Continuing on from my last journal regarding the pro-Tibetan protests which have been gaining much media attention lately I thought I would make some information about the issues 'common knowledge' as it were, for those of you who have not followed the Tibetan occupation very closely.

This will be a long journal article, and I will add more links and excerpts when I have a spare moment.

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The Government of Tibet in Exile:

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An Excerpt from

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"Statement by Elliot Sperling, Associate Professor of Tibetan Studies, Indiana University
U. S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs
June 13, 2000"


"One of our concerns is continuing violations of religious freedom and the implementation by the Chinese government of policies aimed at subordinating religious practices and sentiments to serve the political needs of the state. This is not just a question of propaganda and persuasion. Rather, these policies impinge upon the freedom of many Tibetans to peacefully put into practice or even express certain key aspects of their religious beliefs; and they are implemented through the use of coercion, violent repression, and imprisonment. Particularly prominent in this regard has been the ongoing campaign of "patriotic education," aimed at undermining and eliminating the Dalai Lama's influence in Tibet. But there has also been an increasingly heavy-handed turn by the Chinese authorities towards putting certain monasteries and temples under secular, government-backed management in order to implement greater government control of Tibetan religion.

Such policies are closely tied to the well-known case of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the child whom the Dalai Lama formally recognized as the incarnation of the Panchen Lama. This child has been subjected to virtual house arrest for the last five years simply because most Tibetans have accepted him as the incarnation of the Panchen Lama and rejected the child whom the Chinese government named as Panchen Lama. Neither he nor his family have freedom of movement."

Making Religion Serve Politics

The issues of the Panchen Lama and "patriotic education" are closely bound up with each other, since it was the Dalai Lama's announcement of the recognition of the incarnation of the 11th Panchen Lama that precipitated the campaign of "patriotic education." When the Dalai Lama formally recognized the Panchen Lama in May 1995, the Chinese authorities reacted by virulently denouncing him and by taking harsh measures against the child whom he had recognized. The boy and his family have been kept in effective isolation from the outside world, and government representatives and human rights monitors have not been allowed independently to verify their conditions, in spite of many attempts to do so. Those who have tried to visit him in the five years since he was spirited away include Mary Robinson, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights; Harold Koh, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor; and, most recently, Raymond Chan, the Canadian Secretary of State for Asia and the Pacific, who tried to see the child earlier this month. In all cases the requests were rebuffed; China simply states that the child is in good health but will allow no independent verification of that statement. In December 1995, China enthroned its own choice as Panchen Lama.

The Panchen Lama is generally considered to be just below the Dalai Lama in stature within their particular sect of Tibetan Buddhism and as such has great prestige within Tibet. China's actions are designed to exert unquestioned state control over religion, to the point, in this case, of dictating whom Tibetans may revere as a religious hierarch. In other instances the state has assumed a visible presence in certifying certain incarnations and in harshly suppressing those who dissent. In the case of the Karmapa Lama, the head of the Karma Kagyupa sect of Tibetan Buddhism, the restrictions on his movement made it impossible for him to receive proper teachings from his traditional mentor; as a result he had no choice but to flee Tibet. He arrived in India at the beginning of this year.

"More recently, the Chinese government alone managed the search for another important incarnation within the Dalai Lama's sect, Reting Rinpoche. By all appearances, this is part of a continuing effort to control such searches in order ultimately to stage manage the discovery and enthronement of the next Dalai Lama."
Human Rights Watch estimates that there are approximately 600 known political prisoners in Tibet, most of them monks and nuns.

"A Tibetan arrested in Lhasa in August 1999 for trying to raise the Tibetan flag in a public square, Tashi Tsering, was brutally beaten before being taken away by Public Security officers. In March 2000, he was reported to have committed suicide in prison a month earlier. In April 2000, a further death in custody was reported, that of Sonam Rinchen, a farmer from a town near Lhasa. He had been arrested with two others in 1992 for unfurling a Tibetan flag during a protest and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Although information is difficult to obtain, a study by the Tibet Information Network suggests the incidence of deaths in detention in Lhasa's Drapchi prison among prisoners due for release in 1998-1999 averaged approximately 1 in 24. Several such deaths were reported as suicides.

