibetan king installed a puppet
Chinese emperor in the Chinese capital. The Tibetan army also advanced
into the south and west. It marched right up to the plains of the Ganges.
In the seventh century Buddhism was introduced in Tibet and that martial
and mighty Tibetan race was tamed and subdued. The entire efforts of both
the Tibetan leadership and people were dedicated to the steady practice
and promotion of Buddhism and so Tibetans began to devote energy into peacefulness,
non-violence and compassion. And that’s how we are today, a subdued people.
But
at the same time, just as we were successful as a martial race, we have
also been very successful in protecting and promoting Buddhism. Buddhism
was originally founded in India and from India it came to Tibet in the
seventh century. Since then Tibetan people have preserved that Buddhist
tradition, that philosophy. In fact today it is only in Tibet that you
find the complete form of Buddhism. There are three schools of Buddhist
thought: the Mahayana, the Hinayana and the Tantriyana. The Tibetan form
of Buddhism practises all schools of thought.
From Tibet, this complete form of Buddhism then went to other parts of
the world. It went to Mongolia, Russia, the Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal,
Bhutan, the Indian states of Ladakh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and even
this state of Himachal Pradesh where we are here today. So today, although
Tibetan Buddhism faces complete destruction in Tibet itself, I think Tibetan
Buddhism is very much alive in all these areas that I have just mentioned.
So, both in waging a war or becoming a non-violent, peaceful, compassionate
people, I think Tibet has been very successful. Yet the Chinese today say
that Tibet has always been an integral part of the motherland and that
Tibetans are barbarians and the most backward, uncivilised people on earth.
It is up to you to judge this claim but at the same time we are not claiming
that the past Tibetan society was a perfect ct His Holiness the 14th Dalai
Lama, was making changes when China invaded and occupied Tibet, but he
was unsuccessful in being able to carry out his plans.
Materially Tibet certainly was backward and needed development, but at
the same time Tibet had a rich culture, a rich civilisation, a living culture
which is useful in our lives, a culture which has potential in making some
contribution to others who are interested in this way of life. That is
part of how backward - it is up to you to judge really - and how uncivilised
Tibetans were.
Now as for Tibet being an integral part of the motherland. Chinese keep,
I think, changing their position on this. First they kept on saying that
Tibet has been an integral part of the motherland since time immemorial
and when they could not substantiate this claim then they changed their
position, saying that Tibet has been part of China since the seventh century.
An argument for this is that the Tibetan king Songtsen Gampo had married
a Chinese princess. But they did not realise that the same king also married
a Nepalese princess and the Nepalese princess happened to be a senior princess
and the same king also had a Tibetan princess.
This argument also could not stand and China today claims that Tibet has
been part of the motherland since the 13th century. Their base for this
claim is that in the 13th century Mongolia was one of the most important
nations or empires in Asia; it occupied a large chunk of Asia and even
came right up to Europe. At that time China and Tibet also came under Mongol
domination. The Chinese recognise and admit that Mongolians were a foreign
power at that time that Tibet was under the Mongolian influence. So, based
on this, their claim is that Tibet has been an integral part of China.
We certainly don’t feel that these claims have much of a basis. As far
as the historical part is concerned, we leave it to historians and impartial
people to study both or all accounts - the Chinese side, the Tibetan side,
the historical - and then come to a conclusion.
According to international law, for a country to be independent, there
must be a people, a territory, a government that functions in that territory
and has the authority to enter into international relations. I think Tibet
possessed all those prerequisites and even more. Tibet had its own army,
its own currency, its own postal system and its own taxation system and
Tibet has entered into treaty relations with its neighbours: China, Russia,
Mongolia, British India, Nepal. So all these clearly indicate that there
is more than China claims.
As you can see, both from the historical perspective as well as the present
situation in Tibet, there are two versions, two very contrasting versions:
a Tibetan version and a Chinese version. What we really request of you
is not to believe us but to study it and then to draw your own conclusions
as to who has the basis of truth and then, based on that, to support or
to oppose. In this effort of course we will be very happy to provide you
with whatever information you may need on the Tibetan side of it.
As Tibetans of course we feel confident that the truth is on our side and
in fact we believe that the only weapon the Tibetan people have is truth,
justice and non-violence. It is because of these beliefs that today Tibet
has become an international issue. There was a time when Tibet was not
known at all, it was always the Chinese version. Now I think that having
been here for the past 40 years there is a lot of support. We have all
over the world Tibet Support Groups, about 350, and then Parliamentary
Groups in 34 countries and Student Groups for Tibet.
Now all these groups were founded not through our initiative but through
their own conviction. Many of them have been to Tibet and then found for
themselves that injustice is done to the Tibetan people, that destruction
is being carried out, that Tibetan people are being deprived of their fundamental
human rights. Then they came back and they said there is a cause that deserves
support, there is a people who deserves support and they formed these organisations.
Or there are people who might have met His Holiness the Dalai Lama or who
have come into exile just as you have come here and found the Tibetan people
and then through their own conviction these organisations have been formed
and are functioning today.
Many of these organisations feel that Tibetan culture has a value and has
the potential to make some contribution to world peace, to harmony and
to bring up moral values, and now they feel this is being destroyed. And
if Tibetan culture is being destroyed - it is not just Tibetan culture,
any culture belonging to any nation is part of this he world should be
responsible to protect this culture, because the destruction of one culture
will make the world poorer by one culture.
For these reasons international support has today come. What is most encouraging
for us is the support that is coming from the Chinese people; not
only Chinese scholars and students who are outside but from Chinese people
from the mainland. This we feel is very encouraging. This gives us strength
and encourages us. This really indicates that what we are saying is not
just our own conviction but that there is a basis for it.
Just as we say truth and justice, we feel that Chinese people are also
a people with a long civilisation, a long culture. Now they are for the
first time hearing something apart from their own Party and government
line. Having heard this then I think they are beginning to support. This
is a tremendous encouragement to us.
Because of Tibet’s geographic and strategic location what happens in Tibet
has a direct implication for the security and stability of Asia. Just take
the example of environment. Tibet is the source of almost all the major
rivers that flow into Asia. We have done a statistic study and about 47
percent of the world population somehow depend on these rivers that originate
from Tibet. Since the Chinese occupation and invasion of Tibet, it’s not
only the cultural destruction, it’s not only the human rights deprivation,
but even environmentally there is great damage and loss. All the forests
and mineral reserves that have been there for centuries are now being tapped
or exploited recklessly and this is I think causing problems.
Apart from the cultural devastation, it is a well known fact now that nuclear
wastes are being dumped on Tibet. If these rivers are being contaminated
by these nuclear wastes, then the repercussions that this will have on
other nations, including China, are quite disastrous. In recent times we
have seen increased floods, not only in India and Bangladesh and other
neighbours, but in China itself and many scientists attribute the cause
to what is happening in Tibet environmentally.
So I think the issue of Tibet is not just an issue of the freedom of six
million Tibetan people. It is a moral issue. It is an issue that is related
to peace in the world. It is an issue that concerns security and stability
in Asia. So I think for these reasons we are very happy that at this first
conference or seminar on Tibet,- a lot of South East Asian representatives
have come and we appreciate your coming here and we hope that you will
find the conference of some interest.
Our request for you is that we would like you to share whatever you have
learned, whatever you have gathered, whatever you have come to know, with
your friends, with your institutes, with your colleagues, so that people
become more aware. And once they become more aware I think they will be
more concerned and then hopefully there will be more support. Finally,
I would once again like to thank you very much for coming here and, although
our resources are very limited, I hope you will enjoy and you will also
learn something more about Tibet. Thank you very much.
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T.C.
Tethong
Foreign
Minister
Tibetan
Government-in-Exile
Good
morning ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome
to Dharamsala. I would like to thank the organisersmof this seminar
form asking me to say a few words this morning.
I wish to introduce briefly the background of the Tibetan government-in-Exile’s
policy. The fact that the reforms of the Tibetan government or governmental
system that you see now being carried out in Dharamsala is not something
that happened after 1959. In fact these reforms did take place before then.
When Communist China invaded Tibet in 1949, when the “liberation” army
first marched into eastern Tibet, a year or so after that His Holiness
the Dalai Lama took over the temporal power of Tibet. No sooner had he
taken power, he started introducing reforms in the tax system and the running
of the government in every field.
After the so-called signing of the 17-point treaty when Chinese authorities
tried to introduce reform, there was a reform already taking place that
had further expanded from His Holiness’ side, from the Tibetan Government’s
side, but that reform was obstructed intentionally by China. However, the
Tibetan Government continued and there was a functioning government in
Tibet until 1959. We claim that we have a legitimate government in Tibet,
although it is called de facto by people - that means we were functioning
as a government. We have the Tibetan people and we have Tibet as a territory
on the map of the world.
So this forceful entry, militarily, by China is in violation of international
law but of course no body spoke up coherently so China got away with what
it did. Following that, I am sure most of you are interested in Tibet,
you have read about Tibet, so I am not going to go into the historical
background.
After
1959 - after His Holiness the Dalai Lama took asylum in India and at that
time there were about 80,000 Tibetan refugees who escaped down than he
thought that we should start working for a free Tibet. Not just a freedom
struggle alone but a plan for what is going to happen in Tibet in the future
and so a draft Constitution was drawn with the help of experts, friends,
a lot of them from India, legal experts. With that draft constitution our
first democratic step in the modern sense of the administration took place
and the Tibetan National Assembly with its popularly elected membership
was initiated in 1960.
Thereafter
more improvements took place. We have in our own humble and simple way,
the three main pillars of a democratic society: the legislative, the executive
and the judicial. This we follow as close as possible, seeking assistance
so that we do what we think is correct and also in accordance with the
will of the Tibetan people.
The basic policy of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile is to regain Tibetan
freedom. This has a very vague connotation. Many take it as independence,
but the freedom that we are talking about is the basic freedom of the Tibetan
people first, and that is where the emphasis of His Holiness’ policy lies.
Why I am saying this is because right now there is no freedom in Tibet.
All that glamour and glitz that you see now in the television or those
glossy magazines that come out of the People’s Republic of China are nothing
more than propaganda. Those who have travelled to Tibet have seen with
their own eyes just the contrary. Therefore it is the duty, especially
of those Tibetans who are outside Tibet to present to the rest of the world
what is really happening there.
This struggle has been going on for the last forty years or so. There has
been progress - progress in the sense that we were able to first organise
ourselves here in India as a batch of refugees. We have managed to establish
a society with a government as a successful refugee resettlement programme.
We have been simultaneously trying to see what we could do to help our
fellow Tibetans in Tibet after seeing all that injustice being done there.
Up to the end of the Cultural Revolution it was almost impossible to penetrate
because there was so much secrecy, so many restrictions. Still we managed
to keep the flames of the Tibetan people’s spirit alive and it is mainly
because of His Holiness the Dalai Lama who is accepted by Tibetans inside
and outside Tibet as the unquestioned leader of the Tibetan people and
who has struggled in an unrelenting effort and has managed to keep the
Tibetan issue alive until now.
Then after the liberalisation policy that was carried out in China, after
the death of Mao Tse Tung, after the Cultural Revolution, there was a glimpse
of hope. For a year or so there was a chance; we thought we might be able
to establish some sort of contact relationship with Tibet and with China
as well. Several groups of delegations managed to go to Tibet with the
consent of the Chinese and even with the invitation of the Chinese to some
of them.
But then all of a sudden there was - amongst the Tibetans in Tibet - this
yearning for them to have their own government; to have a Tibet that is
administered by Tibetans and not by some foreign invading troops or military.
Because of this Tibetans demonstrated peacefully in Lhasa, led mostly by
monks and nuns and the Tibetan public. This demonstration was put down
- this was just before the Tiananmen Square massacre - very brutally and
thereafter came a clampdown of martial law and Tibet once again was in
a very precarious situation.
Thereafter the Tibetan Government-in-Exile still tried to convince the
leadership in China for a peaceful negotiation and settlement of the Tibetan
issue. This has been emphasised always by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
He has asked all the Tibetans not to resort to violence, but that we will
achieve our goal if we are consistent, if we are patient and if we trust
in our cause that is based on justice and truth. His Holiness always advised
that we will succeed. Based on that His Holiness tried and the Tibetan
Government tried, to no avail. We did not get any positive response from
China. However, we are grateful to people, friends, who came in support
of Tibet. His Holiness has always mentioned that the support which we get
from, as we call them, ‘TSG’s is genuine because these people have nothing
to gain materially from Tibet. They have come because we are, our struggle
is, based on non-violence and Tibet is only six million struggling against
a country with a population of a billion people, and is based on truth.
So this support is genuine and His Holiness says that we should have a
special appreciation.
This support that we are now receiving internationally, and of course with
His Holiness’ obel Peace Prize, has increased tremendously.
Recently we have been further reassured by the publication of two reports
on the situation in Tibet: by the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation
and the International Commission of Jurists. Both reports condemn in categorical
terms the increasing abuses of human rights in Tibet and call for a U N
supervised referendum in Tibet to determine the will of the Tibetan people
regarding their future political status.
Thereafter a number of parliamentarian delegations visited Tibet and also
various governments through their department of foreign affairs took up
the Tibetan issue bilaterally with China and all these are still happening.
Although externally we do not see any evidence of change in the heart of
the Chinese leadership, there is definitely pressure on China.China has
expressed its willingness to have a dialogue with the Dalai Lama, but with
conditions. Even that I think to some extent is a success, otherwise China
does not have to make any statement. Because of these pressures the statements
are coming out. Also a new development that we have been tremendously encouraged
is the reception accorded to the Dalai Lama by the people of Taiwan when
he made his first historic visit to that land. And that I must say was
a risky trip because Taiwan is a controversial state. His Holiness wanted
to establish a relationship between the people of Taiwan, the Chinese and
the Tibetans. He wanted to show that there is no animosity. That could
have backfired but it went really well. That was a tremendous success not
only for the Tibetan and Taiwanese relationship but it had a lot of impact
on mainland China as well because of the news media reporting.
Another development is the spate of support coming from mainland China;
support coming very courageously from dissidents or intellectuals writing
open letters to the leadership asking them to support the Tibetan issue,
asking them to have a dialogue with the Dalai Lama. It is not easy to write
those letters because you are risking your life. To be a dissident in main
land China is to live every day with danger of being arrested or disappeared.
With all of this that we know, there is a core of support in China from
the Chinese and I am sure as time goes by there will be more support because
people have more information on Tibet. For the Chinese, until the liberalisation
time there was a lack of information. All they knew was the propaganda
that comes from the Communist Party.
Despite such encouragement on the international scene, I am sorry to say
that the situation in Tibet is not getting better. On the contrary, it
is going from bad to worse. As you may have read Congressman Wolf’s report,
he calls it Tibet being under the ‘boot heels subjugation’ and that is
exactly what the Tibetan situation is right now. You can not utter a word
without offending the Chinese authorities; you are kicked and you are taken
right inside the prison without any question.
In spite of the international situation regarding the Tibetan issue, the
Tibetan Government’s policy is still to negotiate with the Chinese leadership
so that the issue of Tibet is settled peacefully, without bloodshed, to
our mutual satisfaction. The middle way approach adopted by His Holiness
to settle the Tibetan issue is nothing new. As far back as the 1950s the
Dalai Lama has been cautioning the militant Tibetans not to take up arms.
In fact he said that he felt like he was sitting between two volcanoes,
both about to erupt anytime.
There is frustration on the part of the Tibetan people; not that they like
to resort to violence but it is pure frustration that is driving the Tibetans
to some degree of violence. We know that they are trying to follow His
Holiness’ advice but when they see that there is no positive response coming
from the Chinese leadership side, they are desperate, they are frustrated.
We have heard of a few cases of bombing in Tibet and a recent example is
the Tibetan Youth Congress’ hunger strike until death. These are the symptoms
of people’s frustration and if this negotiation does not take place there
will be more violence and there will be more tragedy. So it is important
that we all try to get this negotiation; individually we make that effort,
we do everything internationally, to pressure China to have this dialogue.
This is where the Tibetan Government is consistent on having a peaceful
negotiation with Chin.
In the meantime, I hope that you will convey this feeling and this part
of the Tibetans ready to have a dialogue with China and that is one of
the main issues. It is not that difficult; it is a simple fact that we
want to go by. Thank you very much.
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to Seminar
Mr. Ravi Nair, Executive Diorector
South Asian Human Rights Documentation Centre
Honourable
Mr T.C. Tethong, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Government-in-Exile
of Tibet; Mr Tempa Tsering; Mr.Lobsang Nyandak; friends from all
over South East Asia and South Asia; ladies and gentlemen from other parts
of the globe. We are very happy to have you this morning here with us.
We are meeting at a very opportune time and this is not a platitude that
one states at every seminar or workshop. Because all of you must have read
the papers yesterday. There is a certain difference in China’s response
yesterday and I am sure the Tibetan Government-in-Exile must be reading
between the lines very carefully on the newest statement.
But it hasn’t come about all of a sudden. It has come about because today
there is a new geo-political environment in the world to which China
is clearly subject to its pressures and pulls. And much more so in this
part of the world in the Asian land mass. It is for this reason that we
need to consolidate, to disseminate, to put forward a range of public responses
across this region and that is why we thought of this seminar a few months
ago.
Colleagues in the TCHRD have done a wonderful job in trying to organise
this seminar with little resources and little time. I must say that while
in the next two days we will be hearing a lot of talks on a range of issues
concerning human rights in Tibet, it is important that while we discuss
and listen, we must also start formulating plans for action to carry back
to our countries. And to create the kind of institutional platforms back
in our own countries to carry the battle forward in terms of the rights
of the Tibetans and the rights of self determination.
As a human rights activist, to me, the first article in the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which is also the first article
in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
relates very aptly and specifically to the issue of Tibet and the
issue of the human rights of the Tibetan people.
It is clear that there is a sense of frustration amongst younger Tibetans
to which Kalon T.C. Tethong has alluded. Yet the strength of the Tibetan
struggle has been that it has been able to hold the moral high ground.
It has not come down to using the same language as that of the oppressor.
Even though the oppressed feel a sense of helplessness, in that sense of
helplessness are the seeds of a new source of empowerment, in terms of
holding the moral high ground, through the pursuit of the policies
of the middle path as enunciated by the Dalai Lama.
It is clear that the Chinese now cannot brush it away with the alacrity
that they did in the past and that is why you see the kind of new statements
emanating. Obviously one will have to consider them a lot more carefully
in terms of responses.
Coupled with this is the new power play and the diminution of the concept
of the nation state elsewhere: the responses of NATO on Kosovo, the issue
of the gradual erosion of the notion of sovereignty of nation states, whether
it be the political power play issue at the United Nations or the UN human
rights mechanisms. Clearly one important development is the international
criminal court and the formation of the diplomatic and plenipotentiary
conference that is meeting presently in Rome. To have an international
penal court to look at the core issues of genocide, aggression, and human
rights violations, is key to the diminution of the blatant misuse of power
that you see since the Second World War. It is clear in a number of other
areas that self-determination of all peoples, an issue put on the back
burner during the Cold War period, is once again on the agenda. I think
that it is for all of us, who are friends of Tibet, to understand that
all of this affords certain opportunities. But opportunities, if they are
to be taken advantage of, need preparation, need the kind of marshalling
of human and other resources to make sure that plans come to some kind
of fruition.
It is clear also that the process of democratisation in China itself also
affords certain opportunities. The Chinese people are a very great people
with a great civilisation and a great world view. Unfortunately they have
been cursed with authoritarian regimes one after another. I think the genius
of the Chinese people will triumph; that genius of the Chinese people that
you see in the strength and courage of the dissident movement in
China, in the brilliant symbolisation of one individual standing in front
of a phalanx of tanks in Tiannanmen Square. I think it is that unity of
purpose that we will have to forge with others fighting for democracy across
this region.
It is clear also that we need to marshal our resources in the Asian land
mass much more cogently and effectively than we have done so far.
The fact that publicity on the Tibetan struggle and their quest for leading
a life of dignity and human rights is much more of an issue in the public
eye in western Europe or North America than in Asia definitely needs some
amount of evaluation on our part. Around this table are senior activists
from a number of Asian countries, people who are important public figures
in their own countries. I would like all of us outside of the formal discussions
during the course of the seminar to engage in bilateral and multilateral
discussion so as to strengthen the process of highlighting the issue of
Tibet in each of our countries at public fora.
It is clear that some of the problems that concern the raising of Tibet
and Tibetan human rights in the international arena, at the UN, is because
of the pusillanimity of a lot of Asian states in following Chinese or other
nation state overtures on non-action resolutions in the Commission on Human
Rights. It is necessary for us to create public constituencies in each
of our countries to say that even if we do not vote against China, we should
not vote for China. We should have enough public constituencies to have
our countries remain neutral in these voting patterns. That is I think
a task that we need to set ourselves to and clearly keep in our minds,
and between now and the next Commission on Human Rights in March next year,
this is a goal and programme we must engage ourselves in to bring to some
kind of fruition.
Moreover, we also need to address senior diplomatic and media representatives
in each of our countries. It is not enough to say, as is rhetorically done,
that Tibet must be put back on the UN agenda. There is a certain process
of bringing it back on the agenda and that process is not only through
demonstrations and hunger strikes, however important they are in bringing
the issue into public focus. There is a diplomatic n the Tibet solidarity
groups across the world need to reach to that higher level that will bring
us into sharper engagement with our own governmental representatives in
the twelfth committee and the sixth committee of the UN. This is the process
to take if we are to bring back this issue of the three resolutions on
Tibet that were passed and have been put on the backburner for so many
years.
I would like to say a lot more but I am sure there will be ample opportunity
in the next two days. Only finally to say that Tibet’s quest for human
rights, its quest for finding a rightful place in the committee of nations
is no longer an idea. It is something that is here to stay and, to paraphrase,
it is an idea whose time has come. I think that clearly a few years ago
if you had asked me whether Armenia would ever be a nation state I would
have looked at you in aghast horror. But today Armenia is a very important
player in politics in the central European region. We see of course Latvia
and Estonia and a number of other nations that had lost their independence
to big power nations in the immediate aftermath of the last war.
The
Cold War and its ending has opened up new possibilities but it is very
important for us to understand that human rights and self-determination
are too important to be left only to the corridors of power. It is necessary
for us in the people’s domain to channel, to put the imprint of public
approval on such diplomatic overtures and manoeuvres. I hope that we have
a fruitful engagement over the next two days and I thank you very much
for your attention.
(Back
to Contents)
Lobsang Nyandak, Executive Director
Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy
Let me welcome you all once again, on behalf of the Tibetan Centre
for Human Rights and Democracy, to this seminar. I am
sure that many of you are aware of the human rights abuses taking place
in Tibet. Violation of the fundamental human rights of Tibetan people is
not new. It has been going on ever since China invaded Tibet in 1949.
I will, however, not deal with the sufferings and the atrocities Tibetan
people underwent in the early years. I prefer to present to you the current
situation.
Nevertheless, I feel it important to briefly introduce you to the background
of my country and its people. Tibet, known as the “roof of the world”,
is situated at the heart of central Asia between China and India. It is
inhabited by 6 million Tibetan people with a culture and way of life totally
different from that of the peoples of the neighbouring countries. Tibet
was an independent country. Throughout its history Tibet possessed all
the attributes of independent statehood recognised under international
law. It had a defined territory, a population inhabiting that territory,
a government, and the ability to enter into international relations. The
turning point in Tibet’s history came in 1949, when the People’s Liberation
Army of Communist China invaded without any provocation. Ever since, the
fate of Tibetan people has changed.
