The Complete Yoga Community

Tibet: A nation in exile

2009 marks the 50th year since His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been in exilem together with around 138 000 Tibetan exiles. During this time, the Tibetans have made remarkable progress establishing themselves in India with a Tibetan Parliament-in-exile as well as other essential areas, so that their unique culture is not lost.

Earlier this year, Tibet was the focus of South African headlines when the Dalai Lama was denied a visa to attend The South Africa Peace Conference and the Tibetan quest for a solution to its half-century long battle with China was revived in the minds of South Africans. Natasha Marrian reports on the grave human rights violations and religious persecution taking place in Tibet…

Tibet boasts a long and illustrious history, its people steeped in a rich, awe-inspiring culture, a religion that is  both all-encompassing and mysterious. From Latin America and Africa to neighbouring India, activists are highlighting the plight of Tibetans and giving life to the Dalai Lama’s words: “We all have a common responsibility for our world and are connected with everything in it.”

Last year highlighted Tibet in many ways because of the Chinese government’s callous response to peaceful demonstrations in Tibet. The crack-down in Tibet in 2009 continues with mass human rights violations a matter of serious concern.

Religious repression is another huge challenge Tibetans face and, according to The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, “Religious freedom has been a distant dream for the Tibetan people since the advancement of Communist China in 1949.” They say that the various restrictions and conditions put forward by the Chinese authority are not only unacceptable, but also contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations.

According to the Tibet Society of South Africa, immediately after the Chinese Communist Party rose to power it began asserting its claim that Tibet was part of Chinese territory and that its people were “crying out” for liberation from the reactionary feudal regime in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet’s autonomous region.

Human Rights Violations
The political status of Tibet is a quagmire made more harrowing by the human rights violations taking place in the country. Amnesty International says protests within Tibet are often quelled with arbitrary arrests, prolonged detention and imprisonment, torture and other ill-treatment.

“The Chinese authorities’ failure to address the long-standing grievances of the Tibetan people, including unequal employment and educational opportunities, scores of Tibetans detained and the intensification of the ‘patriotic education’ campaign has fuelled protests that have continued over the past 12 months,” the human rights watchdog said in March.

During protests this year, police detained 81 suspects by 24 January, including two for having “reactionary songs and opinions” on their cell phones.

“The People’s Armed Police are reported to have shot a 24-year-old Tibetan monk who set himself on fire on 27 February 2009. The monk was holding a homemade Tibetan flag with a picture of the Dalai Lama on it,” Amnesty International said.

What’s more is that the “lock-down” in Tibet has posed a dangerous problem for human rights organisations now facing difficulties verifying reports of these violations that manage to seep across the border. The Chinese government has stymied efforts by United Nations human rights experts, for example, to access the country,  describing requests as “inconvenient”.

“These signal a worrying trend by the authorities to turn inwards and frame the protests as isolated criminal incidents and a failure to acknowledge the scale and strength of grievances held by the Tibetan people across the region,” said the organisation.

Religious Repression
The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy submitted a report to the UN in June about the worrying increase of suicides by Tibetan monks and Chinese nuns. “Restrictions and prohibitory orders to the government officials and students from visiting temples this month have already been issued,” the centre said in a statement issued on 7 June.

“The atrocities that the Chinese authority commit on Tibetan people, particularly monks and nuns while pursuing their beliefs and religious practices, are not only the victim of their power but it is also a failure of a sovereign state to protect its people’s basic human rights,” it added.

The monastic community was the primary target of the Chinese crack-down on Tibetans. “Sixteen out of the 17 known cases of suicides and two cases of attempt to suicide documented since March 2008 can be attributed to monks and nuns. This pattern is alarming and clearly indicating to the level of religious repression in Tibet,” the centre said. Suicide was on the rise among monks and nuns despite the Tibetan Buddhist belief that suicide was one of the most “heinous forms of sins”.

What South Africa is saying
SA Human Rights Commission member Jo Mdhlela, who recently addressed a peace march held in Johannesburg by the Tibet Society of South Africa, said the history of the oppression and human rights violations in Tibet was well documented.

“Our standpoint is that we need to support those whose rights are violated and I don’t think our relationship [with China] should blind us to those violations,” he said. “Political and religious tolerance is almost failed in China, the kind of wages paid and the ability of China torespect human rights is questionable,” he said.

China, however, views the Dalai Lama as a “defiant separatist” and China itself as the liberator of the Tibetan people. Ironically, as the Tibetan government-in-exile in March commemorated 50 years since the Tibetan uprising, China held its “Independence from Serfdom” in Tibet on March 28.

Research director of the China in Africa project with Fahamu in South Africa, Sanusha Naidu, says the perception that the Chinese had rescued the Tibetan people from serfdom persists today.

The Chinese viewpoint
“The Chinese have the perception in their minds that they have liberated Tibetans from serfdom,” she says. According to the Chinese state controlled media: “It is known that the old Tibet had suffered for a thousand years under feudal serfdom, in which local administrative officials, aristocrats and upper-class monastery lamas, about 5 percent of the population, enjoyed unchallenged privileges, while 95 per cent of serfs and slaves enjoyed no freedom, land or other means of production. Under its politico-religious system, serfs and slaves lived an oppressed life in which they could be leased, sold, and mortgaged as their owners’ personal property.”

The Chinese argue that the vocabulary of “independence” never appeared in Tibet’s local governments prior to the 20th Century and argue that the architect of the desire for independence was the West blaming British Imperialism and the Dalai Lama himself. They refute the Dalai Lama’s claim that the movement of non-Tibetan people into Tibet has hampered Tibetan culture saying that it is “a ridiculous accusation, given that Chinese people have the right to freely move and inhabit their country’s territory”. The progress in Tibet is “self-evident” they say and should not be clouded by political bias.

Naidu further says that many countries find themselves in a “vice grip” by China to toe the line when it comes to Tibet – a position South Africa came face-to-face with earlier this year when the Dalai Lama was due to address a peace conference here.

“What really bugs the Chinese is that the Dalai Lama uses visits to countries as a political platform. He is a very crafty man and inevitably, he does do this so it was a difficult position South Africa found itself in,” Naidu said.

Towards A Resolution
According to the International Campaign for Tibet, Tibetan-Chinese negotiations have been continuing since 2002. However, it concedes that six years of intermittent talks have not brokered an end to the stalemate between the two. “The talks have not met the expectations of the international community, including several heads of state, for meaningful progress toward a mutually-agreeable solution for Tibet,” the organisation says. It adds that the optimism surrounding the talks, which commenced after a nine-year lack of formal communication, dissipated at the most recent meetings in 2008. Although no closer to a resolution, the Tibet issue is a cause taken up by millions worldwide trying to persuade local government officials to play their part in support of the plight of the Tibetans. Local organisations like the Tibet Society of South Africa are working to raise consciousness locally in South Africa through peaceful rallies and Tibetan cultural festivals in efforts of alliance and to safeguard the heritage of the Buddhist people whose contribution to yoga, Eastern mysticism and philosophy is indelible.

To lend your voice to the Tibetan cause, contact The Tibet Society on (031) 266 8182 or visit www.tibet.org.za