DALAI LAMA SAYS TIBET 'HELL ON EARTH' UNDER CHINA
By Gavin Rabinowitz
Associated Press
March 10, 2009
Original LinkDHARMSALA, INDIA - Tibet has become "hell on earth" under Chinese oppression that has driven Tibetan culture to the verge of extinction, the Dalai Lama said Tuesday, in harsh comments marking the 50th anniversary of the failed uprising that sent him into exile.
Chinese martial law, and hard-line policies such as the Cultural Revolution, devastated the mountain region and left hundreds of thousands of Tibetans dead, he said, condemning the "brutal crackdown" in the region since protests last year turned violent.
"Even today, Tibetans in Tibet live in constant fear, and the Chinese authorities remain constantly suspicious of them," the Dalai Lama said in this Indian hill town, where he and the self-proclaimed government-in-exile have been based since shortly after fleeing their homeland.
In Tibet and restive western China, paramilitary police and soldiers swarmed cities and villages, on the alert for possible unrest on the anniversary.
In the Tibetan capital of Lhasa -- where the uprisings of 1959 and 2008 started -- was calm but tense, as was the rest of the region. Residents and businesses reported increased patrols of armed police. Tibetans and travelers in western China said police stepped up checks of identity cards.
China's authoritarian government sees Tibet, sitting atop rival India, as a strategic asset and a symbol of China's greatness. It has demonized the Dalai Lama as a violent separatist despite his insistence he wants only genuine autonomy within China.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu dismissed the Dalai Lama's comments as lies. "The Dalai group confuses right and wrong and spreads rumors," he said.
The heightened emotions underscored the stakes during the sensitive anniversary period. Tibetans in exile and in China worry that their identity, deeply rooted in their religion, is being undermined by Chinese rule, its religious restrictions and the influx of large numbers of Chinese migrants. Those concerns erupted last year, setting off a deadly anti-Chinese riot in Lhasa on March 14 and spreading to the provinces of Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan.
In India, the Tibetan spiritual leader told a group of about 2,000 people, including Buddhist monks, Tibetan schoolchildren and a handful of foreign supporters, that the religion, culture, language and identity of successive generations of Tibetans faced "extinction." Tibetans in Tibet were living in "hell on earth," he added.
The group had gathered in a courtyard that separates the Dalai Lama's home from the town's main temple; monks blew enormous conch shells and long brass horns to herald his arrival.
While his comments were unusually strong for a man known for his deeply pacifist beliefs, he also urged that any change come peacefully and reiterated his support for the "Middle Way," which calls for significant Tibetan autonomy under Chinese rule.
"I have no doubt that the justice of Tibetan cause will prevail if we continue to tread a path of truth and nonviolence," he said.
Later, at a press conference, he said he'd become deeply discouraged about repeated rounds of failed talks between his representatives and Beijing.
"We have to prepare for the worst. At the same time, we should not give up our hope," he said.
China's governor of Tibet, Champa Phuntsok, said the Dalai Lama's claims about Tibetan deaths was "merely fabrication and vilification," according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Tibet's population has grown very rapidly in the past 50 years, increasing from 1.2 million in 1959 to 2.87 million in 2008, he said.
After the Dalai Lama's speech, thousands of young Tibetans took to the streets of Dharmsala chanting "China Out!" and "Tibet belongs to Tibetans!"
About 1,000 more protesters marched peacefully through New Delhi in support of the Tibetans, many chanting "Shame on China!" Still more protested in Seoul, Nepal and Canberra, the Australian capital, where they scuffled with police outside the Chinese Embassy. Four of about 300 protesters were arrested there.
While Beijing claims Tibet has been part of Chinese territory for centuries, Tibet was a deeply isolated theocracy until 1951, when Chinese troops invaded Lhasa, the regional capital. Tuesday's anniversary marked March 10, 1959, riots inside Tibet against Chinese rule which lead to a crackdown and, later that month, the Dalai Lama's dramatic flight across the Himalayas and into exile.
Beijing has long claimed that it brought modernity to a region where monks and wealthy landowners had long ruled over huge tracts of land worked by slaves and serfs.
Ma, the Chinese official, said Tibet went through democratic reform in 1959, and that Tibetans had been freed from slavery.
But Tuesday, the Dalai Lama dismissed such claims, saying most of the development in the last 50 years was designed to make Chinese rule easier, and came at "the huge cost of devastating the Tibetan environment and way of life."
He also said he'd been recently invited by a group of Taiwanese journalists to visit Taiwan -- move likely to anger rival China. The two sides split amid civil war in 1949.
"Visiting Taiwan is purely spiritual," said the Dalai Lama.
Last year, a peaceful commemoration of the 1959 uprising by monks in Lhasa erupted into anti-Chinese rioting four days later and spread to surrounding provinces -- the most sustained and violent demonstrations by Tibetans in decades.
Following the protests, China has stepped up its campaign to vilify the Dalai Lama, accusing him of leading a campaign to split the region from the rest of the country.
The Dalai Lama insists, though, that he does not want Tibetan independence, saying he is only seeking greater autonomy for the region to protect its unique Buddhist culture.
............
NHNE Dalai Lama Resource Page