The people and nation of Tibet are at the mercy of Communist China. Tibet’s
culture and national identity are being systematically destroyed. More
than 1.2 million Tibetans, about one sixth of the population, have died
since 1949 due to political persecution, imprisonment, torture and famine.
Over 6,000 of Tibet’s rich religious and other cultural centres have been
destroyed. Tibetans were forced to leave Tibet in 1959 and over 85,000
Tibetans sought asylum in India, Nepal and Bhutan. The only long-term solution
to Tibet’s problems, including human rights, is to find a political resolution
to the question of Tibet. Since the People’s Republic of China first invaded
Tibet in 1949, the people, led by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, have striven
for a peaceful political solution. Rather than responding to violence of
any kind, Tibetans have favoured temperance and compromise in their initiatives
with China to safeguard their cultural identity. In 1988 His Holiness the
Dalai Lama proposed a framework for negotiations with China. It asks that
Tibet be granted self-governing, democratic status while relinquishing
foreign policy and defence to China.
This proposal of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, on behalf of his people,
is a consistent and simple one ¾ genuine autonomy. An autonomy not
only for the so-called “Tibet Autonomous Region”, but for the entire Tibetan
region. An autonomy that will allow Tibetans to freely practise their religion
and to retain their distinct cultural identity - rights to which every
human being is entitled. The proposal continues to be either ignored or
discredited by Chinese leaders.
It is evident from the consistent peaceful struggle of the people, both
inside and outside Tibet, that Tibetans are not happy under Chinese rule.
The present situation in Tibet testifies that China’s occupation has brought
suffering, destruction and misery to the I will try to convey some idea
of the extensive brutalities that continue to be perpetrated by the People’s
Republic of China against the people of Tibet. The human rights of every
Tibetan in what has recently been termed “the world’s largest remaining
colony” have been drastically eroded under Chinese occupation; our individual
rights and our rights as a people are trampled under the boots of Chinese
military. In recent times the Chinese government has intensified repression
and brutality in Tibet.
The violation of human rights in Tibet has a distinct character. They are
not isolated cases. Tibetans are being targeted and human rights abuses
are often the result of systematic and institutionalised racial and cultural
discrimination. Tibetans are facing a gradual ethnic cleansing - the annihilation
of an entire race, religion and heritage. The prevalence of arbitrary
detentions, the lack of criminal justice, the absence of freedom of speech
and assembly, and the disregard for the basic rights of women and children
are some of the critical grounds for concern for the Tibetan people.
As of December 1997, there were 1,216 known political prisoners languishing
in Chinese prisons in Tibet. Of those, 295 are women and 39 are juvenile
prisoners below the age of 18. Under China’s “Strike Hard” campaign, Chinese
work-teams forcibly enter the monasteries and nunneries and seek to re-educate
the monks and nuns. Those who do not comply are either expelled from their
monasteries or arrested. As of today, we have learnt that under China’s
so-called “Strike Hard” campaign, 4,239 monks and nuns have been expelled
from their monasteries or nunneries, including 937 novice monks and nuns
below the age of 18. 332 arrests and 14 deaths were reported, and some
eight monasteries and nunneries are completely closed down.
The motives for launching the “Strike Hard” campaign in China and in Tibet
are totally different. In China, the official aim of this campaign is to
crack down severely on general crime and end corrupt practices. However,
in Tibet the motive is to intimidate and eliminate those supporting Tibetan
independence and human rights activists in Tibet.
The “Strike Hard” campaign and its attendant “re-education” drive, launched
in Tibet in early 1996 and rapidly extended in 1997, signals an increasingly
intensive momentum by Chinese authorities to crack down on Tibetans who
call for independence and respect for human rights in Tibet. As Chinese
work-teams surge into more and more of Tibet’s monasteries and nunneries,
controls have been tightened and populations strictly limited.
China’s clamp down has not stopped at Tibet’s religious institutions. Threatening
to extend “re-education” sessions into all spheres of Tibetan culture -
which authorities recently declared “non-Buddhist” - the PRC has already
made massive inroads into its efforts to sinicise the Tibetan people. Tibetan
language and Tibet-related education has been drastically downgraded. Population
measures - a ceaseless flow of Chinese settlers transported in to “develop”
the region and the forced sterilisation of Tibetan women - combine to produce
an ever-growing threat to the Tibetan people’s survival. And as “development”
causes drastic changes to the Tibetan social structure, the most striking
feature of Tibet’s Chinese-engineered economic lift-off is the lack of
real benefits to the Tibetans themselves.
Tibetans are arrested mostly as a result of seeking to exercise their freedom
of expression and opinion. The term “endangering national security” has
been introduced in amendments to the Chinese criminal law, replacing the
revolutionary”, but it appears that any expression of perceived political
opinion in Tibet can amount to a threat to China’s “national security”.
Tibetans have been arrested in 1997 for pasting pro-Tibetan posters, hanging
the national flag, writing leaflets calling for Tibetan independence, and,
as always, for speaking the forbidden phrase of “Free Tibet”.
Despite modifications to the Chinese Criminal Procedure Law put into effect
in 1997, politically motivated prosecution and disregard for due process
continue to be sanctioned in the PRC’s judicial system. Arrest without
warrant or charge, prolonged detention without trial and denial of access
to legal counsel is commonplace for Tibetan political prisoners. Many detainees
report being tortured during interrogation to “confess to their crimes”
and closed trials in cases involving “state secrets” are still permitted
under the revised law. Seven reports of Tibetans arrested for alleged “espionage”
activities for the Tibetan Government-in-Exile were received in 1997. In
each case there was a complete absence of any supporting evidence other
than the fact that they had, in some cases, made a visit to India. The
most notable case of arbitrary detention is that of Ngawang Choephel. In
October 1996 China officially acknowledged the detention of Ngawang Choephel,
a Tibetan musician and scholar arrested by Chinese authorities in September
1995 while travelling in Tibet. He was held incommunicado for more than
15 months without charge or trial. On 26 December 1996 he was sentenced
to 18 years in prison, accused of undertaking espionage activities at the
behest of the Tibetan government in exile.
Tanak Jigme Sangpo, a former primary school teacher, now 70 years old,
is serving one of the longest sentences imposed on a prisoner of conscience
in Tibet. Tanak Jigme Sangpo had already served some 13 years in prison
for independence activities when he was sentenced in 1983 to 15 years imprisonment
for “counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement”. His sentence was
subsequently extended by five years and later a further eight years for
shouting independence slogans in prison. By the time he is released in
2011, he will have spent 28 unbroken years and a total of 41 years behind
bars.
China’s “patriotic re-education” or the “Strike Hard” campaign, launched
in May 1996 and intensified during 1997, further restricts freedom of expression.
Tibetan monks and nuns have been ordered to sign pledges of political allegiance
and to accept without question the work-teams’ re-styling of Tibetan history
and religion. If a monk or nun ventures to speak their own opinion, or
to question those of the Chinese officials, they face arrest and expulsion
from their monastery or nunnery.
In Tibet torture is an instrument of political repression and a symbol
of power. It has been used by Chinese authorities against Tibetans since
the
first Chinese armies entered Tibet in 1949. On October 4, 1988 China ratified
the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel or Degrading Treatment
or Punishment, which they had signed in 1986. In November 1988, a member
of the Chinese delegation at the UN General Assembly stated that “China
will implement in good faith its obligations undertaken in the Convention”.
Within a few months Migmar was tortured to death in Seitru Detention Centre.
One year later, Lhakpa Tsering, a student accused of belonging to a “counter-revolutionary”
organisation was beaten to death in Drapchi Prison.
Lobsang Dhargay who was arrested for distributing leaflets reading “Free
Tibet” and “Chinese Quit Tibet” recalls: “The worst torture I endured was
when I was handcuffed with my arms around a hot chimney and left there
for a whole day without food or water. The scorching heat of the chimney
resulted in blisters all over my body. There was water running from the
blisters and my wounds were stinging painfully from heavy perspiration.
At night, when the prison guards finally came to release my cuffs, my boots
were completely filled with water from the sweat of my body.”
Dozens of cases describing brutal torture methods by police and prison
officials were reported. Victims recall being beaten with rifle butts and
sticks, kicked and punched all over the body, shocked with electric cattle
prods, outh, being placed in dark, tiny confinement cells in freezing temperatures
and being subjected to blood extraction.
The electric baton since its introduction has become an “essential” weapon
of torture in Tibet. The majority of Tibetan political prisoners report
that they were beaten with electric cattle prods. Tibetan women and nuns
suffer from particularly degrading forms of torture. Reports of electric
baton being inserted in nuns vaginas, anus and mouth or being interrogated
while stripped naked are common.
Kalsang
Dawa, a 29 year old painter from Phenpo in central Tibet, suffered tremendously
during his two and a half years of prison torture. He was arrested in April
1993 for having painted the Tibetan national flag and pasting independence
wall posters. While in Sangyip prison he was tortured and suffered a severe
beating by prison guards. Since then, he was said to have shown signs of
disturbance such as often covering his ears with both hands and crying
out: “they are inserting electric batons into my ears.” After eight
or nine months in prison, Kalsang’s sentence was pronounced and he was
transfered to Toelung Trisam, a labour camp where prisoners are made to
perform hard labour. On October 14, 1995 he was found dead in his
cell, hanging from the ceiling.
Reports of deaths after release have increased during the last few years.
A torture victim, Lobsang, a monk from Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in Shigatse
who arrived in Dharamsala on October 10, 1997 says that during torture
sessions he heard Chinese prison officials say ‘Do not hurt him on the
outside; disable him with internal injuries’.
Jamyang Thinley, 25 year old monk of Chamdo monastery, died just five days
after his release from prison on September 13, 1996. After four months
of severe torture and beatings by prison officials in Chamdo prison, Jamyang’s
state became critical and he was quickly released.
Yeshi Samten, a 22 year old monk of Gaden Monastery, died a week after
his release from Trisam Prison on May 12, 1998. He suffered from severe
torture during two years of imprisonment. At the time of cremation, the
person performing the funeral rites discovered that two of Yeshi’s ribs
were broken.
Phuntsok
Yangkyi, a 20 year old nun from Michungri Nunnery, went into a coma after
Chinese doctors extracted fluid from her body and her nails, tongue and
lips turned bluish-black before she died. Tibetan women have been subjected
to brutal repression following the severe religious crackdown launched
in 1996 and 137 nuns are known to have been expelled from nunneries. Tibetan
women, often nuns, continue to be arrested arbitrarily and subjected to
ill treatment and torture while in prison. Of the 1,216 known current political
prisoners, 295 are women and 11 female political prisoners are serving
more than 10 years. One woman, three months and 17 days pregnant, was kept
standing in a cold room for 14 hours in a row the night of her arrest while
being interrogated. She told her interrogators that she was pregnant and
was feeling weak, however the pleas were ignored and the questions continued.
She miscarried her child in a prison toilet shortly afterwards.
Ngawang Sangdrol, a Garu nun, is serving an 18-year sentence, the longest
known sentence of any female political prisoner in Tibet. Originally arrested
for taking part in a pro-independence demonstration, she and 13 other nuns
had their sentences extended after recording pro-independence songs in
prison. In March 1996 Ngawang Sangdrol was amongst a number of female prisoners
who refused to tidy her cell, apparently as a protest against the Panchen
Lama re-education campaign being conducted in the prison, and also refused
to stand up on one occasion when a Chinese official entered the room. When
she was sent to stand in the rain as punishment, Ngawang Sangdrol called
out “Free Tibet”. As a result, Ngawang Sangdrol’s sentence was extended
by nine years in July 1996.
Throughout 1997, Chinese authorities continued to arbitrarily detain and
torture Tibetan children, to subject them to religious repression and to
deny their educational and cultural rights. At least urrently languish
in Chinese prisons in Tibet for trying to exercise their freedom of expression.
They are frequently detained in adult prisons, denied legal representation
or contact with family and subjected to severe ill-treatment.
When Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was six years old, Chinese authorities abducted
him and to date the whereabouts of this boy remains unknown. His only “crime”
is that His Holiness the Dalai Lama recognised him as the 11th reincarnation
of the Panchen Lama on 14 May 1995. Some days later the six year old boy
and his parents disappeared. No international monitor has yet been
allowed to visit the family.
Roughly one third of school-aged children in Tibet continue to receive
no education at all. Most new schools are built in urban centres and designed
for the children of Chinese settlers. Tibetans are commonly unable to enter
schools due to prohibitively high school fees and the fact that admission
exams are conducted in Chinese. Monastic education has also been targeted;
the number of student monks and nuns has been strictly limited and high
bribes are demanded to admit a child to a monastic school. A total of 613
child monks and nuns were expelled in connection with the “Strike Hard”
campaign during 1996-97.
In contrast with claims made by the PRC regarding the advancement of socio-economic
conditions in Tibet, the accounts of 70 Tibetan refugees who recently escaped
from different parts of Tibet reveal that China’s economic policy has severely
affected the huge percentage of Tibetans who live in rural areas. Innumerable
Tibetans report that economic repression is drastically affecting their
livelihood and their ability to feed themselves and their family.
China’s taxation policy plays a crucial role in this repression. Tibetans
are subjected to various forms of taxation, some unbelievably high, irrespective
of their economic position, and there is no evidence that those who are
forced to pay the taxes benefit in any way. A variety of taxes are imposed;
on land, animals, wool and fur, hides, meat, grains, butter, milk, cheese,
hay, fertiliser and medicinal plants. “Old age” and “education” taxes are
also charged, even if the person receives no schooling or social security.
A tax on non-residents who visit Lhasa has also been reported to have been
in place since the beginning of 1997. A new tax on the right to perform
religious rites at the central temple in Lhasa and even a “human tax” were
reported.
The PRC justifies its denigration from individual rights on the grounds
that it has concentrated on promoting collective rights. Tibetan people
are nonetheless deprived of their most precious collective right: their
cultural identity.
At the 53rd UN Commission on Human Rights, the PRC launched massive lobbying
efforts to end the “confrontational approach” and to adopt a “more positive
bilateral dialogue”. A number of countries have taken China up on this
offer, holding high level meetings with Chinese officials where human rights
were indeed placed on the agenda.
What has this approach yielded for the human rights of the Tibetan people?
An occasional symbolic gesture - the release of one or two political prisoners,
the signing of certain international instruments - always timed to influence
UN voting patterns or economic negotiations with particular states.
The reality is that non of the bilateral “dialogues” have brought any concrete
results or alleviated the sufferings of the Tibetan people.
(Back to Contents)
Ven. Gyaltsen Ghoetso
Former Political Prisoner in Tibet
As
introduced, I am Gyaltsen Choetso. I am a nun at Dolmaling Nunnery and
I escaped Tibet in 1991. Now I am studying in Dolmaling Nunnery but the
reason I fled Tibet was for political reasons to escape the violations
of human rights.
I am from Dechen County in Lhasa. I joined Garu Nunnery in 1986. When I
first joined the nunnery it was a shambles as a result of the Cultural
Revolution. The nunnery was renovated by the 10 nuns there and with help
from donations from others around us. For a year the construction and renovation
continued until 1987 when I participated in a political demonstration.
Then I became politically active which was the primary reason why I had
to escape to India.
The reason why I participated in the demonstration was that in 1987 there
was a whole reawakening of the political struggle in Tibet. The monks at
Drepung Monastery started to demonstrate in September and October and for
the first time in many years there were many young monks and nuns who were
involved in the demonstrations. After the largest demonstration ever in
1987 the Chinese government clamped down on demonstrations most severely
- martial law was imposed, many people were arrested and beaten in prison.
The media reported that it was only a minority who were trying to split
the nation but then we initiated a demonstration in December which was
to show that it was not just a small percentage of the population who were
after freedom but to illustrate our support. The demonstration that we
took part in was the first of its kind for nuns. It took place in the Barkhor
and was for the political prisoners languishing in prison and for Tibet’s
freedom.
We were not arrested immediately on the spot like the previous demonstrations
where many were arrested and killed. In order to avoid that they waited
on the outskirts of where the demonstration took place and arrested us
there. We were handcuffed and taken to Gutsa Detention Centre where we
were beaten. There were six of us. Six trucks with People’s Armed Police
officers came and started to beat us with whatever they had in their hands,
including iron rods. Then we were interrogated.
They said, “Who is your leader? You were born when Tibet was already part
of China so why are you calling for freedom - who has put you up to this?”
They would ask questions about who was master minding our protest and said
that it must be the Dalai clique who was behind us. We replied that “there
is no one behind us and to us it is obvious that we are a different race
and that makes us raise our voice about your presence in our country”.
We said that we based the point about being a free nation on the fact that
we know we have a different language, a different race, a different currency;
these are things that we can see for ourselves as proof that we are a different
nation.
Then they started torturing us as they were not satisfied with our answers.
They electrocuted us all over our bodies and two policewomen stripped us
naked and put the electric cattle prods in our mouths. Now some of the
nuns are still incontinent because of this.
So the interrogations continued. I was detained for one month and three
days and every time they would ask the same question again and again and
I was questioned four times each day. They kept asking us to disclose our
leader. It was very cold and they would throw water on the floor that then
turned to ice and afterwards it was very difficult to get our feet off
the ground.
Then one day the prison officials came to us and told us that we would
be returned to our homes as we had agreed to what they had said. But this
was not the truth; the Panchen Lama had intervened and there had been a
lot of international pressure including from the Government-in-Exile.
In 1988 on April 17, 13 nuns were arrested after another protest in the
Barkhor area. The nature of arrest was the same: they waited until
we had finished the protest, and the reason behind the arrest was also
the same. Every time that I was detained there were changes in the methods
and nature of beatings, torture and the general treatment. We were handcuffed
and taken away to Gutsa Detention Centre.
The second time I was arrested and tortured things were different. Three
or four People’s Armed Police men came and handcuffed us and threw us on
the ground in a courtyard. They made us kneel on gravel and then they started
to stamp on our backs and kick us with their boots. Then they told us to
get up but we couldn’t as we were in too much pain and we were bleeding.
Then they would beat us even more; they would use sticks and iron rods
and kick us all over. Then they would pull us on the ears; some nuns almost
lost their ears as they pulled so hard. From 10 o’clock until noon they
would kick us and then they would stop for lunch. They took one nun into
a cell with two men dragging her on the ground.
The questions were the same as before: “Who is behind all this?” “Who is
masterminding the protest?” The beatings were so severe and so loud that
other nuns at the other end of the corridor would hear us. They would get
so tired that they would take off their shirts and then continue to beat
us. We were prepared for beatings and in fact for death so we had worn
lots of clothes to protect ourselves. But when we got to Gutsa they lifted
up our garments until there was only a thin layer of cloth and then they
beat us there. The other way of threatening us was that they released two
dogs on us. The dogs didn’t do too much but it was very scary to have dogs
pulling on our clothes. They beat us until 5 o’clock and we had no water
to drink. We thought that we would die as we were so badly injured. Two
men came and dragged us into separate cells and we were left there. This
interrogation was on the first day that we were taken to the Gutsa Detention
Centre.
The prison was very full and there was never enough food. All we would
get for a meal was one tingmo [steamed bun] and vegetables that were very
dirty with animal excretions and it was very salty. We were very thirsty.
For one whole week we were not given any water. Fortunately some criminal
prisoners were able to bring us some otherwise I don’t know how we would
have survived.
Another severe problem I faced was that in the cell where we were kept
there were no mattresses and no bedding and there was only an excretion
bowl in the room. It was very cold and this was hard to bear. We were interrogated
four to five times a week. After that I was kept for 11 months and 13 days.
Sometimes a nun would be interrogated and if the guards were smoking they
would put the lit cigarette butts on her face. One nun came back with many
scars on her face from this and even today she is still scarred. We were
brutally punished and suppressed and we were also made to do work like
making bricks and carrying sand around and we were not given enough to
eat. It was very difficult.
The third time that I was arrested we did not take part in any protest.
We were just sitting at the nunnery when 20 men came and told us that the
Dalai Lama was chosen as the Nobel Laureate but that we must not show any
sign of happiness at this. We were also told to write a letter saying that
we were sorry that we had participated in the earlier demonstrations. None
of us really listened to them; according to our traditional customs we
burned incense and raised prayer flags and we refused to write the letter.
We told them that we had given deep thought when we demonstrated and that
it was not impulsive.
So they said that we must go to the prison with them and they threatened
to close the nunnery. Then eight of us nuns were taken by the work-team.
This arrival of the work-teams to announce ppy occasion was not just at
our nunnery but it was throughout the nunneries and monasteries and in
the offices. There were about 300 expulsions from the nunneries and
monasteries. From our nunnery 21 were expelled and eight were imprisoned.
We were taken at night straight to Gutsa. The methods that they had then
for torturing political prisoners was a move away from beating us with
sticks and leaving scars that others could see. Instead they wound a thin
wire around our fingers and they wound up the current and then shocks were
sent along all our nerves and our bodies. We would scream out loud. It
was done one by one and the other nuns in the courtyard who were tied to
trees or handcuffed could hear the screams. We were perplexed when we were
outside as we could not hear any signs of violence.
When we were taken inside we realised what an awful form of torture it
really was. We became unconscious and when we awoke we had red vision and
it was also blurred. We were not ourselves when we came to. Later we were
all taken into the room and handcuffed to each other. We were then electrocuted
one by one as the current ran through the cuffs. It really hurt us internally.
There was a pull throughout our bodies from our toes to the top of our
heads and then we all fell unconscious. The new technique was so intense
that if anyone said anything to do with winding we would all be very quiet
as we were afraid and the impact of the torture was so great.
There was no real reason for our arrest the third time but they accused
us of functioning as a “splittist” section in our nunnery. Of course we
denied this. We were detained for six months and were then handed over
to the county police. We then had to follow many restrictions.
The post-release trauma was very difficult. For example, because of our
participation in political activities, we were not allowed to return to
our monasteries and nunneries. Children are not allowed to return to school
and lay people are not allowed to return to their offices. Monks and nuns
are not allowed to visit homes to pray for various families. Also, if we
want to visit anywhere else, even somewhere 30 minutes away, we have to
go and get permission form the local county. From my place to Lhasa it’s
half an hour by vehicle but because there’s no freedom at all in Tibet
- of expression or education or anything - this is why I fled to India.
I was still sick when I left the prison and so was able to visit Lhasa
as I had a medical pass to visit the hospital in Lhasa. Otherwise
I could not have fled Tibet.
What I have told you is my personal account of what I have suffered but
when I consider the plight of other prisoners I think that I have not suffered
so much. Propagators of freedom and human rights especially at the time
of interrogation undergo the worst treatment. Dhondup Dorji had his hands
tied and when he continued to speak for the freedom of Tibet, hot boiling
water was poured down his throat right from the flask into his mouth. He
had severe blisters the next day. He could not even close his mouth for
days. This is the kind of punishment and maltreatment prisoners go through.
Therefore when I think of these people I think what I went through was
nothing. Once prisoners are arrested cases of death is commonplace and
even if they survive, they are often permanently scarred by the time they
are released. They would be crippled physically or mentally. And there
are many more who will always suffer internal health complications due
to the beatings.
I am sure you are aware of the kind of torture and punishments people go
through as many of you are directly involved with such issues when you
work for a human rights organisation. But let me tell you that of those
who are released there are many people who continue to suffer as a result
of their time in prison, permanently scarred, some in wheelchairs, others
crippled.
The most recent incident that I am aware of is the May 1 and 4 protests
at Drapchi Prison. When this protest happened the Chinese People’s Armed
Police force and Chinese prison officials violently clamped down on the
protesting prisoners and I heard yesterday that four nuns died. I want
to also tell you about another nun, Ngawang Sangdrol, who is the longest
serving female political prisoner. She was arrested at a very young age
and her entire family was involved in the freedom struggle. Her father
is still in prison and her brother was in prison.
Such young nuns continue to suffer in Chinese prisons in Tibet. I am very
concerned about them as they have been solely arrested for their freedom
of expression and opinion and this is what I feel is the most unjust thing
to happen to any human being.
In prison there are political prisoners as well as non-political prisoners
but in the eyes of the Chinese authorities, whether they are political
or non-political, everyone is treated badly if Tibetan. Let me give you
a small example of when the May 1st demonstration took place. There was
Karma Dawa and Karma Sonam. They were initially arrested due to non-political
reasons but inside the prison I hear that one of them died.
In 1987 there was a similar incident. Migmar Tsering and Dawa were also
arrested for non-political reasons but once inside the prison, being a
Tibetan, no one can endure what the Chinese are doing to us. Once inside
the prison they took part in a political activity. They were executed in
Toelung for this.
Basically,
Chinese officials try to say that the Tibetan “splittists” are just a minority
group and that the majority of Tibetans accept the presence of the Chinese.
But when you look at all this, even non-political prisoners when they get
inside the prison, they find reason to shout out. I think this is a clear
indication that what the Chinese are saying is not true, that the majority
of Tibetans do not accept the presence of Chinese in Tibet.
This is my personal account, as I said before. Many more continue to suffer.
Days pass not knowing how the nights will pass. I hope that you all, being
involved in the kinds of organisations concerning human rights, will help
us to get political prisoners released and to generate more awareness about
the plight of Tibetan prisoners and of Tibet. I thank you for coming here
and for allowing me to speak. I could still talk on many issues relating
to human rights but due to time constraints I will stop right here. Thank
you very much.
(Back
to Contents)
Kate
Saunders, News Researcher
Tibet
Information Network, London
Chinese
policies of population transfer and birth control have been described as
genocidal attempts to exterminate the Tibetan population. Before we make
this judgement I feel it’s important to look at the forces driving these
policies and to explore the policies themselves - are they made at central
level with a clear objective, or are they influenced in their scope by
local officials?
I’d like to add a note of caution before I begin the topic of birth control.
We have received no internal documents on the subject of birth control
since 1994, when we produced two detailed reports on this issue. We have
not been able to find any material since then that significantly changes
the findings of these reports, and cannot say whether this means the situation
remains the same, or whether there is a more effective block on information
reaching the outside world.
Interviews on the subject do tend to produce very subjective results, partially
because the issue depends on the interpretation of words like “force” and
“voluntary”. Occasionally we find that women who say they have been sterilised
have since conceived. Until recently, when both TIN and TCHRD published
firsthand accounts of sterilisations and abortions, reports were generally
second hand.
These recent women’s reports make chilling reading. The official documents
detailing birth control policies are equally chilling. The language used
in these policies is a language of control and manipulation; a language
which leaves women powerless and vulnerable to a combination of social,
economic and ideological forces. It is a language that aims to stop reproduction
and not to increase the knowledge or power of women.
For instance, the Municipal Planned Birth Leading Group in Lhasa announced
in its fifth report of 1994 that: “It is the shared feeling of the whole
party, the whole nation and the people of all nationalities in our country
to practise planned birth, to strictly control the population growth and
to raise the standard of population quality. The group has started from
solving the problem of the people’s ideological consciousness; organised
the government branches; manipulated all forces from all fields in society;
guided the masses in practising planned birth and gradually formed a multi-level
system.”
Chinese documents studied by TIN over the past ten years reaffirm the specific
aim of this ideological control - that of halting population growth. More
than once, the authorities state the linkage of slowing reproduction and
economic progress. “Birth control is a national policy of our country.
It underlies the whole situation of economic and social development,” according
to the Sichuan Provincial Leading Group for Planned Birth in March 1990.
“At present and for some time to come the population situation in the province
will remain very serious. If we relax a little, the scheduled population
plan for the year 2000 will quite possibly be unfulfilled. This will no
doubt affect the economic and social development of the whole province
and the realisation of each item of set targets.”
The same document refers to a prevailing theme in virtually all of the
documents we have studied - the involvement of all work units and levels
in the party hierarchy in the birth control campaign. “Such work units
as propaganda, culture and broadcasting must regard frequent propaganda
and planned birth as part of their job,” states this document. “Finance,
personnel and staffing departments must help the planned birth departments
to improve their working conditions and to equip them where necessary.
Departments and organisations such as industry and commerce, public security
and private labourers’ associations must greatly strengthen the mobile
population’s planned birth management.”
It is clearly the intention that this particular party policy is carried
through to every level of society - including its furthest reaches, nomads
and herders in remote rural areas of Tibet. Research elsewhere in the world
has shown that when women in a society are educated, the birth rate decreases.
Little attention is paid to this notion in China however - there is no
reference in Tibetan birth control documents as far as we know to sex education
and contraception, but only to surgical methods of abortion and sterilisation.
TCHRD has noted that in a document issued by the National Family Planning
Commission and Health department dated 3 September 1995 that the use of
certain of these words was banned. The document insists that the terms
“drug-induced abortion”, “surgical abortion” and “sterilisation” are not
used and that the more anodyne terms “family planning clinics”, “operating
hospital” and “out-patient operation” are used instead. In other documents,
the Chinese refer to the “remedy method” which is described as the best
form of contraception. In other words, abortion.
This may partly be because there is no quota for officials in carrying
out education in the use of contraception - while there are quota on numbers
of abortions and sterilisations. Another of these targets is limiting the
number of births. If an official fails to reach his or her target each
year, he or she can be fired or lose their job.
Several documents we’ve collected list in detail the fines for couples
who have extra children - and other penalties. For instance, a child born
out of plan will generally be treated as a “non-person” - he or she will
not receive a residence card, education, or any other facilities. In the
TAR 3,000 yuan (approximately $371) was charged to a Chinese urban couple
who had more than one child in 1992. Approximately $1000 was charged in
the same year to a Tibetan or Chinese without registration papers for the
area where they are living and who give birth to one child. These Tibetans
are sterilised in the TAR if they have a child out of plan unless they
return to the place where they are registered. Fines are also given as
punishment for failing to observe the correct interval between births,
which is three years.
Compared to Chinese women, who are generally only allowed one child, Tibetan
women can have two children or sometimes more if they live in the countryside.
However, we have to remember that for Tibetans, these rules are imposed
on them by foreigners. The average urban income in China is now three times
the average rural income, and hence the threat of a fine is a much stronger
use of force to a poor village woman than to a woman in a town.
A Tibetan who was a birth control supervisor in a rural area of eastern
Tibet reported that families with three or more children had to pay a fine
of 1800 yuan a year - a sum equivalent to the annual income of a well-paid
civil servant. Women had to seek permission from him to have a child, and
he recalled giving 95 such permits in a village of some 4000 people over
a period of nearly four years.
Fines imposed generally vary in different areas of Tibet according to the
maximum number of children allowed per family. All of the reports on fines
clearly contradict the Chinese government’s claim that no limit on the
number of children is imposed on Tibetan families.
A doctor from Gonghe, Amdo, told TIN that both Tibetan and Chinese government
employees were allowed one child and non-government workers were allowed
two. The doctor, who was 26 years old, when she was interviewed shortly
after her arrival in India in 1990, was a doctor of western medicine in
Gonghe, Qinghai prefecture. I’m going to read some of her testimony:
“Even when we were allowed to have two children we were not allowed to
have them any time we wanted. There is a waiting list for years and only
two children per department from the office per year can be born. We were
four or five in the department.
“In July 1984 I went to Hainan Civil Hospital in the Gonghe region, a hospital
where both western and Chinese medical sciences are practised together.
I find it hard to explain about the gynaecology and maternity sections.
It seems to most that those who come there are either expectant mothers
for delivery or to check up for gynaecological disease. But it is a painful
truth that they are there for neither purposes; they have come there (under
pressure) to undergo a surgical operation. Most of those who come there
are Tibetans from far-off areas. A number of them are there for sterilisation
and others for ‘yin chan’ [abortion]. All of them have come at the insistence
of the staff implementing Chinese birth control policies.
“When I wanted to have a child I had to go to my work unit, the Health
Department. I had to ask there at a certain desk. From there it went to
the main office, a higher authority, to get permission. In every work unit
or office there is such a desk. They will get permission from a main Birth
Planning Office. You are put on a waiting list for at least four and a
half years after you are married to get the pass for your first child.
“When we got married in 1984, I was 22. From a medical point of view, the
best time for giving birth to children is from 23 to 25. Thinking of the
well-being of ourselves as well as our undelivered child, we ran everywhere
and with our best effort eventually we were able to get a permit.
“I conceived a child in 1985 and delivered on March 10, 1986. My daughter’s
name is Dekyi Tsomo. We wished she had been born the previous year but
you could only give birth to a child after getting permission from the
office where you are working, and from the regional and the district offices
implementing the Government’s birth planning policies. It had taken 2 years
to get the pass. We had to bribe, pay money and use backdoor connections
to get the permission to have the child. All together we paid 300 yuan,
and had bought cigarettes and alcohol. Normally you need to wait 4-5 years
and do not have to pay, but there are people who have already waited for
more than 5 years because their turn has never come up. I know of cases
like that.
“When my daughter was three, we decided to have another child. But this
time, there was no way to get a birth permit. So all our family decided
to pay 1,700 yuan for a birth permit and we got it. The Chinese government
decreed that a fine must be paid by anyone who gives birth to an additional
child going against their birth control planning. Each regional office
decides the amount of money to be paid in such a case and in our Tsholho
region the fine was 1,700 yuan.
“On October 1988, the second child was conceived. My boss in the office
came to know about it after two months. Because of my vomiting it became
obvious. She would visit me almost everyday and used all means to try to
convince me to have an abortion. I did not listen to her at all and made
it clear to her that I would certainly give birth to my child. My Chinese
boss told me, ‘Go home and think well. Return to work after you have thought
well. You should do the abortion soon.’
“I simply let the time pass and after some time I went to see her. I told
her that I would like to have the child and would pay any amount of money
as a fine. She became furious and warned me, oing your way, do it. Paying
the fine is just a small matter. You will be punished by the Chairman.
From your salary you will be given only 30 per cent to live on and it will
never be increased. Your child’s name will not get registered. He or she
will therefore not be allowed to go to nursery or school. Both of you could
be dismissed from your jobs.
“We did not know that it was such a serious matter or that there were as
many regulations as my boss pointed out to me. We thought it would be alright
to pay the fine and that we could then have our child. Initially, I even
thought that she was simply frightening me. But later I learnt that there
were finalised documents on such matters which are circulated officials,
but were never announced to the public. Under such repressive condition,
I had no choice but to have an abortion.
“At that time the child in my womb was already two months and twenty-four
days old. With a few more days I could have already crossed the three-month
child abortion period. The best time for child abortion is between 45 to
50 days. But my child was already 84 days old so the only way to do an
abortion was through the ‘sbug ‘jog bu dbyung’ technique. It causes a lot
of bleeding and pain.
“First they insert a sort of flexible rubber tube with a pointed end into
the cervix. There is no medicine in this. They leave this inside for 24
hours. Because it stimulates the birth canal, which opens up slowly and
gives way to the flow of blood, a lot of bleeding starts after 2 hours.
After 1 day they take it out. It has become bigger inside so it is easier
for the knife to get inside. They insert an instrument that has a sort
of long handle with a knife at the end. They put this inside and start
to move it around, cutting the fetus in pieces. Then it is very easy to
extract.
“The foetus then has been reduced to many small pieces and is removed by
using a sort of compressor, with a pressure of around 200. The foetus is
sucked into a sort of container that is then thrown away. This method is
commonly used for abortion.
“There was no medical treatment afterwards. You have to leave immediately
after receiving this operation. You get 15 days off from work and miss
your allowances. You have to pay for the treatment, about 17 yuan, to the
hospital. You can stay for a night in the hospital but I went to my house.”
Birth control was introduced in the Tibet Autonomous Region in a gradual
way from the mid-1980s. It began in the towns and was applied firstly to
Tibetans working in the government. It was only in 1990 that it began to
be applied to Tibetans in the countryside, and then only in a small pilot
project.
In the eastern areas of Tibet outside the TAR, known traditionally as Kham
and Amdo or by the Chinese as western Sichuan and Qinghai, the policy appears
to have been applied aggressively at first and then for a while more moderately.
In some rural villages, women were forced to have abortions by the threat
of large fines. In some cases, they were also sterilised without their
knowledge, thinking they were having an abortion. Sometimes women were
physically dragged into vehicles to be taken to hospital, although these
tactics are not used in towns and cities, and especially not for people
in government offices. The threat of fines and other punishments in effect
made many abortions and sterilisations forced, even though the women are
not physically dragged away.
A 41-year old woman from Dargye in Ganze, eastern Tibet, said that the
Chinese authorities had appointed a woman in the village to see if anyone
had more than two or three children. If they did, they must either pay
the fine or have an abortion. If the woman did her job well, she would
receive a reward. Her presence in the village is an example of some of
the subtler, “grass roots” forms of control of the rural population in
Tibet.
The woman told TIN that: “If someone has more than three children that
woman, or man, will also be punished. They will not get any reward or promotion,
and the woman who gave birth will be punished. All the villagers are very
unhappy for the woman. They say that if they give birth to the children,
then they, the families, will look after the children and care for them.
So why should the government care? Why should they interfere in our lives?”
Anecdotal accounts of birth control in Tibet indicate that the number of
sterilisations and abortions in a particular area are dependent on the
approach of local cadres. In regions where officials carry out the policy
more stringently, there is evidence of greater numbers of abortions and
sterilisations, whereas some areas are less thorough in their implementation
of birth control, and families may have three or four children. It is not
known whether the strengthening of the grass roots organisations in Tibet,
announced in numerous speeches this year, will lead to a more thorough
application of the policies in local areas. The issue of population transfer
is quite rightly linked in the minds of many with birth control as two
of the most serious issues facing Tibetans today. Comrade Mao Tse Tung
referred to the desirability of populating Tibet further as far back as
1952, in his “Directive on Work in Tibet”. “Tibet covers a large area but
is thinly populated,” said the Great Helmsman. “Its population should be
increased from the present two or three million to five or six million,
and then to over 10 million.”
Today, more than 40 years later, Chinese people dominate commercial, social
and political life in the Tibet Autonomous Region, and outnumber Tibetans
in prefectures and counties outside the TAR, despite evidence from Chinese
statistics. (I enclose with this paper details of the population of Tibetan
prefectures given by the Chinese census).
Ragdi, chairman of the Standing Committee of the Tibetan Regional People’s
Congress, denied that any population transfer was taking place in Tibet
when he said that only those who “harbour ill intentions” hold the view
that officials from other parts of China sent to work in Tibet serve as
tools of the government to strengthen its rule over Tibet. Ragdi also declared
that the Chinese cadres who have been sent to Tibet are acting as a “bridge”
in economic co-operation between Tibet and other parts of China.
“Cadres from the hinterland have come to work in Tibet and enterprises
from the hinterland have operated and carried out co-operative projects
in Tibet,” Ragdi said during a meeting last December. “This has not only
promoted Tibet’s development and stability, but has also facilitated exchanges
and unity among nationalities.” Ragdi then quoted Deng Xiaopeng, who had
commented: “If the number of Han people in Tibet has grown a little bit
and helps the development of the local ethnic economy, then this is not
a bad thing.” Ragdi added: “If some people do not change their stance and
viewpoint, they are bound to be swept away by the torrents of Tibet’s development.”
In these comments, Ragdi was expressing the key elements of Chinese thinking
on the numbers of Chinese currently present in Tibet. The Chinese development
policy for Tibet is to improve the infrastructure, invest in industry,
encourage enterprise, and generally integrate the rural population in the
Chinese market economy. It aims to deal with Tibet as another province
of China. Chinese immigrants into Tibet generally share their government’s
view that they are there as “civilisers” and “developers”. The influx of
Chinese into Tibet also has the effect of marginalising and controlling
the Tibetan population - and hence in Chinese eyes, minimising dissent.
Although Ragdi denies that this is the case, control of Tibetans
is a key element of the thinking of government officials on population
transfer.
I’m going to give a brief history of the issue of population transfer following
the Communist take-over of China in 1949 to help us understand the present-day
context.
From 1950, the CCP began a programme of “socialist reconstruction” to repair
some of the damage caused by decades of warfare and to transform China
into a modern nation state. The focus of this programme was on industrialisation,
particularly across northern China, necessitating the migration of millions
of people from the populous Chinese provinces of the south and east to
the non-Chinese regions that formed the north and west of the PRC.
Between 1956 and 1960 Qinghai had a net in-migration of 610,000, while
Xinjiang saw a net in-migration of almost 760,000 people between 1954 and
’59.
In August 1957, Zhou Enlai made a key speech on the incorporation of non-Chinese
regions into this national plan. He announced: “Only when our fifty-odd
nationalities work closely together to achieve common progress will it
be possible for us to cast off poverty and backwardness and build a modern,
powerful socialist state. That is a task which the Han people are incapable
of accomplishing alone.” Zhou continued as follows: “In the Han-inhabited
regions there is not enough land available for reclamation, and underground
natural resources are not so abundant as elsewhere. Development of the
natural resources in areas populated by the fraternal minority nationalities
provides popular support for the nation’s industrialisation. However, these
natural resources have remained untapped for lack of labour power and technological
expertise. Without mutual assistance, especially assistance from the Han
people, the minority peoples will find it difficult to make significant
progress on their own.”
This speech indicates quite clearly that there were strategic, economic
and demographic reasons both for the Chinese invasion of Tibet and the
subsequent influx of population. With control of Tibet, the Chinese would
not only gain access to a range of previously untapped mineral resources
and secure their south- western borders, but they would also gain huge
new areas of sparsely populated land in which to settle the growing Chinese
population.
Between 1950 and 1959 the Chinese established control over all of Tibet,
lessening the impact by breaking up the country and incorporating large
areas into the neighbouring provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan.
The “rustication” programme from 1956 in China sought to transfer millions
of people from the urban areas of eastern China to the remote and sparsely-
populated regions in the north and west of the PRC. Since most of those
people were transferred into the “minority regions” of the PRC, this programme
also had the intention of integrating the minorities into the Chinese majority
and strengthening national defence in the border areas.
Some 600,000 people were sent down to Winghai, Gansu, Nignxia, Xinjiang
and Inner Mongolia during the first two years of the rustication campaign
and thousands more to Sichuan and Yunnan. Central Tibet saw its first influx
of Chinese cadres, receiving effusive welcomes, according to the following
extract form Guangming Daily in 1959: “When the youths supporting the frontier
areas arrived at the settlement area, crowds of Tibetan people welcomed
them in a manner in which they might celebrate their own festivals, helped
them carry luggage, obtain water and cook rice. After supper each day young
Tibetan men and women go to the Han youths, asking questions and teaching
them the Tibetan language and folk songs.”
Despite this idyllic portrayal, many Tibetans had little interest in teaching
Chinese in-comers Tibetan folk songs. The introduction of reforms in agriculture
has led to a widespread Tibetan revolt in Qinghai province that had just
been suppressed in 1958, to be followed several months later by the Lhasa
uprising in 1959.
The rustication system helped set up an alien economic system in Tibet
which had little connection with traditional practices and methods of production.
New Chinese towns were created in Tibet, including Golmud in Qinghai, dominating
the region economically. In a sense, the rustication campaign could be
regarded as having laid foundations for the influx of Chinese during 1980s
& ’90s.
The urbanisation that took place as an effect of the rustication campaign
was a precursor to the economic reforms that swept the country in the early
1980s under Deng Xiaopeng’s leadership. The ideological and political campaigns
of the Cultural Revolution were swept aside in the economic fervour unleashed
by the “Four Modernisations”; the reform of agriculture, the reform in
urban areas, the decentralisation of control over state-run enterprises
and reform of the price structure to reflect conditions in the emerging
market system.
Deng Xiaopeng’s “Spring Tide” campaign began in late January 1991 and initiated
campaigns throughout China to “deepen” and “speed up” economic reform.
Signs of the campaign first emerged in Tibet on 15 April 1992 when the
new Party boss Chen Kuiyuan announced that there would be accelerated reform
in Tibet. This was followed by statements in June that a special economic
zone would be established in Lhasa and that Tibet would be opened up to
the outside world.
Conservative or anti-Tibetan factions within the Tibetan leadership in
Tibet took advantage of the Spring Tide campaign to introduce high-speed
marketisation into Tibet, and to remove most vestiges of positive discrimination
in favour of Tibetans in trade, government appointments and other areas.
In April 1992, Tibetan government offices were instructed to build hundreds
of small retail shops for rent to petty traders; 5,000 new private businesses
emerged in Lhasa alone in 1993. The number of private businesses in the
TAR by the end of 1993 was 41,830, compared to 489 throughout the TAR in
1980. This increase acted as an incentive to Chinese entrepreneurs to move
to Tibet. Ten months later, in December 1992, checkposts on roads between
Chinese provinces and Tibet would be removed - which effectively meant
that Chinese entrepreneurs and casual labourers could move without hindrance
into Tibet.
A Western economist who was in Tibet at the time of the announcement that
Tibet was to be a special economic zone said that this policy meant abandonment
of the principle of training Tibetans to run a Tibetan-oriented development
policy. Instead the new policy means bringing Chinese in to develop the
economy. He also noted that the policy would serve to attract more Chinese
into the country.
This aim is clear if we analyse official statements of the time. A report
on Tibet TV in April 1992 stated that: “It is necessary to apply the central
authorities’ preferential policies creatively and to utilise their economic
benefits in conducting lateral cooperation at home and opening Tibet to
the outside world”. We can interpret the notion of “lateral co-operation”
as the acceptance of investment and workers from China. Some Chinese official
figures even show that the proportion of Tibetans in Qinghai dropped from
nearly 60% of the population in 1949 to 19.36% of the population in 1982,
33 years later. This drop was mainly due to the huge increase in Chinese
settlement in cities in the area, as urbanisation became an established
policy.
Those who favoured a more “Tibetanised” form of development and reform
were frequently criticised in statements such as the following: “At present
some comrades are fearful of making detours and are full of misgivings.
Being content with the existing state of affairs these comrades take a
wait and see attitude and follow the beaten path. Such ideas are ideological
obstacles to emancipating the mind and boldly accelerating the pace of
reform and opening”.
A statement given privately to TIN in the year Tibet became a special economic
zone indicated the concerns of Tibetan intellectuals on the new economic
policies: “When they talk of an open door policy for Tibet, it means two
doors, not one. There is a little door and a big door. The little door
opens to the outside world, and the big door opens to China. The big door
cannot open without the little one also opening.
“Up till now there have been quotas and controls and sanctions on the numbers
of Chinese coming to Tibet and on Chinese investment in Tibet. But now
with this new policy all these will be swept away. While there will be
some foreign investment, and this can be useful and beneficial, there will
be a huge flood of new Chinese investments and promoters. So this policy
is double-edged. The big door will outweigh the little door and Tibet is
more than ever in danger of being engulfed.”
The increase in the flow of Chinese to Tibet appears to contradict not
only the commitment given by Hu Yaobang in 1980 to withdraw Chinese cadres
from Tibet, but also Beijing’s official position on the sending of Chinese
in Tibet as expressed in 1985. This position was outlined in an official
textbook, Questions and Answers about China’s National Minorities, which
said: “The government is taking measures aimed at restricting the growth
of the Han population [in minority areas]. In the case of Tibet for example
the personnel sent there shall henceforth be confined to graduates from
institutions of higher learning and secondary technical schools, and specialised
professions, such as doctors, teachers, scientists and technicians.”
Since then, official Chinese statements have referred only to cadres or
specialised personnel and technicians, all of whom are going to Tibet to
“help”. In fact these people are only a small proportion of the Chinese
population in Tibet at any one time. A Xinhu article last month announced
that a second group of 637 officials had been chosen from across China
to replace the 621 inland officials sent there three years ago. “The officials
chosen from the inland areas have strengthened prefecture and county level
leadership in Tibet, promoted economic growth and social progress in Tibet
and enhanced ethnic unity,” according to Xinhua. The unofficial, unregistered
entrepreneurs and cheap labour population in Tibet today are of course
a far greater cause for concern than the groups of cadres from inland provinces.
Concerns about this influx of people were voiced soon after the economic
policies began to bite. A hand-printed poster produced by a Tibetan underground
group called the Unified Committee of the Three Provinces of Tibet said
in 1992: “Tibet belongs to Tibetans and the red Chinese are invaders. Nowadays
China is opening up the whole of Tibet on the pretext of economic development,
but in reality it is doing it in order to deny Tibetans rights and work
through the endless transfer of Chinese people to live here. It is clear
that this is to make it impossible for Tibetans to live in their own land.
For example, at the moment the Tibetans towns and the farming and pastoral
areas are teeming with Chinese; different Chinese military army personnel
are stationed along the borders and in every corner. In addition, anyone
who has eyes to see with can see houses for Chinese being constructed everywhere,
in great haste.”
This unofficial population is increased by the so-called “blind flow” or
floating population of several hundred million unskilled and skilled Chinese
drifting from rural areas to cities and towns in search of work throughout
China. The mechanisation of agriculture and general industrialisation has
made many of them surplus to requirements in China, and some are enticed
to Tibet by salaries that are higher than in mainland China and other incentives.
Projects like the controversial Panam Rural Integrated Development scheme
in the TAR will undoubtedly act as a focus for many of the unemployed workers.
With about 6 million Ecu worth of aid from the European Union (the budget
was confirmed just before this conference began), this project aims to
turn the western edge of the Lhasa-Shigatse-Tsetang triangle into the “bread
basket” and commercial and industrial heart of the autonomous region.
The Panam project might well have serious implications for population transfer
into Tibet - not necessarily in that it would require the immigration of
labour or that it would provide food for an increasing population, but
simply in that the rapid development envisaged by the scheme would probably
become a magnet for the floating population. The Panam project, which has
been criticised by Tibet Support groups in Europe and other NGOs, is similar
to other current Chinese efforts to raise funds abroad for the expansion
of agriculture.
The Chinese authorities now appear to accept that widespread migration
is an unavoidable consequence of their economic reforms. The “blind flow”
is set to remain a feature of modern Chinese society. However, the general
intention of the Chinese government is to prevent huge numbers of migrant
workers settling in urban areas - and so this floating population is encouraged
to move to the northern and western regions. Administration changes make
such migration easier.
In large cities like Beijing or Shanghai, migration is perceived as a grave
social and economic problem, and measures to limit the influx of the floating
population have been introduced. In Tibet, migration by Chinese into the
region is encouraged and welcomed with the pretext of enabling economic
development.
The economic and administrative reforms in Tibet had by the end of 1992
given people both the right to move around and also access to an expanding
road and rail network. In the new relaxed atmosphere, traders from outside
were able to move in and around in Tibet without restriction, and since
they were no longer dependent on the state for work, food, housing and
other services, with temporary residence status they were able to remain
as long as their business was successful.
The authorities have since begun to develop and promote preferential policies
to attract individuals to Tibet and enable them to set up private enterprises.
Since 1993, business licences have been available on provision of just
an identification card and a letter of recommendation from the appropriate
authorities, and the official media has reported a continued increase in
the number of individual and private enterprises in the region.
In the past four years, the government has also developed a framework for
increasing international trade through Tibet. In 1992, it was announced
for the first time that more than a third of the border counties in the
TAR were to be opened for international trade. The Hong Kong newspaper
Wen Wei Po reported that Tibet would “take advantage of its geographical
position” to open its borders further. There is a wide range of benefits
available for skilled personnel working in Tibet, mostly of a financial
nature - higher wages, hardship allowances for people living in a remote
mountain area, reduction of or exemption from some forms of taxation, improved
pension opportunities and so on. Chinese cadres and staff living in the
TAR are also eligible for better housing, improved access to educational
facilities, and longer periods of vacation and leave.
The following letter, written by Tibetans in Tibet and sent to TIN, gives
us an idea of the situation in Lhasa: “According to a population census
in 1990, 95% of the population is Tibetan and only 5% are non-Tibetans.
In this census however the Chinese have only included those Chinese who
work in offices and factories. They have not included military camps based
in Tibet, businessmen, builders, masons, miners, fishermen, butchers, tailors,
prostitutes, thieves and beggars.
“The Chinese have built shops in every street around Lhasa from north to
south, and east to west. In the Barkor market there are Chinese cobblers,
carpenters, tailors, butchers and grocers. Every trade is run by the Chinese.
It is only the incense stalls that are run by the Tibetans. Undertakers
are Tibetan. There is a vegetable market on the east side of the Potala
which is now filled with Chinese butchers and greengrocers. Only a few
Tibetans can be seen in around the Jokhang. Kungpo and Chamdo have virtually
become like Chinese towns.”
According to Ragdi, the 1990 population census included all persons living
in Tibet for more than six months. Chinese statistics on population do
not include the military (a recent Chinese statement said that there were
“less than 200,000 troops in the TAR”, but according to unofficial reports
there may be considerably more) and unregistered workers. The discovery
of a new mine, for instance, can lead to a massive influx of Chinese workers
into an area - in 1995, a Chinese report claimed that more than 10,000
miners had moved to the Nagchu area after the discovery of a large gold
vein in the region.
The framework of administration measures, such as the removal of checkpoints
into Tibet and the simplification of the registration system to enable
more migrants to settle, combined with material incentives such as higher
wages, all indicate official encouragement for Chinese settlers in Tibet.
When taken in the context of a general guideline that migration to Tibet
is a good thing for the People’s Republic of China as a whole, it is clear
that the Chinese authorities are directly and indirectly responsible for
population transfer to Tibet.
Both population transfer and birth control in Tibet are deliberate ways
by the Chinese authorities of controlling the Tibetan population. Although
there is not yet enough evidence for us to determine whether these policies
are genocidal in their intent, this does not in any way detract from the
violations of, for instance, birth control practices that are undoubtedly
carried out with the use of force.
While many Tibetan entrepreneurs have undeniably benefited from the economic
reforms and opening up of Tibet, the majority of Tibetans appear to be
suffering from Chinese encroachments on agricultural land and domination
of business and politics. The current strategy of development of Tibet
is to integrate the Tibetan economy into that of China’s - hence creating
opportunities for increasing numbers of Chinese settlers. This means that
the Tibet population is placed under the control of an administration that
is largely biased against them while facing further pressure from the influx
of Chinese into Tibet and repressive birth control measures.
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Professor Dawa Norbu
Jawaharlal
Nehru University
Friends,
thank you very much for the kind introduction which Lobsang Nyandak la
did for me. As a Tibetan academic I would like to say how glad I am to
see so many people from different parts of Asia, especially from South
East Asia. It is heartening at a time when the interest in and the support
for the Tibetan cause has been mostly active in the Western countries,
especially in the United States. It is really heartening for Tibet, which
is located in the heart of Asia, that Asian nations are taking or beginning
to take interest in the cause of Tibetan people. So I would like to say
especially thank you very much and in my own individual capacity as a Tibetan
academic, welcome to the Tibetan exile community.
Now, about my presentation. I’ll be really brief. I’ll tell you why. A
few days ago when Lobsang Nyandak asked me to make a brief presentation
on this occasion, I was in a fix because my area of specialisation is not
really human rights or international law. This is not because I consider
them unimportant or not valuable; that is far from it.
I am a writer and an academic and as such my own survival depends on democratic
rights, human rights, and academic freedom. I value them very much. But
I think the main reason is that I am absorbed in my trained areas of specialisation
and I get kind of carried away by my own professional training. I really
do not have much time, or I feel I can’t provide much competition, in the
area of human rights, with so many competent people, especially international
lawyers, interested in the area.
So what I decided was, as my obligation to the Tibetan community and to
this occasion, I have to say something. So I decided to do a close and
critical reading of the texts of the past three United Nations resolutions
on Tibet.
Now what really happens is - I don’t know what happens to you - I often
tend to treat resolutions as pieces of legal formalism. Not much content,
kind of a lot of platitudes and principles. But really what is important
when you think about the past three international resolutions on Tibet
- for example, now I agree the superpowers at that time had that necessary
power to make their views read - is that we must concede that behind the
scenes there are a lot of discussions within the UN, a lot of negotiations,
a lot of bargaining that goes on. And to that extent it is much more than
a piece of legal formalism. I mean it indicates a certain international
consensus, a certain epoque of world history on the subject of the Tibetan
question.
That is why I could not do any research into the human rights violations
or religion and repression and so on, but I decided to do some close and
critical reading of the UN resolutions on Tibet which might have some timely
message or connection with what we commonly advocate as human rights. In
that spirit I would like to do some reading.
As you know, United Nations resolutions were passed in 1959, 1961 and 1965.
Now what is so interesting about this is the certain assumption of human
rights that the UN resolutions envisage and the definition of human rights,
content of human rights and specification of what constitutes human rights
in the Tibetan context. This is I think a great corrective to the current
discourse on human rights especially pertaining to Tibet.
As to be expected, the legal basis of the three resolutions passed by the
United Nations is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, especially
in the 1959 resolution. Again in the 1961 text the Charter of the United
Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are referred to twice
in the course of the text. It also includes freedoms about which we will
talk later. Again in the 1965 resolution, it repeats human rights and fundamental
freedoms set forth in the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights three times.
So we see that the legal basis on which the past resolutions were passed
were very much within that international legal framework of the United
Nations, namely, the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. But I think that these are to be expected as these resolutions
were coming from the United Nations.
What is so interesting, at least from my point of view, is the notion of
human rights: what the United Nations resolutions at those times - right
from 1959 to 1965 - and “human rights” mean within the Tibetan context.
What does it mean? I would like to submit that if you read the three resolutions
closely and critically, they point out one fact which is very salient in
all of these resolutions: that human rights are co-terminous with freedom.
It seems to argue that without freedom there are no human rights. And without
human rights there is no freedom. In other words, human rights and freedom
are co-terminous, one cannot be separated from the other. This is the lesson
we will draw if we read closely the United Nations resolutions.
The phrase “human rights and freedoms” was repeated in the 1959 resolution,
1961 resolution and 1965 resolution. So one point is clear and anyone who
reads the resolutions will see this repeatedly occurring; that what the
United Nations resolutions meant when they say “human rights in Tibet”
is that human rights necessitate freedom. And in a state of freedom, human
rights flourish. And they see a close correlation between human rights
and freedom.
What do they mean by “freedom”? If they are equating human rights with
a state of freedom within the Tibetan context, then what sort of freedoms
- it is a plural that is used often in these resolutions - what do they
mean by “freedoms”? If you read the texts closely, you get some clues as
to what freedoms they are talking about within the Tibetan context.
The 1959 resolution talks about “seminal and religious liberty” and advocates
“autonomy which they traditionally enjoyed”. Again the 1959 resolution
talks about the definition of content of freedom in Tibet - “distinctive
cultural and religious life”.
In the 1961 resolution the same phrase occurs: “Distinctive cultural and
religious life which they have traditionally enjoyed”. The 1961 resolution,
as most people may be aware, includes a very important clause: the right
to self-determination. Mind you, in the right to self-determination they
did not add the controversial adjective “national” self-determination.
It said just self-determination. “Self-determination” was repeated twice
in the 1961 resolution.
So first of all, according to the United Nations resolutions, there is
a close correlation between human rights and freedoms. Secondly, I would
say, the resolutions give us clues as to what kind of freedoms we are talking
about, specifically referring to religious and cultural freedoms. They
also talk about the “autonomy which they traditionally enjoyed” and then
of course the 1961 resolution called for the right to self-determination.
These are some clues you get when you talk about the sort of freedom the
United Nations in those years was thinking about.
As for whether these resolutions are binding, or to what extent, this is
quite interesting. I mean to the extent they have been effective or not
so
effective. The 1959 resolution called for respect for the distinctive cultural
identities. It just called for “respect”, it didn’t call for action or
implementation of the resolution. The 1961 resolution urged the member
states to take actions to implement the resolutions - a much stronger phrase.
Then the 1965 resolution endeavoured to achieve resolution. In other words,
of the three resolutions, 1961 and 1965 seem to be much stronger, making
the resolutions binding on the member states and therefore urging the member
states to take concrete and serious action to implement them.
When you compare the three resolutions, I would say the 1959 and 1961 resolutions
are certainly important, especially the 1961 resolution in the sense that
for the first time in a UN document, the call for self-determination, the
right to self-determination, figures. The 1965 resolution was merely a
reminder of the two previous ones.
Now that is it basically, I mean it is a short one as I said. I would like
to have a discussion on these aspects of human rights, especially as reflected
in the UN resolutions. There are international lawyers, human rights activists
and human rights experts here and, as I said at the beginning, I’m no expert
in any of these areas. But what occurred to me while reading these resolutions
was really that most of the things have been done, not necessarily according
to what the United Nations resolutions recommended, but maybe what Amnesty
International thinks.
One of the major targets of human rights advocacy has been the political
prisoners. I am not saying they are not unimportant - they are - but when
you try to implement or publicise human rights as it results in the United
Nations resolutions, I think we need to go beyond the usual boundaries
of the human rights NGOs. They call for action for freedom in the way the
UN resolutions understand. So far most of the application and practices
have been confined to certain categories of people in Tibet, for example,
as I said, political prisoners, monks and nuns and so on. They are individuals,
they are human beings.
But what the UN resolution seems to suggest is that it is a collective
freedom that is envisaged. When you talk about human rights violations
in Tibet, they are violated not purely because they are human beings. Rather,
they are violated for the crime considered much more criminal than legal
crime - that is, on charges of treason. That they are not loyal to the
Chinese state. This indicates that it is not purely a normal human violation.
They involve group rights, group identities, group freedoms. And to that
extent, that is why I re-read the UN resolutions. And they are worth reading
in the sense that in the Tibetan context they criticised and condemned
human rights violations but at the same time they defined indirectly what
they mean by human rights.
And these human rights they understood to be co-terminous with freedom,
and the freedom they specified as relating directly or indirectly to cultural,
civil, social and religious freedoms that were denied Tibet. Especially
the 1959 and 1961 resolutions clearly indicate why the Dalai Lama ran away,
why the Tibetans ran away. Because they were denied the traditional freedoms
which they enjoyed. These are some of the things and, if that’s the case,
then I think we need to re-think about human rights in the Tibetan context.
Let me make a clarification at this stage. I have been writing about nationalism
and that sort of thing and people, especially in the west, think that this
guy is into some fascist trip or some kind of a collective trip that completely
denies and condemns human rights, individual rights. I can assure you that
if you know me individually and personally you will see that if there is
one person among the Tibetans who values individualism and democratic values,
I try to implement them. And as I said, as a writer and an academic my
survival depends on such freedoms. There is a distinction between what
I write and what I personally go by in my daily life.
To that extent, since this task is to re-read the UN resolutions, I would
like to propose that these resolutions seem to have understood some of
the dynamics, some of the realities of the Tibetan situation. They have
become all the more urgent, as Kate Saunders has indicated, and they boil
down to the Tibetan collective rights in the first place. Of course when
they achieve their collective rights and collective freedoms - it goes
without saying, as you ask any anthropologist - when the struggle for tribes’
survival is accomplished, then family and individual rights are also achieved.
And this kind of thing is not there.
The point is first things are first and the Tibetan survival depends on
Tibetan freedom, cultural identity, and human rights. These are the contents
of Tibetan human rights as understood by the United Nations resolutions.
If that is the case, then I want to provoke you into a discussion. Let’s
think about human rights in the Tibetan context, as reflected in the past
UN resolutions.
As you know, when you confine your human rights violations or abuses to
a certain category of people - who are very important human beings who
are locked up in prisons - their suffering and their problems are at the
same time part of a larger context. Without changing that structure, it
would not make much sense. Yes we can shout at the top of our voices or
the top of our roofs, either in east or west, but it won’t change. At the
same time, according to the human rights resolutions, they are not too
ambitious politically so as to threaten or scare the Chinese. They are
quite reasonable, as you saw them; they are fairly human and reasonable.
If that is the case, so far we have confined ourselves to certain categories
of Tibetans whose liberty is most seriously threatened, such as political
prisoners. Now, as I suggested, we need to re-think and move to another
framework, according to the UN resolutions, by which human rights are co-terminous
with Tibetan freedom and there cannot be one without the other. The two
are inseparable.
So let’s try to put both of these on the agenda, especially freedom,
and it is normally within the scope of the NGOs, as you know. If that is
the case, we need to move beyond the NGOs, not bypassing but possibly with
the constructive contributions and help of the NGOs, to raise this fundamental
question of Tibetan human rights and freedom at the world body where these
resolutions originated and were passed many years back.
What is the next step? I would like to suggest that it is worthwhile raising
the question of self-determination and reminding the United Nations of
its resolution in 1961.
There is a certain degree of consensus from the people who are concerned
about the Tibetan question. I’ll cite some. The International Commission
of Jurists’ report which came the end of last year talked about the right
to self- determination. Again, recently, the Tibetan Parliamentary and
Policy Research Institute in Delhi, which is sponsored by a German NGO,
came out with a thick book talking about the right to self-determination.
And among these if I might include my own contribution, I have done one
piece called “Self-Determination in Post-Soviet Era: The Case Study of
Tibet”.
Apart from that, I would say that the current post-communist context provides
the right opportunity to raise the question of self-determination within
the Marxist-Leninist framework where a lot of changes have taken place.
Since 1986 up to 1991, something like 29 or 30 nations or nationalities
which were subjugated and made part of the soviet empire have obtained
their independence on the basis of referendums, plebiscites and self-determination.
Tibet is occupied by a Communist State in the name of ideology, progress
and revolution. But as I said, red star has turned yellow star now. There
is no longer revolution, no longer ideology and if they continue to rule,
dominate and exploit the Tibetan people in these hallowed ideological names,
they will not be tolerated by the international community. Regarding Communist
revolution, the ideological justification are invalid in the case of Tibet
since 1986 or 1991. And if that is the case there is a case for self-determination
within a communist framework.
If you go by the UN resolutions, it says just self-determination. It can
be internal self-determination, it can be external self-determination.
It is open to the Tibetan people who are framing things here and international
support which people like you would be giving. It is a matter of negotiation
and discussion and consultation. I strongly feel, at this stage, that we
need to re-think the content of human rights within the post-communist
context within which Tibet is placed.
So, as I said, I do not have much to say. It is my ethnic obligation. They
asked me to say something and the most convenient, easiest thing is to
go out and pick up the past UN resolutions, read them and try and say something
about them. That is what I have done. Thank you very much.
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Mr. Jamyang Norbu, Director
Amnye
Machen Institute
I
have been asked to deal with the subject of religious repression in Tibet.
I am not very knowledgeable on the subject and to be quite frank this is
the first time I have talked before a human rights group. It is not that
I avoided it deliberately but when I first started working in Dharamsala
for the Tibetan cause for His Holiness in the 60’s and later on in the
70’s there was very little interest from human rights groups on the issue
of Tibet.
It’s not that we did not make any effort to contact people, but one of
our major efforts when I was in the TYC [Tibetan Youth Congress] in the
early 70’s was to talk to people from Amnesty to ask them to come here
for discussions was never really fruitful. In fact, all the approaches
we made subsequent to the mid-80’s failed quite sadly. But in some cases,
when notice was taken of Tibet by such groups in the west, it, in some
ways, was far more disastrous than when they did not take any notice.
For instance, there was this group called the Minorities Rights Group commissioned
in Britain and they published their report number 49 on Tibet. That report
basically stated what a wonderful job the Chinese government was doing
in Tibet compared to the awful things that the Americans and the British
and every western country have done to their own sort of colonial subjects.
The Chinese were truly the most enlightened people in this regard and not
only should the westerners take notice of this they should emulate Chinese
policies on dealing with minorities.
So there was a huge uproar about this in the Tibetan community and we approached
these people and asked what kind of organisation are you and what are you
trying to represent. Finally it got to a point when they said, look we’re
not going to backtrack at all but we will allow you to write your own little
account and print it and, unfortunately, we went along with this. I thought
this was something we should not have done because even if we print our
own account basically it is our account; it is not something that comes
from a so-called then impartial organisation.
So, all my kind of success with human rights organisations has been nil.
I am really glad to see now that everything has changed for the better
and that you are meeting here. So even though I really am not on the subject,
I’ll do my best to keep you entertained for half an hour.
Now, one thing I really want to see regarding religious repression is not
to give you details and accounts of what is happening because I am sure
you have read many accounts that the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and
Democracy here has produced as well as accounts by many other organisations
these days including Amnesty International. But I really feel all these
accounts should be analysed. I think the basic questions should be asked:
Why is China repressing the Tibetan people’s religious rights? Why is this
religious repression going on in Tibet?
It is not necessarily because the Chinese people are just wicked or that
the leaders are wicked. I think this question has not really been asked,
at least it has not been asked in depth. For instance, we know traditionally
that when China was still at least espousing its communist ideology a decade
or so ago the idea of religious freedom was of course anathema. It is the
doctrine of Communism that you do not have anything to do with religion
and what you have to do with religion when it comes out in the society
is wipe it out. So at least at that time there was a consistency in what
they were doing. ese days the Communist Party, especially in as far as
Beijing is concerned and as far as religion goes, does not care so much
as
they used to.
So why particularly in Tibet do we have all these problems? I think we
have to look at it in the context that human rights abuses do not happen,
let’s say, in a vacuum. They do not happen because leaders just want to
beat people or throw them in jail. They are reacting to something. Leaders
always react to something. And what are they reacting to? In most other
countries in the world they are reacting to people who want to overthrow
them, who want to dilute their powers, maybe make them more susceptible
to public opinion. Or in a case like Tibet, and other countries too, we
want independence.
We do not want to be part of the system anymore. And therefore, the leaders
react. In Tibet in particular repression of religion is linked to this.
It is not linked to any dislike of Buddhism by the Chinese leaders. It
is linked to the fact that Tibetan religion is connected to Tibetan identity
which in turn makes Tibetan people come out in the streets whenever possible
and yell “we want independence” and “rangzen [freedom]”. This has happened
so many times that we do not even need to go into details about who these
people were and what happened to them later on.
Now, after the liberalisation policy in 1979 to 1980 sort of came into
effect, the Tibetans started testing the waters because before that it
was terrible. The kind of problems that you have now about people being
tortured, jailed, being killed, being beaten, nuns having been prodded
with cattle prods; all these are terrible. There is no doubt about it.
But in comparison to what was happening in the 60’s and 70’s these are
nothing.
There we had - I think you know, although there are objections to this
word - I think the word ‘holocaust’ could be used. It was not just individual
cases of torture and beating. I mean systematically hundreds and thousands
of people were being killed, people were dying of starvation. I need not
go into details of this but, to come back to the present, the real problems
of Tibet, especially with religious repression as I stated, is caused because
the Tibetans are asserting their identity. In Tibet you could wonder at
the question of religion. There is Buddhism in China, in Hunan province
the Dia with the minority people are also Buddhist - the Hinayana persuasion,
the Mahayana Buddhism in China itself. So what’s the problem?
The problem in Tibet is that people see Buddhism to a certain extent as
sort of divided traditionally. The Tibetans have what you call lhachoes
- realm of the god. One could regard that as the formal Buddhism: its philosophies,
the monasteries, the monks. There is another called michoes - the religion
of men. There we have all these traditional customs like burning incense,
going out throwing barley flour into the sky, propitiating all the mountain
deities of Tibet. All these are to a certain extent national deities although
it is now inextricably linked with Buddhism, all these deities and customs.
They are in many ways pre-Buddhist; they are also pre-Bonpo.
These come from a much earlier time and even scholars, when they trace
it, really do not find the beginnings of all these traditions. They have
been adapted into popular Buddhism as what you call michoes and this Buddhism
is the Buddhism that really causes the problems. Because, let us say, if
you take the classical Buddhism, the Mahayana Buddhism that is practised
in Tibet. It is harma centre with all these monks in California and it
is doing pretty well. They can survive anywhere and that is like the Catholic
church. The Tibetan Buddhist churches are universal but this religion,
the michoes, the religion of the people, cannot be moved away from that
area. And at the same time it has its identity which refuses to relinquish
to any foreign invaders and this is where the problem comes from.
Let me give you an example - when the Dalai Lama got his Nobel Peace Prize.
Before that there had been some slight problems in Tibet so they were very
careful that the Tibetans not come out with any kind of political demonstrations
in favour of the Dalai Lama. But they knew something would happen because
it had happened before this in 1987. So, when the Dalai Lama got his Nobel
Peace Prize the Tibetans heard about it on the radio. Even the Chinese
had to mention it on their radio. So what did the Tibetans do? Right of
assembly was denied to them; rights of speech, publication, everything
was denied.
At that time the Chinese in their magnanimity were permitting us the right
to religious expression: going to the temple and performing religious rituals.
So the people went out on the street and gradually in the middle of the
Barkhor there were more and more people and they started taking out bags
of tsampa - which is the barley flour - and people were throwing it in
the sky and the PSB - the police - were coming and saying, “what’s going
on?” This is a religious practice of ours; we propitiate the gods by throwing
tsampa in the sky.
So in fact the Tibetans even started throwing some on the police and the
Chinese. Some of the officers were rather thrilled because for the first
time the Tibetans were even sort of getting along with them in any way.
Then gradually this thing became more because the whole of Lhasa was throwing
barley flour in the air. Then finally it clicked on one of the PSB [Public
Security Bureau] that actually this was not religious. So the next day
they clamped down on it. A new law was promulgated that amongst all religious
rites they do not have the right to throw barley flour in the sky.
So this is the problem. It is not that the Chinese are unwilling to provide
the Tibetans a certain kind of leeway to exercise their religion. But the
Tibetans will use it to assert their national identity and their separate
identity and this is the problem that we face in Tibet.
Now, another factor that somehow has escaped even our government in exile
is the fact that when we tell the Chinese that we do not want independence
we are willing to relinquish a lot of political rights if we are allowed
to practise our culture. I think the mistake that people make, especially
people out here in exile where we have to a certain extent lost our contact
with our land, is that we don’t really understand the power of that culture.
We think in terms mainly of debate or of monks publishing Buddhist texts
but the culture that causes problems still exists in Tibet because the
Tibetans there are tied to the land. They still see those mountains everyday,
they still go out to those mountains with their prayer flags - you know,
the whole idea of putting up prayer flags throwing those lungta [windhorse]
papers, lucky papers, throwing them in the sky. Everything is part of the
Tibetan popular religion and these, as I said earlier, have caused a lot
of problems in Tibet.
One of the great Tibetan scholars, a historian and friend, Professor Samten
Karmey, has written about the fact that he feels that this religion in
some ways is an example of earlier Tibet nationalism. The nationalism just
can not be defined in western terms. What we do now in modern terms - as
in “nation” - you are supposed to show a certain quality as defined by
western academia or legal system. But he feels that there is an earlier
sense of nationalism that is not so obvious but comes through peoples’
religious practices so this has been the main cause. And for some time
it was not recognised by the authorities and it is in some ways seemingly
obvious but people in power sometimes are oblivious of reality.
So it was especially after 1979 because there was this so-called liberalisation
policy in effect in Tibet. Tibetans gradually began to reassert their identity
in small ways like publishing. They started publishing literature journals
but these literary journals are official - they are not allowed - nobody
is allowed to have any private journal. But within the official journal
people began to publish poems where the first paragraph might be in praise
of Chairman Mao and Deng but then after that the person got a little opportunity
to come out with his little expression and these things began to happen.
People began to sing songs about the past. Some schools of sort of modern
abstract painters came out with their expression of their frustration,
their ideas. And more than that religion came to the fore. People began
to practise; monks began to practise in monasteries; and even in the University
of Lhasa they allowed the deans - you know there are two deans, one is
Chinese - they allowed even one Tibetan to be a kind of a co-dean. They
allowed certain Tibetan subjects to be taught like Tibetan literature,
religious literature to some extent. Tibetan history was never allowed
to be taught so it is not taught as Tibetan history, it is taught as Tibetan
legends. So, for a while, people felt there might be some kind of cultural
liberalisation in Tibet.
Then a few years ago a gentleman by the name of Chen Kuiyan came to power,
a Chinese. He is the Party Secretary of “TAR”. He is not a person that
any one of you will ever admire. He does not believe in human rights and
that sort of nonsense but one thing is he is a very, very intelligent and
shrewd man. He really hit the nail on the head. He said as long as we permit
these Tibetans any kind of cultural activity there they can reassert or
re-identify themselves to the land. We will never ever solve the Tibetan
question. He was very clear. I mean the beauty of the system is that you
can be absolutely a rotter quite openly and he said this openly in the
meeting of “TAR”; he came out, he said this and then it struck a lot of
people he was right.
So now they have a new policy on language at the University of Tibet. The
Tibetan dean has been kicked out. There is only one Chinese now on the
top. Tibetan recruitment for the whole of last year was stopped. There
are more Chinese now in the university than there are Tibetans. Tibetans
were stopped last year because they said the Tibetan syllabus had to be
re-ordered. They dropped all the Tibetan subjects, Tibetan literature included.
They dropped Tibetan legends and I have a cousin who is teaching that subject
so she is out of her job now.
So, on language the policy has become even worse. You cannot in any way
get a job unless your Chinese is excellent. If you want a bank loan all
the forms are Chinese. Now how can a local Tibetan farmer go out? And if
the UN even has put some money there or some big organisations have put
their money there, any kind of application has to be made in Chinese. And
even if some one did make an effort to learn Chinese, Chinese is a difficult
language, especially written. It is difficult enough for the Chinese themselves
and to ask a Tibetan to do this, and especially when he has not done this
since childhood, it is really difficult and this is getting worse each
year.
Because of all these things there is so much unemployment now. It has a
genuine effect - the unemployment it is causing. Let us say, to get more
cynical, people are just taking to alcohol. All these symptoms that we
see in other devastated cultures are coming to Tibet. Prostitution, alcoholism,
just playing, giving up, suicides; all these things are happening inside
Tibet. Yes, I do believe in goodness and righteousness but in the immediate
sense let’s say repression, dictatorial methods are also fairly effective
if people do not question them.
So in Tibet the real problem, as I mentioned earlier about religious repression,
is it boils down to this factor. The Tibetans do not want to give up their
identity. And its been stated so clearly, so many times, therefore I think
it is important also for all of you who have come here and who have shown
your interest in the question of human rights in Tibet to see it in that
context also. It is not just a question that the people need the right
to worship. They want that right to assert something more. It is not just
good enough for them to spin their prayer wheel. They feel that they are
separate and I think they use all this and they do not do it just deliberately
to annoy the Chinese leaders.
Tibetans have to assert their identity and this is how they feel they exist,
especially if you look at their photographs of Khampa tribesman in eastern
Tibet. These are not people who shuffle around. Why do they walk as if
they are seven feet tall? Why do they have to wear all the ridiculous jewellery?
Why do they wear swords that are huge and uncomfortable basically all the
time. They are doing it to a certain extent to say, “Hey, I am different”
and I think they have the right to do that. Therefore in that sense we
have to put all this in a context.
Before I end I think I just wanted to say that, regarding the whole situation
in Tibet, it does sound pretty hopeless right at the moment and I am sure
that when we read about what is happening these days it is getting worse.
These days things have been getting much worse than the last few years.
Somehow people might feel that Tibetans do not really have a chance, they
should just go back and maybe try to get the best little deal they can
and just keep quiet.
Well then, I am not one who subscribes to this idea at all. I think at
the same time facile optimism is not something that we admire, but we have
been out here, the Tibetans have been in exile, for 40 years. This is bad
enough but we must also remember that we have been neighbours of China
for thousands and thousands of years, so we know to a certain extent not
only their faults but their weaknesses also.
We
must also remember one thing: that China, no matter how big it is, will
also have its moments of ups and downs. Even recently, just the other day,
I was reading this book by the Nobel prize winner for literature Milosh.
It is an old book - “The Captive Mind” - and there the author is really
depressed. This book was written in the 70’s and he was part Estonian and
part Lithuanian and he talks of the culture of Estonia and Lithuania, all
these Baltic states, and he says they are finished. And he uses the word
quite clearly.
He said the Russians have brought in so many settlers and Stalin has settled
so many people that now there are far more Russians and he thinks that
they are totally finished. This is someone who sympathises or knows, who
is part of them, and he thought it was over but now we know the Lithuanians
are not doing too badly. Estonians and these countries we have never heard
of before unless you are some kind of scholar, the British Intelligence
agency or something. We never really heard of these countries then all
of a sudden some years ago they re-emerged and these things are miracles
and we have to believe in this sort of thing.
And look at Tibet. Tibet’s case is not that bad even if people have no
sympathy for Tibet. Everyone has heard about it, compliment of whatever
it may be - bad paper, Steven Seagal ... So when you think about it, it
is not that bad. So I do not think it is time really for people to lose
heart or to give up even the bigger goal of Tibet, Tibetan freedom, and
this idea of hope. People have always been saying that Tibetan hope is
facile. Tibetans also to a certain extent bring it on to themselves because
Tibetans also call themselves stubborn and they pride themselves on being
called stubborn. “The stubbornness of the fool” - that is what Tibetans
always use about themselves.
I think in a sense I can not express myself too well on the term hope.
But there was a Chinese writer who I really admire; he was probably the
greatest Chinese modern writer of the 1930’s. He was called Lu Shun. He
lived and wrote mostly in Shanghai and he was never a person who respected
authority, traditional or modern, so I think his definition of hope is
something that I would like to end this talk on. He said that hope can
never be denied or affirmed. Hope is like a path in the countryside. Initially
you did not have a path at all. One person walked on it, another walked
on it and gradually, as people just walked on that area, a path gradually
forms. So this is the way I feel with anything that has to deal with struggle
or cause. More and more people have to walk on that path. You must never
lose hope.
(Back to Contents)
Pipop Udomittipong
Spirit in Education Movement, Bangkok
Buddhism
has been one of the core foundations on which Thai cultures have been based.
Wisdom and compassion are the two most promoted values for which most Buddhists
strive. Its tenets have kept society from the bottom to the top in order.
For leaderships, the king’s virtues have been the main principles to enable
their peaceful and fair government of nation. Whereas the lay community
has followed closely the five precepts and the beyond such as meditation
by which they would be able to attain higher understanding of themselves
and nature and thus can live their lives according to the insights. Buddhist
monks in the past had played significant roles as the conscience of society.
From personal disputes in the village level to more complicated conflicts
involving more than two parties, Buddhist monks had been consulted and
many times had brought the conflicting parties to an agreeable solution.
Modern education and the introduction of Western development which is profoundly
related to the ever increasing attempts to satisfy created needs have contributed
to the declination of the dominant roles of Buddhist monks and their teaching.
Their respectability and leaderships have been eroded to the point that
their conventional teaching can no longer convince the contemporaries.
Worse is their separation from society and their reluctance to be in touch
with social realities including the wide-spread human rights abuse.
However, in the last few years, with assistance from some non-governmental
organisations (NGOs), a group of Buddhist monks has begun to search for
their roots and has become active in addressing social issues again. Their
traditional charisma has made their advice and leaderships easily acceptable
among rural and urban folks. It is believed that they have tremendous potential
to contribute towards a peaceful society.
Under Theravada Buddhism, which prevails in Thai society, the roles of
Buddhist monks in politics have been somewhat limited. They are not supposed
to get directly involved with political matters as they are more or less
considered worldly affairs. Monks can however play the role of an agent
to bring peaceful solutions to conflicting parties. Or at least, their
presence should reduce the chance and the amount of violence used as it
is obvious that the Buddha has never said anything in praise of violence,
but denounced it. There are places in the Buddhist scriptures where stories
of the Buddha’s intervention in conflicting situations to help soothe and
sort out the problems are quoted.
Most importantly, the basic understanding of inter-relatedness between
ourselves and others as well as nature helps underpin non-violence. Once
we are all aware of the inter-relatedness of “inter-being”, as coined by
Thich Nat Hanh, a famous Vietnamese Zen monk, we shall refrain from harming
each other because harming others mean harming parts of ourselves as we
are an inseparable entity. According to Mahayana Buddhism, the Buddha nature,
or the potential to attain the highest As we respect the enlightened one,
and as we are aware that each one of us has the potential to be enlightened,
we then respect the reverence, the sacred nature in each other, and are
not inclined to insult each other.
The concept of inner reverence is very important as far as the rights of
individuals are concerned. In the Western concept of human rights, laws
and regulations are created and enforced to ensure respect of each other’s
rights. But according to the Buddhist thinking, respect of each other’s
rights is dependent on the understanding of the reverent nature existing
in everyone. Both the oppressed and the oppressor have the same potential
to attain the highest truths, thus there is no point to allow mutual exploitation
to
occur.
This perception is very important for peace activists who are often exposed
to different kinds of extreme brutalities. It helps us not to blame the
individuals as the culprits, but to look for the structures from which
social malaise and oppression are created, and tackle them wisely. It also
helps us to be able to forgive both ourselves and others, as we all are
more or less part of the unjust structures. The understanding is a strong
foundation that helps sustain our activism in the long run. In addition,
Buddhist rituals such as chanting, recitation of mantra, etc, can significantly
reduce our disposition towards violence. They help calm down our tempers,
regain our concentration, and create room for peaceful solutions. They
can deal even with structural problems according to the following example.
Buddhist rituals
and natural conservation
One
of the main causes which has led to abuse of human rights and community
rights in Thailand in recent years is the growing tension in natural resource
management. As resources have become scarce and cultivable land has been
decreased as a result of urbanisation and industrialisation, conflicts
between the locals whose survival depends on these immediate resources,
and the authorities, along with the corporations which wanted to get more
access and control over the use of these resources, have inevitably emerged.
In particular, the struggle for the rights to manage local forests should
deserve attention. While local villagers demand for the rights to manage
their forest in a sustainable manner, the authorities attempt to evacuate
them or reduce their control over the resource.
The situation was even worse prior to the logging ban declared and imposed
in 1989. Before then, logging concessions had been given to logging companies
who recklessly used their rights to overexploit the forest. Some villagers
chose to earn easy money by becoming their loggers.
An ingenious local Buddhist monk in a province in Northern Thailand initiated
a ritual which he called “tree ordination” to save the fort near his monastery.
During the ceremony, monks are supposed to recite stanzas and afterwards
wrap yellow (saffron) robes around the tree to mark its sacred nature.
The ceremony is an imitation of monk’s ordination during which the ordained
is given a set of yellow robes to wear. The main purpose is to make people
feel that trees are sacred and that they should not be harmed. Also, the
underpinning notion has to do with traditional belief in spirits which
reside in every part of nature, i.e. trees, rivers, mountains, etc., as
well as to the concept of inner reverence mentioned above.
Villagers were also taken to witness impacts of deforestation in other
provinces. Altogether with this educational activity and the like, the
monk was able to convince the local villagers of the importance of the
forest and thus could help mobilise them to protest against the logging
and to defend their rights to manage their own resources.
The ritual has proved to be successful and has been widely used and adapted
by monks in other regions in order to protect their forests. Its variations
have been fascinating. Some monks applied the ritual further to preserve
rivers, mountains, etc. The ritual itself somewhat has influence on the
officials too. In this way, their common compromise can be more easily
identified and the chance towards violence reduced.
(Back
to Contents)
Kate Saunders, News Researcher
Tibet
Information Network, London
Tibet
is now experiencing the best period in history,” the former Chairman of
the Tibet Autonomous ibet is now experiencing the best period in history,”
the former Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region Gyaltsen Norbu said
last year. He was referring to the development of its economy and new business
opportunities. But are Tibetans in Tibet richer and better off than
before?
In the presentation on population transfer, we have seen that the Chinese
authorities are developing Tibet as a Chinese province, with a linkage
system being established between Tibet and inland Chinese provinces. It
is clear that the same global model of development, in which industry is
the source of wealth and the focus is on urban rather than rural development,
is being applied to China and Tibet. After the 15th Party Congress in October
last year, public pronouncements on the economy in Tibet shifted the emphasis
to encouragement of the private sector. This was used by Tibetan leaders
as an opportunity of placing greater emphasis on encouraging further Chinese
involvement in the Tibetan economy. With this in mind, a two-day “experience
exchange” meeting on economic assistance to Tibet was held in Beijing in
April 1997, attended by representatives from 35 provinces and cities and
from more than 40 central and state departments and other organisations.
Perhaps we should look at Tibet’s economy as two economies - with and without
subsidies from Beijing. The 1996-7 budget showed that while Tibet’s economy
has grown consistently by 10% a year since 1993, a slightly higher rate
of economic growth than China, financial subsidies from Beijing still underpin
development in the region. In 1996, subsidies from China were three times
the total industrial output of that year of approximately $122 million,
up 10.4% on the year before.
The large deficit shown in the TAR budget is a result of “deep-rooted contradiction
in our region’s financial and economic operations,” the finance director
Yang Xiaodu said last year. He listed the main problems with the economy
as follows: limited revenues, the losses of state-owned enterprises, the
loss of uncollected revenue in, for instance, taxes, the use of revenue
to finance non-budgetary expenses, the default of payments, funds circulating
outside the financial system, and a lack of budgetary management and supervision.
To deal with these difficulties, the TAR authorities intend to increase
local revenues, decrease the losses of enterprises, strengthen the collection
of taxation - and step up the fight against corruption.
Yang Xiaodu even admitted: “We are relatively slow in putting such ideas
into practice and lack a spirit of hard struggle with which to act.” His
comment seems to hint at a further hardening of the political line for
government employees and enterprises ¾ a greater emphasis on the
authorities’ “spiritual civilisation” campaign to act as an ideological
control at a time of rapid economic development.
The development of an infrastructure to support mining, agriculture and
industry in the TAR is currently only possible with continued inland investment
in the TAR by China’s provinces and central government. The Third Work
Forum held in Beijing in 1994 set guidelines for this linkage, stating
that the economic reforms in Tibet are to be carried out “according to
the principle of consistency with the framework of the country and linking
up with the economic structure in other parts of the country”.
Since the meeting of the Third Work Forum, which led to some 150 teams
of experts being sent to the TAR by provinces and ministries to prepare
proposals for investment, 6,688 “co-operation projects” have been carried
out. These have had a total cost of $105m, much of it from 14 inland provinces.
The projects started by the inland provinces are ten-year plans, which
include mobilising personnel from their departments and commissions to
provide all-round aid for the region. Six hundred and fifty-eight cadres
from Chinese provinces were sent to work in the TAR during 1996, according
to the report, compared to 500 sent the previous year. Fifty-six of the
62 large-scale infrastructure projects initiated at the time of the Third
Forum in 1994 have been completed at a cost of $440 million. “Most of the
projects were excellent ones,” stated the report. In CCP-speak, this probably
indicates that several failed.
The development of an infrastructure and communication network in Tibet
has continued to be of the highest priority over the past two years. The
1997 government work report again called for preparations for building
a railway into Tibet ¾ a move that would dramatically increase China’s
involvement in the Tibetan economy. The building of roads is also emphasised
in official policy, with highway construction in Tibet planned in Beijing
by the State Development Planning Commission. The Sichuan-Tibet highway
is one of about 20 transportation projects outlined in this year’s list
of 117 key state construction projects. This Sichuan route is a crucial
one; it provides direct access to China’s industrial heartland and is convenient
for the exportation of resources from mineral-rich eastern Tibet.
Last year’s work report also called for the acceleration of hydro-electric
projects at Yamdrok Tso, Menlha and Woka, which would increase power supply
in the region by about 50%, providing essential power for the expansion
of industry. The Yamdrok Tso project was reported to have finally started
producing power in September. The benefits or otherwise to local people
of many of these major projects have not yet been fully assessed, although
unofficial reports from the region indicate that the Yamdrok Tso project,
for instance, has not yet led to improved power supplies for local villages.
With regard to mineral resources, evidence from the unpublished TAR Specialist
Plan and other official sources indicates that China is planning to develop
mining in a major way in Tibet. Figures given for estimated production
in the Specialist Plan suggest that potential output is seen as a inseparable
component of China’s own mineral availability. Xinhua reported last October
that potential oilfields in the Changtang plateau in northern Tibet comprised
the “last and largest oil belt” in the inland area. Advanced preparations
for full-scale development of a large copper-mine in Chamdo, the Yulong
copper mine, were also announced. Executive vice chairman of the TAR Yang
Chuangtang has said that there are plans for this mine to be one of the
biggest in Asia. However, it is not yet clear yet whether accurate figures
of mineral resources are being given by the authorities or whether full
statistics on mineral exploitation are included in those of the economy
as a whole.
The amended Mineral Resources Law, which came into force on 1 January 1997,
brings autonomous regions including the TAR in line with the “unified national
plan”. The Law states as follows: “The autonomous government organisations
of the nationalities’ autonomous areas shall, in accordance with legal
provisions and the unified national plan, have priority to develop and
utilise those mineral resources that may be developed by local groups.
In mining mineral resources in nationalities’ autonomous areas, the state
shall give due consideration to the interests of those areas and make arrangements
favourable to the areas’ economic development and to the production and
livelihood of the local minority nationalities”.
So do the Chinese authorities ensure that the livelihood of “local minorities”
in Tibet is protected? It seems not. To improve the so-called “low level”
of Tibet’s geological work, the authorities plan to attract new technical
personnel - who are usually from China. These workers are frequently paid
three or four times more than they would be in Chinese provinces.
Dr Peter Cook, Director of the British Geological Survey, drew attention
to the sensitivity of nationality issues in mining at an International
Geological Congress in Beijing in August 1996. But Dr Cook told me that
a specific part of his speech, about the accessibility of mineral resources
being affected by the local population, was strangely omitted from the
transcript when it appeared in the official media.
This is the extract of Dr Cook’s speech that the Chinese censors omitted:
“Accessibility may be limited by the legislative framework of a state or
country, by political instability, by environmental concerns or by issues
related to indigenous people. In other words a deposit can be economic,
and it can be geologically proven, but it may still fall into the unusable
‘resource’ category because it is inaccessible for socio-political rather
than economic reasons. It is this more than anything else that will limit
our access to minerals in future.” Clearly the nature of his general comments
on socio-political aspects affecting mineral resources was rather too pertinent
for Dr Cook’s Chinese hosts.
The linkage currently being established between Tibet and the provinces
allows the Chinese authorities greater leverage in controlling the workforce.
The notion of stability - a Chinese euphemism for control - is inseparable
from the economic development of Tibet. Director of the Regional Finance
department Yang Xiaodu said in his introduction to the draft budget for
1997: “In the light of the general requirement for seeking further progress
on the basis of stability, we are to effectively strengthen macro-economic
regulation and control, to deepen reform, to vigorously develop the sources
of revenue, and to optimise the distribution of funds in order to provide
effective support and good services for reform, development and stability
in Tibet.”
We have recently had unconfirmed reports from Tibet that Tibetan cadres
may be displaced from their jobs due to stricter selection exams in the
public sector which test their ideological reliability. According to this
information, workers employed in government offices and educational and
scientific institutions, are now required to be tested on their sympathetic
attitude to the historical struggle for political change under the leadership
of the CCP and their clear-cut stand on countering splittism.
It is another phase in the wide-ranging patriotic education campaign currently
being carried out in Tibet, applied to the job market and potentially creating
more obstacles to the Tibetan workforce. Taxation is another method used
by the authorities to impose control on the Tibetan population, particularly
nomads and herders in remote rural regions of Tibet. An independent report
by a Tibetan researcher based on official documents from an area in Qinghai
states that increasing taxation is causing financial hardship and reducing
many nomads to begging as a source of income. Farmers who cannot afford
to pay taxes representing sometimes half of their average annual income
have their animals or even grazing land taken away by the authorities.
The problem appears to stem not only from regional policies, but from a
system in which the tax organisation has been decentralised and hence local
cadres and state enterprise workers at a shang or township level have to
fund most of their own wages and costs from revenue they raise themselves.
The cadres do this by increasing the tax rate, by keeping the price paid
by the government for compulsory procurement of grain of livestock below
the market rate, or by underestimating the weight or quality of animals
produced in lieu of taxes.
The Tibetan researcher states in his report that Tibetans pay a far greater
percentage of their income in tax than Chinese in the area. He says: “The
Chinese who make up just under half of the population of about 40,000 people
in the area, are mainly employed as cadres, factory workers, traders and
farmers, whereas the Tibetans are predominantly engaged in animal husbandry
and are mainly nomads. A nominal tax is collected from the Chinese traders
and farmers, but this is much lower than the taxes charged to Tibetans
involved in animal husbandry.” The reason for this tax differential, he
says, is that local taxation rates for farming and industry are based on
a national system, whereas taxation of people involved in animal husbandry
varies from province to province. Hence taxation in this sector is levied
in accordance with the needs of county level governments, giving rise to
illegal tax imposition and collection
practices.
Taxation imposed in rural areas on Tibetans working in the agricultural
sector includes taxation based on the number of animals owned, a wool tax
levied by the state, taxes levied on the hair, hide and skin of a yak,
a poll tax of about 2% of one’s income and a national meat tax. These different
types of agricultural tax are levied from nomads who do not own farmland.
The following extract is taken directly from the report by the Tibetan
researcher – we have had to withhold his name, and also are unable to specify
the particular area of Qinghai he refers to: “What is the percentage of
the Chinese cadres working for the local government? They account for nearly
80 per cent. Likewise, in business and factories, the number of Chinese
people is 95 per cent. Most occupations relating to electronics, travel
and transport, medicine and so on are held by Chinese. Therefore, the county
government’s claims that they are investing in education, trade and industry,
power, travel and transport and so on for development is tantamount to
collecting taxes from the Tibetans for distribution among the Chinese.
“In addition, a large quantity of minerals and coal is also being extracted
from this area. All developmental works have not been of an iota of benefit
for the sons of the soil, the Tibetans. Their wide grasslands are traversed
by rails, and built up with expanding townships and large agricultural
farms that force the nomads out of their traditional grazing lands.”
The establishment of a provincial level state taxation administration and
local tax bureaux in Tibet follows the completion of a decentralised system
in 29 Chinese provinces and regions by August 1994. Until now, Tibet had
only a state taxation administration dating back to the 1950s and 1960s.
In September last year, Xinhua said: “The changes have responded to the
new economic situation in Tibet, so as to reinforce the autonomous region’s
economic power.”
Even that familiar and resented figure, the tax collector, has the spiritual
role of upholding ideology in Tibet. In August 1997, Yang Chuantang announced
that “an army of tax collectors imbued with a high level of awareness and
knowledge should be established.” This model army should not only carry
out its tax collection duties effectively, it should also “consolidate
foundations on the psychological front”. TIN has received a number of powerful
reports from Tibetans on poverty throughout Tibet, frequently caused by
excess taxation. A Tibetan sociologist who had spent several weeks in eastern
Tibet carrying out interviews with government officials and local people
said that extreme poverty in the region was caused partially by the denial
of control over the economy to the local population.
I would like to read you a section of an interview we carried out with
a Tibetan who travelled to the Shigatse region of central Tibet in 1997
after living in exile for several years. “I didn’t find any signs of progress
when compared to the situation before I first escaped many years ago. The
main noticeable feature was the collection of a range of taxes collected
under different names. Since a few farmers had raised questions like: ‘Why
should we pay taxes to the Government for our own land?’ punitive measures
have been introduced to deal with such farmers, branding their actions
as anti-state and anti-Party. “Although towns like Lhasa and Shigatse are,
relatively speaking, better off, the large majority of the farming households
below the average standard of living are so destitute that they hardly
have a yuan in cash. The price of living has also shot up in rural and
urban areas. For example, in 1991, a bag of fertiliser used to cost 18
yuan but now costs 80 yuan! These fertilisers are compulsory items of purchase
backed by threats of punishment for failure to do so. Whereas the prices
of all Chinese made consumer goods have risen, the local products of the
villages have gone down in value. In one county I visited there was even
less progress. Just as in former times, except for the leaders and cadres,
no provision or consideration has yet been made about electricity supply
for the people.”
The interviewee concluded: “Except for the feeling of joy in the reunion
with my parents and relatives, it was a sad experience to find that there
was no signs of development or economic progress in my native land.”
The restructuring and reforms in China itself have led to the arrival of
more skilled and unskilled workers to Tibet in search of employment, creating
further competition for Tibetans in their own country. Social services
and welfare are also of course affected by the shifts in the economy based
on a Chinese model.
As in China, state-owned enterprises in Tibet are being told to rid themselves
of their social service functions and, as officials explain, to “make arrangements
for the diversion of the enterprises’ redundant personnel”. This move can
only increase unemployment in the region, as in China. The Tibetan government
apparently plans to gradually establish a social security system suited
to the socialist market economic structure based on insurance payments
to cover old age, unemployment and medical needs. The 1997 work report
makes no commitment to provide free medical care or education, which are
also effectively disbanded in China.
There is a growing middle-class of Tibetans who rise above difficulties
imposed on them by the system and succeed in business. There is apparently
something of a vogue to employ young Tibetans in private companies in Lhasa
at the moment - and 4,500 Tibetans are registered on the stock market in
Lhasa. However, as we glimpsed in the portrayal of Dorjee in the film Lungta
last night, this is counter-balanced by an underclass of Tibetans who spend
their time in casinos, bars and karaoke joints - to which Chinese people
are frequently denied access.
Apart from a wealthy group of Tibetans who participate fully in new job
opportunities offered since opening up, Tibetans are certainly not making
a profit out of the Chinese presence in their country. It is not yet clear
whether the Chinese are making a profit from Tibet; we do not have enough
accurate statistics on the exploitation of Tibet’s natural resources such
as forests or minerals to deduce this. Chinese statistics are notoriously
unreliable, and any researcher on the economy of Tibet or China will soon
find that they are only being given fragments of the picture and not the
whole story.
The picture given to the outside world on the Tibetan economy is, as the
director of the finance department of the TAR government admitted in his
assessment of the budget, that the situation is “grim”. With this in mind,
the Chinese aim to encourage foreign investment and expertise in Tibet.
I spoke to representatives of an American company who visited the Yulong
copper mine in Chamdo - this mine is, incidentally, the only one likely
to attract foreign investment in the near future. They told me that the
authorities in charge changed their minds several times, and finally decided
not to relinquish control over Yulong - so the US company pulled out of
the project.
The TAR authorities appear to want foreign investment, but do not always
take the next step, which is to approve equity and formalise interest in
a project. The inflexibility of the authorities in addition to the poor
infrastructure, high altitude and remote locations of some of the projects
on offer are key factors discouraging some foreign companies from investment
in Tibet. Other concerns include the extremely time-consuming bureaucracy
and the repatriation of profit; it is not yet known whether new foreign
regulations will make it easy for investors to take money out of Tibet
or whether they are allowed only to re-invest in China and Tibet.
As in China itself, the authorities are blowing hot and cold where foreign
investment is concerned. The state does not want to give up any control,
and it wants foreign investors to take all the risks. Investors in China
know the problems from personal experience - and insist they are in it
for the long-term. In the short term, most foreign companies in China are
making little profit. Threats of losing trade deals frequently make foreign
governments withdraw criticisms of China’s human rights abuses - as we
have seen in this year’s UN High Commission on Human Rights where European
countries under Britain’s Presidency decided not to back a resolution against
China. They decided on behind closed doors negotiation with China, instead
of open confrontation. However as far as we know, virtually no country
has lost a trade deal following criticism of China, for instance, with
reference to Tibet.
Tibetan people are clearly at a considerable disadvantage both ideologically
and financially in the economic sphere in Tibet. They face increased competition
in the job market, and in the agricultural sector - which underpins the
whole Tibetan economy - their traditional skills and experience are undervalued
and undermined.
When official reference is made to Tibetans’ roles within the economy,
it is generally in negative terms. For instance, on 15 December last year,
the Tibet Daily stated: “One of the most important reasons why Tibet lags
behind the rest of China in development is because Tibet has not shaped
a social environment favourable for development, and has not correctly
solved problems existing in the spiritual sphere.” According to a statement
by the regional CCP, it is necessary in promoting economic development
to “eliminate undesirable and negative mental attitudes” which apparently
include “closed and conservative thinking, blindly resisting foreign things,
and seeking no progress.”
While a certain group of Tibetans is enjoying unprecedented success in
business following the economic opening up of the country, an overview
of the economic system in Tibet must lead us to conclude that Tibetans
are generally excluded at every level from participating in the development
of their economy, from the exploitation of resources to key policy decisions
at a local and regional level on the economic future of their country.
(Back
to Contents)
Tsultrim Palden, Environment Desk
Department
of Information and International Relations
Tibetan
Government-in-Exile
Good morning ladies and gentlemen. It is a great pleasure to be here with
you to share some thoughts on Tibet’s environment. I would like to thank
Mr. Lobsang Nyandak, Director, Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy
and Mr. Ravi Nair, Director South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center
for giving me this opportunity.
Let me begin by saying that the right to health; the right to safe and
healthy working conditions; the right to adequate housing and food; these
are all fundamental human rights as recognized in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights. And all these rights are directly related to the
environment and have significant environmental dimensions. In short, human
rights cannot be fully realized in a degraded and polluted environment.
Therefore, the right to a healthy environment is also a human right.
I will now talk about some environmental issues in my homeland. Tibet occupies
an area of 2.5 million square kilometers. With an average altitude
of 13,000 feet above sea level, it is situated in the center of Asia and
is often called the Roof of the World. It abounds in wonderful high mountains,
numerous turquoise lakes, extensive grasslands, and great river valleys,
and is home to about six million Tibetans.
Most of the major rivers of Asia originate from Tibet, such as the Yarlung
Tsangpo (Brahmaputra), Machu (Yellow River or Huang-ho), Dzachu (Mekong),
Gyalmo Ngulchu (Salween), Drichu (Yangtze), Senge Khabab (Indus), Langchen
Khabab (Sutlej) and Bhongchu (Arun). Brahmaputra river for example,
provides 20 percent of India’s total water resources.
Thus the floods in Bangladesh, or the famine in South China, or the high
siltation rate in the down stream foothills of the Himalayas affecting
millions of people in China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia,
and Thailand are related to the environmental stability of the high Tibetan
Plateau.
Tibetan ecological
ethic
Tibetans for centuries lived in harmony with nature guided by their Buddhist
culture, which emphasizes the interdependence of man and nature. This belief
is further strengthened by their belief in the principle of Ahimsa (non-violence)
or injury to all living beings and traditional adherence to the principle
of self-contentment: that the environment should be used to fulfill one’s
need, and not greed.
In the Horse Water Year (1642), His Holiness the Great Fifth Dalai Lama,
Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso, became the spiritual and political mentor of Tibet.
From this date, in the tenth month of every year, a Decree for the Protection
of Animals and Environment was issued in the name of the Dalai Lama.
Tibet’s environmental
problems today
With the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1949, the nature-friendly attitude
of the Tibetan people was trampled upon by the aggressive Communist ideology.
The invasion was followed by widespread environmental destruction, resulting
in deforestation, grassland degradation, uncontrolled mining, nuclear waste
dumping, soil erosion, landslides, loss of biodiversity, and other perils.
Deforestation
The forest cover of Tibet declined from 25.2 million hectares in 1949 to
13.57 million hectares in 1985 alone, which means a 46 percent destruction.
According to Chinese statistics, timber extraction in Tibet until 1985
totaled 2,442 million cubic meters, worth US $54 billion on the international
market. No recent figure is available due to Chinese government secrecy,
especially of their destruction in Tibet.
Timber felling permits in Tibet are given or sold for hard cash as the
Chinese guanxi (personal connection) system is prevalent in the administration.
Tibet’s forests are indiscriminately cut and logs are furiously transported
by trucks and rivers to China.
Tibet’s forests are in danger of being destroyed by military and
governmental deforestation. Secret footage of tree-cutting in Tibet
called “Cutting Down Tibet” broadcast by the BBC on 13 May, 1996 shows
logging operations near Dawu in Kham (eastern Tibet) about 500 km east
of Kongpo, where timber is transported by up to 300 trucks each day eastward
into China.
An eyewitness account of members of the International Commission for the
Rights of Indigenous people International, France visited Tibet in June
1995 and I quote, “Between 5-6 pm each day we saw a convoy of military
trucks passing through Lithang, eastern Tibet. These trucks were loaded
with timber. When taking the bus from Lithang to Dhartsedo, it seemed that
the number of trucks heavily overloaded with logs were endless. We saw
huge expanses of mountainsides completely deforested and scattered with
logs. The traffic of trucks from Chamdo road to Chengdu was constant, not
only with log filled trucks but also other military vehicles.”
Degradation of
Grassland
Tibet is 70 percent grassland and the health of these extensive pastures
are fundamental to the survival of about one million people, consisting
mainly of nomads, and about 70 million population of domestic animals such
as sheep, goats, and yaks and numerous wild animals.
Many cases of grassland degradation in Tibet are related to extensive use
of nomadic pastures for Chinese military encampments and installations.
In the Machu district of Amdo (Qinghai), one-third of over 10,000 sq. km
of Tibetan grasslands have been fenced for exclusive grazing of horses
and cattle belonging to the Chinese army.
Moreover the increased number of Chinese settlers coming into the lower
valleys of Tibet (winter pastures of nomads) have disrupted the traditional
migration pattern of nomadic herds, thereby pushing them to marginal areas
leading to overgrazing. The conversion of marginal lands to agriculture
has become the greatest threat to Tibet’s grasslands. This problem has
especially devastated the vast grasslands of Amdo.
Loss of biodiversity
Contrary to popular belief, Tibet is not simply barren and cold. The amazing
high altitude and unique landscapes of Tibet have generated habitats
for numerous rare and endemic animal and plant species. According to a
Chinese statistic, central Tibet alone has more than 5760 varieties of
plants of which 3,000 have economic value, and there are more than 1,000
varieties of medicinal herbs. Tibet is rich in many rare and endangered
wild animals such as giant panda, Asiatic black bear, red panda, snow leopard,
and others.
But this wealth of animals is no longer seen due to high rate of hunting
and trapping of wild animals as increasing numbers of Chinese settlers
pour into Tibet, leading to the loss of wildlife habitats. There is widespread
hunting of Tibetan wild animals. A permit to hunt a rare Tibetan antelope
is US $35,000 and a rare Tibetan argali sheep US $23,000. Endangered species
of Tibet, such as snow leopard, giant panda, black-necked crane, and wild
yak enjoy protection only on Chinese government paper. According to Li
Bosheng (1995), a Chinese researcher, there are 81 endangered species on
the Tibetan Plateau, which includes 39 mammals, 37 birds, four amphibians
and one reptile.
China is monopolizing international attention and using the giant panda
to earn hard cash as well as to gain political leverage from influential
countries, even as the species is threatened with extinction. China gave
two endangered giant pandas to Hong Kong on July 1, 1997 to mark the change
of sovereignty. Earlier China gave two rare giant pandas to the then British
Prime Minister, Edward Heath and a pair to the then U.S. president Richard
Nixon.
Nuclear toxic
waste
Tibet has known no nuclear waste or other poisonous chemicals before because
Tibetans believe in living simple lives. However, after the Chinese
occupation of Tibet international media reported dumping of nuclear waste
and other toxic chemicals in Tibet. Tibetans from Amdo have reported extensive
pollution of land and water, and widespread mysterious deaths resulting
from fever, vomiting, and dysentary.
The effects of harmful radioactive pollutants dumped in Tibet will be felt
beyond its borders, particularly because Tibet is the principle source
of major rivers of Asia. The jet streams (high altitude winds) blowing
over Tibet may exacerbate the situation by carrying radioactive atmospheric
pollutants into human
settlements
in the neighboring countries.
Earlier China consistently denied any existence of nuclear waste in Tibet,
but the official Chinese news agency, Xinhua reported on 19th July 1995
there is a “20 square meter dump for radioactive pollutants” in Haibei
Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture near the shores of lake Kokonor, the largest
lake on the Tibetan Plateau.
According to the June 1996 issue of Scientific American China is planning
to conduct a “Nuclear Explosion” to divert water of Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmmaputra)
to areas of the Gobi desert. Such a nuclear explosion will affect the lives
of millions of people not only in Tibet, but in India, and Bangladesh which
are the watershed areas of Yarlung Tsangpo.
Unsustainable
extraction of minerals
Tibet has deposits of about 126 different minerals accounting for a significant
share of the entire world’s reserves such as gold, lithium, chromite, copper,
borax, uranium, iron, and others. Systematic and large-scale mining in
Tibet began in the 1960’s. Today mining and mineral extraction form the
largest economic activity in the industrial sector of Central Tibet and
Amdo. Commercial extraction of minerals without adequate environmental
impact assessment has stripped large tracts of Eastern Tibet to the bedrock.
Given the fragile mountain ecosystem such unsustainable practice cause
severe environmental devastation. The declining mineral reserves in China
today further increase the mining activity in Tibet.
Unsustainable
Development
The Chinese government, in the name of developing Tibet, is gearing up
unsustainable ‘development projects’ in Tibet. These projects undermine
the livelihood of Tibetans and moreover put an extra burden on the fragile
ecosystem of Tibet. These so- called development projects in Tibet
are all conceived by the Chinese leaders in far away Beijing. There is
no Tibetan participation, nor do Tibetans have decision-making powers regarding
the where and what of these ‘development projects’. Ironically these
projects are intended to benefit Tibetans.
The Chinese government’s Yamdrok Tso hydroelectric project in Tibet, about
100 km to the southwest of Lhasa, is an unsustainable and environmentally
catastrophic venture. This project plans to drop the water of the lake
through a height of 846 meters to produce electricity. This project is
bound to cause irreparable damage to the ecosystem of this sacred lake.
Effects of environmental
degradation of Tibet
At this alarming rate of environmental destruction, after only a few decades
the ecological balance will be irreversibly disturbed to such an extent
that Tibet will be reduced to a barren howling land. This would mean the
automatic disappearance of a large number of rare and endangered animals
and plants, which will be a terrible loss not only to Tibet but also the
whole world.
The Tibetan people and their unique culture, which is capable of contributing
new ideas and philosophy to the welfare of humanity at large, may vanish
from the face of this earth if the cradle of this unique civilization –
Tibet’s environment – is allowed to be destroyed by China. With the destruction
of the old-growth primary forest of the Tibetan Plateau, it will mean the
loss of habitats for rare and endangered wild animals and medicinal plants.
A tree found in the forest region of Tibet – (Taxus wallichiana) is the
source of the allopathic drug toxol. This drug is regarded as one of the
most effective for cancer.
The environmental upset of Tibet has trans-boundary effects. Tibet, as
mentioned earlier is the main source of principle rivers of the Asian subcontinent.
So, river pollution in Tibet is bound to affect the environmental health
and lives of millions of people in downstream watershed regions of Asia.
When the polluted waters of these rivers mix with the earth’s ocean water,
it will cause the depletion in the number of various marine plankton and
other organisms such as fish, crabs, lobsters, shrimps, etc, which are
consumed locally and exported around the world through international trade.
The impact of Tibetan Plateau on global climate is significant. Scientists
have observed that there is a correlation between natural vegetation on
the Tibetan Plateau and the stable monsoon. Monsoon rain is very essential
for the bread-baskets of South Asia. 70 percent of India’s annual rainfall
comes from the monsoons. However, strong monsoon rains can cause havoc
in these regions.
A study by professor Elmar Reiter, USA, notes definite relationship between
variations in the pattern of jet streams (high altitude winds) over
Tibetan Plateau and a number of global weather anomalies. These anomalies
include high winter sea-surface temperatures over the North Atlantic that
bring sunny weather to Europe, and typhoons in the Pacific, which often
bring rain and floods in Eastern China. Pacific typhoons, in turn, result
in the interruption of trade winds off the coast of the Americas, which
is responsible for the el nino (warm water ocean current) phenomenon, which
in turn stirs up ocean water causing disruption of the marine food Chain.
This affects the entire economy of Peru and Ecuador. South coastal storms
wreak havoc on the Peru, Ecuador and California coastline, while New Zealand,
Australia, India and southern Africa reels under dreadful droughts.
Conclusion
We are still far from understanding the environmental significance of Tibet.
The 9th Five Year Plan (1996-2000) and Investment Guidelines for Tibet
issued by the government of China targets resource exploitation at the
expense of destroying Tibet’s environment.
Our research show that the great river systems that originate from the
Tibetan Plateau impact 85 percent of Asia’s population or 47 percent of
the world population. Therefore, ecological problems of the high Tibetan
Plateau are not only a concern for Tibetans, but also for the whole world
community. In short, we can no longer ignore the environmental devastation
occurring on the Roof of the World.
There is still hope for Tibet, if right-thinking people all over the world
make a commitment to heal the ecological ills. People from the South Asian
countries have a special responsibility to preserve the environment of
the Tibetan Plateau because of the obvious ecological connections. International
pressure and opinions could play a major role in putting back the ecological
balance of Tibet, where man and nature could once again live in harmony.
A peace zone where all human beings from all nations and cultures can come
for solace, inspiration, hope, and peace of mind, as proposed by His Holiness
the Dalai Lama in his Five Point Peace Plan for Tibet.
(Back
to Contents)
Elizabeth Cossor, Research Associate
Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy
An
estimated 700 Tibetan children travel into exile each year. Some are still
babies and must be carried n estimated 700 Tibetan children travel into
exile each year. Some are still babies and must be carried across the Himalayas
on someone’s back - a journey averaging at least four weeks. Many are sent,
unaccompanied, by their parents who entrust them to strangers and use their
savings to buy their son or daughter’s passage to freedom. In 1996, of
the 2000 Tibetans who fled Tibet, 45 percent were children and 80 percent
of these were unaccompanied by parents. Some children die on the perilous
trip and, even if they survive, there is a high chance that the child will
never see his or her family in Tibet again.
What
compels a mother or father to do this? According to accounts by Tibetan
refugees the decision is made in desperation to give their son or daughter
a chance to receive education and, most critically, a culturally-relevant
education, i.e. an education that includes teaching in their mother tongue
and lessons on Tibetan culture, religion, history and politics.
At the same time Chinese authorities claim that Tibetan children are receiving
educational opportunities unheard of before 1959: In the “Tibet Autonomous
Region” thousands of schools have been constructed, school attendance rates
have increased, illiteracy rates have fallen, high-performing Tibetan children
even have the opportunity to attend schools in China. So why does this
child exodus continue, and in greater numbers? What is the true state of
education in Tibet today?
In answering this question we must rely heavily on the accounts of children
themselves. In the spring of 1997 the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and
Democracy conducted interviews with 50 Tibetan children who had fled Tibet
in the previous three years. The resulting report revealed the imposition
of prohibitively high school fees, the phasing out of Tibetan language
and culture, racial discrimination, indoctrination lessons and excessively
cruel punishments. Ninety-six percent of the children, who ranged in age
from 9 to 21 and represented all areas of Tibet, said they had fled Tibet
specifically for education.
Based
on the results of this study we concluded that the People’s Republic of
China had directly contravened at least eight provisions of the United
Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child which it ratified
on 2 March 1992. Since that time, China has also become a signatory to
the United Nations’ Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in
October 1997 which also contains specific provisions with regard to the
right of all to education and the positive duty of States to take steps
to fulfil this obligation to the maximum of its available resources. Moreover,
China’s own domestic laws proclaim the duty as well as the right to receive
education (in its Constitution) and equal educational opportunities for
all (in its Education law).
The right to education is also a precondition for the exercise of other
human rights. It is an empowerment right that provides an individual with
control over his or her life and the ability to interact meaningfully with
others in his or her community. The enjoyment of many civil and political
rights, such as the freedom of information and expression, as well as many
economic, social and cultural rights, such as the right to choose work
and to have equal access to public representation, are aided through a
minimum level of basic education.
In Tibet today the right to education has a particularly crucial role.
Economically, Tibetans cannot compete with the estimated 7.5 million Chinese
settlers in Tibet. Enticed by substantial financial and social benefits
that include educational and employment opportunities, the Chinese not
only outnumber the Tibetan people, they also wield the economic and political
power. Well-equipped schools established by the Chinese government, and
there have been many, are found in Tibetan cities and county headquarters
and benefit an urban population that consists primarily of Chinese settlers
rather than traditionally rural dwellers. Local schools administered by
Tibetans are desperately short of resources; frequently without furniture
or trained teachers.
The implication of China’s population transfer is also profound for the
preservation of Tibetans’ strong religious traditions, their language and
customs. As they become more and more disempowered and marginalised in
their own country, the role of education becomes more and more vital for
the future of the Tibetan people. Yet roughly one third of school-aged
children in Tibet continue to receive no education at all, compared with
just 1.5 percent of Chinese children. This is a figure submitted by China
to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child in 1995. This
is not due solely to the remoteness of some Tibetan regions, an argument
frequently invoked by the PRC to explain why many Tibetan children do not
receive education, but rather to the prohibitively high school fees charged
by Chinese authorities and discrimination against Tibetan children in school
admission.
Despite the Convention on the Rights of the Child’s requirement that primary
education should be compulsory and available free to all, only 17 percent
of the interviewed students who had received primary education in Tibet
(who comprised 76 percent of the total 50 interviewees) were not required
to pay school fees at all. Primary school fees paid varied from 20 yuan
to over 6000 yuan (or US$3 to $750) per year. This is in a country where,
in 1992, Chinese authorities estimated the average yearly income in rural
areas to be about 800 yuan (US$100).
A 10-year-old girl who had never received any education explained why:
“At school the teachers demanded 50 yuan a month to sit on a chair, 50
yuan to have a table and another 25 yuan for the books. My father was a
lorry driver for the Chinese government. He received only 50 yuan per month.
With this money we had to buy a sack of tsampa (flour of roasted barley)
to have some food. So my parents could not afford to send me to school.”
For entrance to secondary school and tertiary institutes, all students
must pass an entrance exam conducted in Chinese language and many children
report that bribes or guanxi (“connections”) are also required for entrance.
A 14-year-old girl from the Tibetan capital Lhasa said, “In order to be
admitted to the middle school I had to pay a lot of bribes. First I had
to bring presents for the head of the school to pass the entry examination.
Later I had to bring presents to the teachers. These were all expensive
presents: alcohol, spirits, fruit, perfume and that sort of thing.” Another
child claimed, “If there was a brilliant Tibetan student, the Chinese teacher
would erase the Tibetan name and put a Chinese name instead. When you paid
bribes, you were sure to pass the exams, no matter how good you were.”
A
particularly menacing aspect of China’s educational policy in Tibet today
is the degree to which the classroom is being used as a forum for political
indoctrination. The Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises that
the purpose of education is to allow a child to develop his or her own
ideas and perceptions.
In contrast, a Chinese broadcast in 1994 declared, “As a place for cultivating
people, schools are not a forum for ‘freedom’. Schools should be captured
by socialism. We should not allow splittist elements and religious idealism
to use the classrooms to poison people’s sons and daughters.” In November
1996, the Tibet Central Committee launched a so-called “Last Battle” against
the Dalai Lama and, identifying Tibetan youth as the “key battleground”,
called on every school “to push socialist teachings and focus on political
and ideological education.” These political campaigns appear closely aligned
with intensifying efforts by Chinese authorities to “sinicise” Tibetan
children (i.e. imbue them with Chinese characteristics). Under the provisions
of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, education should include
teaching a child respect for her or his own cultural identity, language
and values, yet Chinese authorities have for some time linked Tibetan language
to Tibetan nationalism and thus to a propensity for “splittist” activities.
By repressing the use of Tibetan language and the knowledge of Tibetan
culture and history, it seems China hopes to completely integrate the next
generation of Tibetans into China. In 1987 the “Tibet Autonomous Region”
(“TAR”) introduced legislation that prioritised Tibetan language as the
medium of education for Tibetans, stipulating that by 1997 most lessons
in senior middle schools and technical secondary education, as well as
all new junior middle schools, should be in Tibetan. In contrast, in April
1997, “TAR” officials announced that Tibetan language would no longer be
the sole language for education in primary schools and implied that in
some cases Chinese would actually replace Tibetan altogether.
From secondary schooling onwards all Tibetan children are taught in Chinese
medium with the exception of 40 “special schools”. Many Tibetan students
enter secondary school with no background knowledge in Chinese language,
having grown up in a Tibetan-speaking household. As a result of language
disadvantages, Tibetan students are often placed together into “lower stream”
classes and assigned inferior facilities and less qualified teachers, inevitably
falling behind the other students. While the majority of primary school
students are Tibetan, at the level of secondary schooling and especially
tertiary education there is a disproportionate increase in the number of
Chinese students. The drop-out rate for Tibetan students is estimated at
80 percent for primary school level, 46 percent for junior middle
school and 17 percent for senior middle school. At each level there is
a higher proportion of Chinese students. These are not only the children
of Chinese settlers but also students who are attracted to Tibet because
they have failed to secure a seat in a higher middle school in China or
to boost their chance to gain a university seat in Tibet where the entrance
standard is considerably lower than in China.
Tibetan children attending Chinese-administered schools report receiving
almost no education on their cultural heritage. Most students report that
they were constantly indoctrinated about the greatness of Chinese Communist
leaders and that if they chose not to answer ideological questions “properly”,
they risked failure or beatings.
One girl reported that all students had to sing the Chinese national anthem,
starting at grade one: “At that time I didn’t know the Chinese national
anthem at all and for this the teacher forced me to stretch out my lips
and then he would hit my lips with a stick.” Another said when he
asked his teacher to explain more about Tibetan history, “my teacher got
so mad at me for asking this question that he hit me with a big stick on
my legs and head. If you failed the political questions you would not progress
to the higher class. My parents also refused to teach me anything about
Tibet because they were afraid that the Chinese would get mad.”
Tibetan children now in exile report being forbidden while in school to
wear Tibetan clothes, to eat Tibetan food, to observe Tibetan holidays
and to carry photographs of the Dalai Lama. Teaching about Tibet carries
serious risks for both teacher and student.
One 19-year-old girl told how she had attended a private Tibetan school
run by a high lama where she had the opportunity to study Tibetan politics
and Tibetan opera for three years. She reported, “After three years the
Chinese authorities closed the school, telling us it was because this school
made us serve Tibetan authorities as we did before 1959. The Chinese also
told us that the lama who started the school was a fake lama and that he
worked together with the Chinese. The lama was put in prison by the Chinese.
Two months after the school’s closure I was put in prison because, the
Chinese told me, I had attended a very bad school. My parents had to pay
bribes to get me out of prison”.
Some school children were coerced by teachers to spy on their parents at
home. “Three or four times a week we were asked whether our parents talked
about Tibetan politics or the Dalai Lama. When the children admitted that
their parents spoke about these things they were rewarded with presents
- with money or food. The parents were then called to meetings and sometimes
fined or put into prison, “ said a 14-year-old boy.
Education in Tibet often includes curriculum that teaches that the Tibetan
people are inferior to Chinese and that the Tibetan tradition is backward.
A 19-year-old girl remembered, “I did not understand the Chinese language
well enough so I had to ask t he teacher again and again. If most of the
Tibetans did not understand his explanation in Chinese he used to scold
us, calling us “dirty Tibetans” or “stupid Tibetans”. A 14-year-old boy
said that his teacher told him, “You are Tibetan and of no use” and made
him clean the classroom.
Tibetan children are keen to go to China for further study, citing the
low level of education in Tibet as the reason. In 1995, China’s official
news agency Xinhua reported that 13,000 Tibetans had enrolled in educational
institutes in China since 1985, and that 10,000 Tibetans were currently
enrolled, representing 28 percent of Tibetans in all secondary education.
This policy of bringing Tibetan students to China rather than sending teachers
to Tibet or training teachers in Tibet results in various negative effects
including loss of language and cultural identity, problems of family relations
and reduced funding for education within Tibet itself.
In independent Tibet, over 6,000 monasteries and nunneries traditionally
served as Tibet’s educational institutes in addition to lay schools. Still
today, or perhaps especially today, monastic education is often the only
way in which Tibetan children can gain access to a basic, Tibet-related
education. Yet this too has been strictly restricted by Chinese authorities.
Traditionally, monastic education begins from an early age but under China’s
Strike Hard campaign and attendant “patriotic re-education” drive, launched
in Tibet in April 1996, novice monks and nuns below 18, or in some cases
16 years of age, have been denied entrance to monasteries and nunneries.
In addition, between May 1996 and February 1998, 937 monks and nuns below
18 were recorded as expelled from their monasteries and nunneries.
In conclusion then, it is clear that the People’s Republic of China has
improved school facilities in Tibet in recent years. We certainly don’t
question that. But when we consider whether China is fulfilling its international
obligations it is crucial to identify who exactly is receiving the benefits
of these improvements in Tibet.
In order to cater to the huge influx of Chinese settlers and their children,
schools have been built in urban areas. The vast majority of Tibetans have
no access to adequate schooling or are unable to attend due to prohibitively
high admission fees. Even when a child can afford the fees, the bribes
and the other charges, discrimination makes it difficult to qualify for
admission to secondary or tertiary education. Those children seemingly
fortunate enough to gain admission recall being lost in lessons taught
in a foreign language and idle class time waiting for a teacher to show
up. In an attempt to sinicise Tibetan children, students received Chinese
indoctrination lessons and their freedom of thought, religion and expression
were denied.
As in any society, the children are the key to its future. Based on the
current state of education in Tibet, the future promises to be one of under-education,
unemployment and loss of identity. We must be realistic about the current
situation in Tibet. At present there are many, many Chinese living in Tibet
¾ whatever that figure may be ¾ we know now that their presence
is so tangible and their position so strong that it would be foolish to
suggest for example that Tibetan children not learn the Chinese language.
At present, Chinese is undeniably essential for most employment in Tibet.
Many children their desire to have learned Chinese. It is therefore not
helpful to completely eliminate Chinese from educational curricula as this
will only serve to further disadvantage the Tibetan people. Instead, Chinese
should be taught as a foreign language to give Tibetans a chance to reach
a sufficient level. It is also important to recognise that China has allowed
important progress to be made in Tibet regarding educational opportunities
for Tibetan lay people. So when we ask for full educational rights for
Tibetan children in Tibet we are, most importantly, asking for an opportunity
for Tibetans on an equal level with Chinese to have access to education.
It is also important that, rather than ideologically indoctrinating Tibetan
children and teaching them a sense of inferiority about their culture and
identity, schooling should instil them with respect for their own cultural
identity as well as with a respect for others’.
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to Contents)
Ms. Tenzin Chokey
Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy
On
August 29, 1990 the People’s Republic of China signed the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and ratified it on March 2,
1992. Article 37 (b) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child states:
“No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or abitrarily.
The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity
with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for
the shortest appropriate period of time”.
In 1994, in the initial report of the PRC on its adherence to the CRC,
China described itself as a “consistent respecter and defender of children’s
rights”. Signatories are bound to refrain from any practices which may
defeat the objectives of the convention.
There are currently 39 known juvenile political prisoners detained in various
prisons in Tibet as a result of their attempts to exercise their rights
to freedom of expression. This figure excludes an additional 39 current
political prisoners who were below the age of 18 at the time of arrest.
They are detained in adult prisons, denied legal representation and contact
with family and subjected to severe ill-treatment. There are reports
of juveniles being detained in almost all Chinese prisons in Tibet.
The treatment of juvenile detainees in Tibet violates both Chinese law
as well as international human rights treaties which China is legally bound
to observe. Reports that juvenile detainees in Tibet have been ill-treated
in detention and some subjected to conditions which may amount to cruel
or degrading treatment causes serious concern to human rights monitors
and advocators.
Long
term detention without trial:
Long term detention without charge or trial as well as administrative sentences
seem to be used as an alternative to criminal punishment for many juvenile
Tibetan detainees, as they are for adults. They do not appear to be able
to promptly challenge the legality of their detention before an appropriate
independent and impartial authority. This is in contradiction with article
37 (d) of the Convention which states:
“Every child deprived of his or her liberty shall have the right to prompt
access to legal and other appropriate assistance, as well as the right
to challenge the legality of the deprivation of his or her liberty before
a court or other competent, independent and impartial authority, and to
a prompt decision on any such action”.
Juveniles under investigation, like adults, may be put in detention by
the police without any judicial decision ¾ the theoretical time
limit of three months frequently ignored. Testimonies indicate that with
no regard for their age, detainees are often held awaiting sentence for
several months andeven up to a year. The legal alternative of putting minors
under the surveillance of their parents is not used. Without being tried,
juvenile detainees are often simply issued an administrative detention
order and sent to a labour camp to serve their term.
Luesang was 15 years old at the time of his arrest on December 10, 1994.
He was detained in Taktse prison for 4 months after which he was told by
the Taktse officials that he had been tried and sentenced to two years
imprisonment. In his own words: “I never knew that I had been tried until
I was told”. He was then transferred to Trisam reform-through-labour camp
where he served his term. Today in exile, when asked about his time in
prison, Luesang said that the memories of prison labour still sends chills
through him.
Administrative detention may be used as an alternative to a criminal sentence
for a person who has not reached the age of criminal responsibility and
therefore cannot be prosecuted. Article 14 of the Chinese criminal law
fixes the age of criminal responsibility at 16 in most cases and at 14
for serious crimes, some of which are vaguely defined and open to interpretation.
According to some sources, the minimum age for “shelter and rehabilitation”,
a specific form of administrative detention for juveniles, is 14. In 1989,
the PRC adopted the Administrative Procedure Law which makes it possible,
in principle, for detainees to challenge the People’s Court on administrative
detention decisiosn taken against them. Since the law came into effect
there have been no instances of any challenge to the detention of a Tibetan
juvenile taken before a court.
Gyaltsen Pelsang was 13 at the time of her arrest on June 14, 1993.
She was held at Gutsa Detention Centre until February 9, 1995, when she
was reportedly released after nearly two years in detention without trial.
Gyaltsen was arrested for allegedly participating in a freedom demonstration.
Her arrest was confirmed by the Chinese government in June 1994 in the
list of 56 detainees handed to the US State Department, where she was listed
as “not yet criminally sentenced”. In her own testimony Gyaltsen says in
a period of one whole year she saw her father only two or three times.
Gyaltsen Pelsang was born with a handicapped leg, the condition of which
is said to have deteriorated during her imprisonment.
The overwhelming majority of juvenile political prisoners in Tibet are
novice monks and nuns who were arrested in Lhasa while peacefully demonstrating
and chanting pro-independence slogans. Chinese regulations prohibit juveniles
under the age of 18 from registering in monasteries as monks and nuns.
A total of 316 child monks and nuns have been expelled in connection with
the “Strike Hard” campaign during 1996-97, representing about 22 percent
of the total number of expulsions during that period.
Prison
conditions for juvenile detainees:
Accounts
from former detainees testify that Tibetan juveniles are often ill-treated
in prison. People arrested in Tibet for political involvement are detained
together, with no regard to their age. This results in juveniles often
being held together with adults.
This situation violates both Chinese law and international human rights
treaties. Chinese legislation provides that people under the age of 18
must be held separately from adults, which is in accordance with the recommendations
of article 37 © of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child:
“Every child deprived of liberty shall be treated with humanity and respect
for the inherent dignity of the human person, and in a manner which takes
into account the needs of persons of his or her age. In particular, every
child deprived of liberty shall be separated from adults unless it is considered
in the child’s best interest not to do so and shall have the rights to
maintain contact with his or her family through correspondence and visits,
save in exceptional circumstances”.
Article 41 of the Law on Protection of Minors of the PRC is consistent
with international regulations when stating: juveniles under investigation
and young criminals must be kept separated from adults. Article 39 of the
Prison Law states:
“Prisons will implement separate imprisonment and supervision for adult
males and females, and minor prisoners and the reform of minor and female
prisoners shall take into consideration their physical and psychological
features”.
Juvenile sections do exist in some prisons in China as do detention centres
for juvenile criminals, which are part of the prison system and where detainees
have received either an administrative sentence or criminal one.
However, numerous testimonies received in the past few years indicate that
provision for the separate detention of juveniles is frequently ignored.
None of the juvenile political detainees so far were reported to be held
in a juvenile section or a juvenile detention centre.
Sonam Choephel, an 18 year-old monk, arrived in exile in February
1997. He was first arrested by the Public Security Bureau at the age of
13 when he and two other monks, Jampel Dorji and Phurbu Tashi, both of
a similar age to Sonam, pasted wall posters reading “Free Tibet” in the
town of Chideshol in Lhoka, “TAR”. After 10 days of detention the three
were released. On August 5, 1993, the three young monks again pasted posters.
Jampel and Phurbu were immediately arrested and, six weeks later, on September
15, 1993, Sonam was also arrested.
All of them were taken to Tsethang prison, Lhoka, where they were detained
incommunicado, each in solitary confinement, for four months. Sonam, only
14 at the time, was sentenced to three years imprisonment while Jampel
and Phurbu each received sentences of two and a half years. The three boys
were transfered to Toelung Prison, Lhasa City, where, contrary to article
37 © of the CRC, they were mixed with adult prisoners convicted of
various crimes except at mealtimes. Jampel and Phurbu were released in
February 1996 whereas Sonam was released six months later, on August 14,
1996, at age 17.
Reportedly, a juvenile section did exist in Gutsa Detention Centre until
about 1992, when reports indicate this section was closed down. However
juvenile political detainees held at Gutsa for investigation or with an
administrative sentence are reportedly never kept in this section but are
mixed with adult political prisoners. In Drapchi too, where juveniles have
been tried and sentenced, no section for juveniles has ever been known
to exist. They are reportedly kept with adult political prisoners.
There is a justified fear of ill-treatment that surrounds Tibetan juvenile
political detainees when held with adults. They are subjected to an environment
where torture is endemic. Not only are they exposed to an environment deemed
unfit for children with regard to the psychological damage this experience
may cause, they have to undergo exactly the same method of torture and
punishments adult political prisoners go through.
Conditions of detention in political sections are often reported to be
harsh, and medical treatment to be non-existent. Juveniles work with adults
whether in prison, detention centres, reform-through-labour units or re-education
through labour units. They are often forced to do hard labour or to work
in unsanitary conditions. They are not granted any sort of special conditions
of work or reduced work hours which may cause physical damage and endanger
a young person’s development.
Sherab Ngawang was 12 at the time of her arrest on February 3, 1992, for
her participation in a peaceful demonstration in Lhasa. She was sentenced
to three years imprisonment and was transferred to Trisam reform through
labour detachment. She died on April 17, 1995, two months after she was
released from Trisam. She was reportedly beaten with electric batons and
plastic tubing filled with sand while in prison and sources report that
her kidneys and lungs were severely damaged due to beatings. The Tibetan
who performed her skyburial reported that her kidneys were badly damaged
and the lungs were infected. He said that he had never seen the body of
a young person in such a state.
Post release discrimination:
Testimonies
indicate that some juveniles are dismissed from schools or monasteries
and others find it difficult to find jobs if they have been arrested and
detained for a few days or more.
China
and the youngest political prisoner:
Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was only six years old when he was found missing from
his home in May 1995. Just a few days earlier, on May 15, 1995, His Holiness
the Dalai Lama had proclaimed him as the reincarnation of the 10th Panchen
Lama.
Despite repeated appeals from the Tibetan government in exile and other
concerned governments and international bodies, China refused to provide
information on Gedhun Choekyi Nyima’s whereabouts or to allow an independent
observer to see him or his parents. In fact, for the first 12 months, the
Chinese authorities blatantly denied his detention.
It was not until May 28, 1996, that China finally admitted they were holding
the young boy and his parents. The news came in response to a prolonged
scrutiny by the UN Committee for the Rights of the Child. Wu Jianmin, the
PRC’s permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, said, “he has been
kept under the protection of the government at the request of his parents.
The boy was at a risk of being kidnapped by separatists and his security
had been threatened.” This appeared in Xinhua, the official Chinese news
agency.
Denouncing the Dalai Lama’s proclamation as illegitimate and ignoring historical
conventions relating to the recognition of reincarnations, the Chinese
authorities on November 29, 1995, drew lots from a golden urn to select
their own ‘Panchen Lama’.
While China has long denounced Tibetan Buddhism and it’s reincarnation
system as “feudal” and “reactionary”, the atheist regime seems more than
willing to drop their virulent anti-religious stance in the case of the
Panchen Lama. China has suppressed all practices to undertake searches
for reincarnations. As a result, most of the monasteries in Tibet have
been left without replacements for their most important religious figures.
However, in the case of Panchen Lama, the Communist Party leaders authorised
the quest for his reincarnation with an intention to keep firm control
over the religious affairs of the Tibetan people. By appointing their own
choice of Panchen Lama, China has politicised this purely religious matter.
This move of appointing a new Panchen Lama reveals their wishes to extend
their hold over the religious as well as temporal affairs of the Tibetan
people.
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Ravi Nair, Director
South Asian Human Rights Documentation Centre
Thank
you Lobsang La for those kind words. I will try to follow the example of
Liz and Chokey and be very pragmatic on a topic that does not lend itself
easily to a pragmatic application - the United Nations. The first thing
that you will need to learn about the United Nations is to invert the words
- it is Nations United. Do not ever forget that: it is nations united versus
new nations attempting to enter this little exclusive club.
Yet you need to be practical. While you attack the state parties - member
countries of the United Nations - you cannot have demonstrations and whatever
else outside this and be like Joshua outside the walls of Jericho blowing
the trumpet and hoping that the walls come down. Actually take a lesson
from Greek mythology and devise your own little trojan horse to get into
the system. That is what I am going to talk to you about, what is called
in the NGO system, a good paper guerrilla warfare.
If you want to know paper guerrilla warfare with the issue of Tibet, then
the starting point of course is the three UN resolutions of the General
Assembly that were referred to by Professor Dawa Norbu yesterday.
If you look at the 1959 resolution, it is clear that the issue of self-determination
did not reflect itself as clearly as it ought to have been. If you read
the 1961 resolution, and you can find copies of it in the publication outside,
you see an explicit mention of self-determination. And in the 1965 General
Assembly resolution, self-determination is again put on the back burner.
Now obviously you have to put this in a certain context in terms of the
geo-political situation of that time. 1961 is extremely important; historians
tend to forget that these resolutions emanated in a certain political,
historical context. The bigger offenders are lawyers who tend only to look
at the legalistic formulism of these resolutions.
1961 was the aftermath of the problems in the Korean peninsula. This was
also during the build up to the Cuban missile crisis and the build up towards
the heightened tensions on the Indo-Chinese border leading subsequently
to the first military engagement between India and China on what historically
was the Indo-Tibetan border.
The fourth resolution was not a General Assembly resolution but a resolution
of the Sub-Commission on Human Rights. Those of you not familiar with the
United Nations, briefly: under the General Assembly - the most important
organ of the UN system - is the Economic and Social Council from which
flows the important human rights bodies. The Economic and Social Council’s
most important human rights body is the Commission on Human Rights, a body
of 53 state parties or governments. So the political engagement there is
extremely fierce and that is why I think we have made a mistake putting
all our strategies towards the Commission on Human Rights. Because of the
importance of the Chinese vote in the Security Council, and the Chinese
economic handouts especially to Africa and parts of Asia and Latin America,
we are not going to muster the troops necessary.
When Marshall May retreated from Siberia in the last engagement with the
Russian troops, May came without an army, so Napoleon told him: “listen,
you cannot be a general without an army.” So that is what we need to do,
we have got to make sure that while the moral high ground is thus, we have
the diplomatic playing field with us. And there I think the better form
of engagement would be with the Sub-Commission where, though the members
are elected by the Commission governmental members, they are to a large
extent elected as independent experts and not in their capacity as country
representatives.
While there is a certain amount of skulduggery in that election and not
many of them are as independent as we would like them to be, there is greater
room for being impartial and that is where the process of engagement needs
to take place at the UN, especially in the UN human rights mechanisms.
Clearly what we have been trying to do as supporters of Tibet, as people
who uphold human rights, is to address, in the main, the treaty bodies.
When I say the treaty bodies, I mean the committees under official treaties
to which states have become members, like the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, to which China is not yet a signatory but has
indicated that it will become a signatory in the not too distant future.
Perhaps they may make an announcement regarding this in the post-Clinton
visit scenario.
But China is a signatory to other important international treaties: the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International
Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and of course the UN Convention
on Torture and Cruel and Degrading Treatment.
What the treaties do is that they are agreements which include certain
compliance mechanisms that need to be adhered to and periodic reports must
be submitted to treaty committees. Now Tibetan solidarity and human rights
groups like Human Rights in China, Human Rights Watch Asia and a number
of other groups are now making sure that there are reports from alternative
sources prepared in addition to the reporting that the PRC is required
to do.
But I think that beyond that, two other mechanisms which are under-utilised
in the UN system should be used by those of us supporting Tibet. For example,
we now know that there are a large number of torture cases taking place
in Tibet. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture at the moment is Professor
Roggi, who teaches international human rights law in Essex, in the United
Kingdom. He is an extremely meticulous practitioner of his job: it is clear
that we need to feed a lot more information to him.
We also need to focus a lot more information on the Special Rapporteur
on Torture who did visit Tibet although I am not too happy with all parts
of the ensuing report. It is clear that we need to build our case. We also
need to address the UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-Judicial Execution or
the Committee on Arbitrary Detention which also went to Tibet and whose
report I have not been completely happy with either. Unfortunately many
of the committee experts are not as independent as one would like them
to be.
The issue is engagement and you need to engage others on a number of fronts.
I also quote Sun Su, the great Chinese military strategist and practitioner:
“You can’t attack a powerful enemy frontally. When the enemy attacks, retreat.
When the enemy camps, harass. When the enemy retreats, attack.” So I believe
that when you are fighting with a very powerful diplomatic adversary, like
the PRC Government, you need to hem them in from a number of sides. Like
Mao Tse Tung said in his little red book, “Be a fish in water and envelope
the cities from the countryside and then bombard the party headquarters.”
So we need to be like fish in water in the different UN mechanisms, not
just addressing the Commission on Human Rights and the General Assembly.
Use all the other little openings that are available to us that we
have not been using, and ultimately build towards using a well-drafted
and composite complaint under the 1503 procedure which a lot of people
use, but without understanding how it should be used. This is a confidential
procedure and you are not going to get publicity out of it, but you are
definitely going to get the government on a mat on it in an extremely intelligent
and comprehensive manner if your information is good. So you need to get
good facts and avoid rhetoric in this particular procedure.
Along
with this whole mechanism in Geneva, there are also mechanisms in New York
which we in Tibet solidarity groups and democracy groups working on China,
have under-utilised. We have in fact neglected them. For example, there
are two important committees related to ECOSOC which relate to human rights
and legal work.
I would, in terms of working on a strategy for putting Tibet higher on
the agenda at the UN, suggest a three-prong strategy. The first is the
human rights strategy which is engaging the Chinese government on a range
of issues using special procedures like the UN Rapporteur on Torture, the
Committee on Arbitrary Detention, the Extra-Judicial Executions Special
Rapporteur, the Working Group on Disappearances, the Special Rapporteur
on Religious Intolerance and the new Special Rapporteur on the Right to
Education and a whole range of such special procedures.
The second level of human rights engagement should be at the treaty bodies.
Rather than us working at cross purposes and repeating a lot of work -
sometimes producing conflicting information - perhaps the Tibetan Centre
for Human Rights and Democracy can act as a clearing house for all Tibet
solidarity groups on the kinds of submissions that need to be made, in
consultation with the democracy groups working on China and Human Rights
Watch Asia. So they can make sure that China’s compliance reports, the
alternative reports and the periodic reports to the UN Committee on the
Rights of the Child, the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms
of Discrimination Against Women, the Committee on Torture and the
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Committee are clearly engaged
by alternate good reports giving the real situation in Tibet.
One other medium we also need to use is the Special Rapporteur on Violence
Against Women. She is from Sri Lanka and she is an extremely competent,
effective Special Rapporteur. Knowing the kinds of problems and attacks
on women and the whole issue of bringing in the gender perspective to human
rights, I think we also need to use that mechanism.
A number of problems in Geneva arise from the fact that all of us human
rights groups and Tibet solidarity groups go there and immediately attempt
to read a statement under any of the items of the agenda. The statement
is like the icing on the cake and unless we have laid the building blocks
using the special procedures and the treaty bodies, the statements by themselves
do not mean anything. I have been arguing with NGOs in the system saying
that this is not how to go about it. We need to be more economical with
our statements because this is what the governments want: a lot of hot
air and it is not the kind of positioning that we want to achieve. So we
have to be like an octopus - get our tentacles across and then envelope
this big, giant operation. Remember that the People’s Republic is an extremely
powerful government. You need to work on it.
Clearly, human rights is one level. Now we need to see how human rights
relates to the diplomatic struggle. At the diplomatic level you need to
examine different UN mechanisms in addition to the Commission on Human
Rights and the Sub-Commission and the special procedures. There you have
a major problem: you run straight into a brick wall because China is one
of the prominent five Security Council members and they have veto power
over everything under the sun. Increasingly the Security Council is becoming
an important power house in the UN system. We can not close our eyes to
the new metamorphosis that is taking place in the UN system in its evolution
as a more functional body than it was in the fifties, sixties or even seventies.
Now you look at that but there are a couple of remedial measures that we
need to understand. One is the use of the General Assembly because there
while some of us in Asia are crying ourselves hoarse about reforming the
Security Council, etc, etc, I think that is all little pipe dreams. It
is like, you know, “if wishes were horses, beggars would ride” kind
of scenario, and I do not think that is going to happen double quick.
But Assembly which is a new arena of action.
In the general Assembly, little Seychelles with a population of 60,000
and 264 square kilometres of area is equal to China with a population of
one point whatever billion. Each of them has an equal vote. This is where
I think some of the resolutions of the past, the three resolutions of the
past, need a little more reflection, a little amount of re-modelling and
some amount of clear discussion with some of our friends in the movement
of nation states who have been able to use the trojan horse technique and
come and breached the wall of the Nations United and get in. Like Estonia,
Lativia, Georgia. They are all allies with the Tibetan peoples in the Unrepresented
Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO). This is where you see the connection
between human rights and the right to self- determination as enunciated
in article 1 which is common to both the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights.
Clearly in all the battle for self-determination, it is clearly now higher
than it was in the 60s and 70s because in the 50s the Americans definitely
pushed the issue of self-determination on the international agenda because
they wanted to break the colonial empires of France and Britain for the
whole increase of the new kind of commercial capitalism that needed a certain
spring board. In the Cold War situation the whole debate got askew and
now we are once again back to the diminution of the power of the nation
states and a new form of political, diplomatic, human rights, humanitarian
engaement taking place and it is still difficult to see what the final
contours of that debate are going to emerge.
We need to make sure that we are voices to that debate; that we are not
marginal to that debate and to make sure that we are voices in that
debate I think we need to engage with allies like Estonia and Latvia to
see, even if we know the resolution will never pass, the very fact that
a draft resolution is brought in by a nation state - it is not an NGO like
the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy or a New-York based NGO
like Human Rights in China - it has to be a country, a state. This
is where I think even a smaller state can help.
The third prong of the whole engagement with the United Nations system
is of course the legal engagement. And, in that legal engagement, ever
since the initiative that was taken by UNPO in the form of Michael van
Walt van Praag’s initiative on the right of Tibet in international law,
I do not think we have carried that work forward. It remained a benchmark
and we have not gone beyond that and the time is now ripe to take that
argument forward on the legal front. The International Commission of Jurist’s
report has opened a certain avenue towards taking that legal debate forward.
That legal debate can be taken forward in a number of ways. In the setting
up of an International Criminal Court, for example, where it is clear that
China is finding it extremely difficult to accept the setting up of an
International Criminal Court. The court, as part of its agenda as suggested
by the International Law Commission, has four issues: the issue of aggression;
the issue of genocide; the issue of gross and persistent human rights
violations; and, if it is finally taken up, the issue of drug trafficking
and such related crimes. Obviously there is a major debate on this and
one of the key sticking points is the level of international community
to interfere in what is seen as internal affairs of any country. And there
you will see from China to India to the United States to Iran, all of them
working at cross purposes, suddenly coming together trying to work against
the engagement and application of international accountability measures
on this issue. The debate is very joined and it is defintely going to be
a fierce debate. The meeting started in Rome on the 15th and will
be going on until the 11th of July and some of us are going to be there
and you can bet that there is one mad Indian looking for a lot of government
scouts in that process. We need to carry that forward in the legal debate
there.
You also need to use other for the legal debate because you need to create
the kind of confluences - because each one of them, while they are unparalleled,
there must a certain kind of inter-exchange, mixture, and that means a
very sophisticated control console, either in Dharamsala or Geneva or New
York or wherever you want to base it. Because without that kind of command
control console, all you have is a plethora of episodic reactive actions
and not a kind of plan that is meshed together and puts Tibet firmly on
the agenda.
What can you do at the national level? Let me now come down to the national
level, having painted the international scenario to you in a quick overview.
I think at the national level national NGOs have an extremely important
place and role to play and a lot of us in the human rights groups and the
national mechanisms do not play that role in terms of the engagement of
our national foreign ministries and our national parliamentary bodies in
the engagement of the UN process. All of us, in whichever country we come
from, have UN divisions in our External Affairs Ministries or Foreign Ministries
or State Departments or White Hall or whatever we call ourselves. We need
to engage the UN divisions effectively and constantly on the issue of Tibet,
on the issue of human rights in China and on the wider issue of accountability
on human rights norms.
I know for a fact that when I first went to the UN division they said,
“Who the hell are you? You are an NGO and you have no business to be here”
and so I said, “Oh yes, okay, if you are not going to admit me right now,
you will admit me when I become more than a nuisance - this was a little
before the Vienna Conference - and sure as hell, in Vienna they were
running round behind me saying, “Hey listen, can we sit down with
you guys and talk to you” kind of thing. You need to put pressure on them,
that is how the engagement needs to come before each General Assembly session
of the UN in October; some of you need to look at the issues on the agenda.
There are certain human rights groups that like to take their own specific
agendas. For example, Amnesty does some internal circulars for its own
membership, but it is a very limited canvas. It is necessary for
us in the Tibet support groups and solidarity groups to look at the kind
of openings in that agenda and go to the foreign ministries and say, “look,
we want these issues to be raised”. Get parliamentary questions to see
that there is pressure on our foreign ministries to take that. There are
parliamentary consultative committees, or parliamentary committees, or
senate committees, or congressional committees, or whatever else you call
them, which afford an opportunity to put pressure on the policy-making
framework in each of your domestic polities. That is a clear issue that
we need to engage ourselves in.
The second area that we need to engage in is to look at the UN agencies
operating in Tibet and China and the wider issue of human rights accountability.
For example, I do not know how many of us have used, as Maria very rightly
brought to our attention, the ILO mechanisms. The ILO mechanisms afford
a great opportunity of a very good accountability measure that NGOs hardly
use. You need to use it as trade union organisations. Go out and set up
a Tibetan trade union information centre and whichever trade union you
belong to can put in complaints to the ILO mechanism. It is a very powerful
mechanism: slow but consensual and quite effective, and the Committee of
Applications and Standards in the ILO is a fairly good mechanism.
Apart from that we raise the issue of indigenous populations and minority
groups. The ILO conventions - Convention No. 169 and 107 - again afford
a very good entry point for putting the heat and opening one more front
there. What you are going to do is force the Chinese government to hire
20 new diplomats just to handle you NGOs there. This is what I call paper
guerilla warfare. You raise the ante for them in a number of areas,
force them to think that you are no longer irritating flies, you are stinging
bees, though you might be small. And they have to deal with these stinging
bees regularly and at the first point of entry at least talk to them.
Secondly, we talked about educational rights; we talked about religious
rights; though we didn’t talk about it, the kind of demographic changes
taking place; the kind of architectural changes taking place; the
kind of changes taking place in the Barkhor area in Lhasa, the kind
of urbanisation process that is taking place there. The UNESCO has an academic
freedoms committee - there are no complaints from Asia on this, as if there
are no academic freedoms onslaughts. There is nothing from mainland China,
nothing from Tibet. This UNESCO committee needs a lot more complaints.
There are a large number of other inter-governmental mechanisms, apart
from the UN system but which are supplementary to the UN system, which
again afford us an entry point. For example, the Commonwealth Secretariat.
Tibet and China are not part of the Commonwealth, yet many Commonwealth
countries have extremely important bilateral engagement patterns with China.
The Australians, for example, had a very powerful engagement on the issue
of human rights in Tibet many years ago when an Australian parliamentary
delegation was allowed to visit Tibet. We need to make sure that we have
the entry points, make sure that the solidarity groups enter this area.
You have clear the issue of environment, with an excellent
presentation by Tsultrim la this morning. Now the question is,
what do we do with this? It is necessary for us to perhaps hit
the SAARC Secretariat in Kathmandu saying, “Look, what are you
guys doing because this affects the whole of SAARC”. Or Pipob and
friends in Thailand need to write to the RCRC Secretariat and say,
“What are you going to do on this issue because this is going to
affect the whole Mekong delta and all our downstream flows”.
Create new avenues of discussion and debate. The iron curtain
has come down, the bamboo curtain has lots of chinks, so some of
our own governments are not too good — we have sarong and dhoti
curtains; they are a little more permeable than the iron curtain,
and the bamboo curtain rots very fast. So the UN system can be
entered. Thank you very much.
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Tempa Tsering, Vice-Chairman
Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy
Mr. Lobsang Nyandak la just said, as the major part of the
discussion could be spent on question and answer, and not just
the talk that I’m going to give. Many of you are here for
the first time and I am sure there are issues which will not come
up further in the conference and there are areas in which you are
interested but you have not had answers or information.
In 1945, when the United Nations was founded and Tibet was certainly a
sovereign, independent nation, as we tried to raise earlier, we lived in
isolation. Tibet had lived in a world of its own. We felt that we were
completely independent and we had no desire and designs to encroach upon
others, and that others could not do this to us, and, in this world of
our own, we never bothered to get admission to the United Nations.
When Nepal, a neighbour of Tibet, applied for admission to the United Nations
in 1949, about four years after its foundation, she had to prove that she
was a sovereign, independent nation. To do that she cited her relationship
with Tibet and in fact produced one of the texts signed between Tibet and
Nepal in 1856. Based on that evidence, the United Nations accepted Nepal.
Then, almost at the same time, in 1945, during the Second World War, the
allied countries wanted to send military equipment and material through
Tibet to China, so the American and the British presidents wrote to the
Tibetan government saying, “Can we have permission?” The Tibetan government
refused, saying that in this World War we would like to remain neutral.
So no military equipment was allowed to pass through Tibet to China. The
Tibetan government made it quite clear to the two governments, saying that
non-military equipment, particularly medical materials, can be transported
through Tibet. This again clearly indicates that Tibet had that right and
Tibet was in a position to claim their right as a member of the United
Nations.
Shortly thereafter, in 1949, Chinese invaded Tibet, and then of course
Tibetans woke up saying that we were wrong and they started writing to
the UN on the Chinese military aggression in Tibet - an appeal for United
Nations intervention. It was November 24 when the Tibetan government -
the Tibetan Cabinet and the Tibetan National Assembly - wrote to the UN
General Assembly. About 10 days after the Tibetan appeal to the UN,
representatives of El Salvador telegrammed the UN Secretary General saying
there was a foreign invasion of Tibet and that it should be put to the
UN General Assembly and a debate should be held.
Despite all these requests, the debate was kept pending. Then from the
fifth session onwards the Tibetan issues of invasion, destruction, violation
of human rights, cultural genocide, and self-determination were debated
on. As a result of these debates three resolutions in 1959, 1961 and 1965
were passed. All these resolutions were sponsored by Ireland and Malaysia
and the resolutions of 1961 and 1965 were sponsored in addition by Thailand,
El Salvador and the Phillipines. During the General Assembly debate on
Tibet in 1965, I would like to read this quote from the Irish representative
to the UN: “For thousands of years, or for a couple of thousand years,
at any rate, Tibet was as free and as fully in control of its own affairs
as any other nation in this assembly, and a thousand times more free to
look after its own affairs than many nations here.”
At one of the later sessions and debates, the Thailand representative said
to the assembly: “Thailand is a Buddhism country and, as you are aware,
Buddhism is essentially a religion of peace and compassion. We would therefore
fail in our duty should we ignore the tragic events in Tibet and utterly
disregard the appeals of its people.”
Then from 1965 to 1985, since these resolutions were passed, they have
not been put into effect, either because the UN was ineffective or too
weak or China was too stubborn or because of China’s total disregard for
the UN or international norms. So from 1965 to 1985 there was nothing
in the United Nations and we did not make any efforts.
Then in 1985 the International Fellowship for Reconciliation - an NGO based
in Geneva - took up the issue of human rights at both the Sub-Commission
and Commission and made an effort to raise this again. But at that time,
after Mao’s death in 1976 there was a change in leadership in China. The
leadership that followed was comparatively lenient and more pragmatic.
Then of course His Holiness has always believed that the only way to bring
a resolution to any issue - a resolution that is lasting and to the satisfaction
of all concerned - is to negotiate and discuss peacefully.
So we tried to contact the Chinese leadership and finally Deng Xiaoping,
in 1979, invited an emissary of the Dalai Lama and informed him that except
for the independence of Tibet, anything can be discussed and settled. Based
on these assurances and taking into account the interests of the Tibetan
and the Chinese people, His Holiness put forward many proposals. These
proposals were found by the international public, by and large, and also
by many Chinese free-thinking people, to be realistic, pragmatic and constructive,
and a lot of support was given. Unfortunately, the Chinese government rejected
these proposals and as a result no solutions could be brought about on
the issue of Tibet. Finally, as a last resort, since our direct approach
with China did not bring any desirable result, we have again taken up the
issue of Tibet at the United Nations, and this time on the human rights
issue, at the Sub-Commission and at the Commission. As a result in 1991
there was a resolution passed at the UN Human Rights Sub-Commission
on the human rights issues in Tibet.
Since 1992 onwards, we have also been taking up issues at the Human Rights
Commission itself as well as different UN forums and with Special Rapporteurs.
Our purpose in taking up this issue is not just for a resolution -
if it is for a resolution, we have had three at the General Assembly and
we had one on human rights at the Sub-Commission, but the resolutions have
not been effective. So our basic purpose in bringing the issue of Tibet
at these UN fora was to educate the international public to what is really
happening in Tibet, what the aspirations of the Tibetan people are and
the proposals put forward by the Dalai Lama to bring a solution to these
issues. We wanted the international public to put pressure on China to
make it realise that it is an issue and the only way to resolve an issue
is to negotiate and to take the offers made by the Dalai Lama seriously.
We have so far not had a lot of success. Both at the government and the
NGO levels we have had a lot of good contact, good networking and we have
made a lot of headway, especially at the committee levels. For example,
at the Committee on the Rights of the Child, in the case of the Panchen
Lama. The previous Panchen Lama passed away in 1989 and his reincarnation
was recognised by the Dalai Lama in May 1995. A few days after his recognition
this child disappeared. Since then we have been making a huge noise and
appealing everywhere at all the human rights organisations, at the Human
Rights Commission, at different fora.
China kept denying, saying that, “we have not taken him into
custody”. Or whenever they were asked they avoided the issue, either
saying, “we cannot account for 1.2 billion people or he should be
where he was born”. This kind of very evasive reply kept on coming
at different meetings, to the media and to delegations. Finally,
in May 1996, the Committee on the Rights of the Child questioned
the Chinese Ambassador in Geneva for five and a half hours at the
end of which, for the first time, he said that, “yes, the Chinese
now have him in custody and we have taken him into custody at the
request of his parents because he is not safe and may be abducted
by the splittist Dalai clique.” For the first time, we knew that
the Panchen Lama had become, at the age of seven, the youngest
political prisoner in the world.
We have had some success and the effort of course is still being
made. With this I will stop here. Thank you very much.
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