In one notable incident in May 1998, political prisoners in Drapchi staged major protests to coincide with a visit from a European Union delegation. The protests were non-violent, but the authorities' reaction was severe: one monk, Lobsang Gelek, died after he was shot. His family was later told that he had committed suicide. The authorities also attributed the deaths of several others prisoners who had demonstrated to suicide, despite credible reports that they had been beaten. Four nuns who had protested all died on the same day in the same way while held in strict solitary confinement. The authorities claimed they had committed suicide, but unofficial reports said they were singled out for particularly harsh treatment as suspected ringleaders of the protests.

At least ten prisoners are believed to have died in the aftermath of the protests. Those subjected to beatings are reported to have included several nuns known to already have had their original sentences extended for continued non-violent protests in prison. Most prominent among them is Ngawang Sangdrol, one of several nuns who smuggled a recording of political protest songs out of prison in 1993, and whose sentence was increased to 18 years."

"Time and again since 1989, the U.S. government has voiced its intention to hold China accountable for its abysmal failings in safeguarding some of the most basic human rights of its citizens. The President and other senior administration officials have raised the issue of human rights violations in Tibet with President Jiang Zemin and other senior Chinese officials during summit meetings and other official gatherings. This is to be welcomed, but it has not resulted in meaningful, positive change. In fact, human rights conditions in China have noticeably deteriorated in the past year or more, something attested to in the State Department's most recent annual report.

On the other hand, China is clearly sensitive to its international image and standing. That is why it has vigorously resisted any debate on its human rights record at the annual meetings of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. And under pressure, it has signed, although not always ratified, a number of important U.N. human rights treaties, including, most recently, the international covenants on civil and political rights, and on economic, social, and cultural rights."

NB, This last passage is important, as it is Chinas concern with it's international image which makes it vulnerable now to pro-Tibetan protest.

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An excerpt from,

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"Out of Tibet's total of 6,259 monasteries and nunneries only about eight remained by 1976. Among those destroyed were the seventh-century Samye, the first monastery in Tibet; Gaden, the earliest and holiest monastic university of the Gelugpas; Sakya, the main seat of the Sakyas; Tsurphu, one of the holiest monasteries of the Kagyus; Mindroling, one of the most famous monasteries of the Nyingmapas; Menri, the earliest and most sacred Bön monastery, etc. Out of 592,558 monks, nuns, rinpoches (reincarnates) and ngagpas (tantric practitioners), over 110,000 were tortured and put to death, and over 250,000 were forcibly disrobed.

The extent of religious destruction in Tibet was referred to by the late Panchen Lama in 1988 in Beijing during the first General Meeting of China's Institute of Tibetology. He said:

The destruction suffered by monasteries in the Tibetan inhabited areas was total and hundred per cent. About 99 percent suffered total destruction. Those seven or eight which remained also did not escape damage. The condition of the Potala Palace was the best among those which remained. But it too suffered damage. Therefore, I say that the destruction caused was hundred per cent."

1979-92: Religious freedom, a ritualistic facade
Since 1979, a much-heralded programme of "liberalisation" began in Tibet under which some superficial facade of religious freedom was allowed. This included limited and selective renovation of places of worship, and allowing people a degree of ritual practices - such as making prostrations, circumambulating places of worship, offering butter lamps, reciting mantras, turning prayer wheels, burning incense, putting up prayer flags, etc. These are only external acts of worship. But propagation of the teachings of the Buddha is either banned or, when permitted, strictly controlled.

The essence of Buddhism lies in mental and spiritual development achieved through intensive study with qualified lamas, understanding and practice. But the Chinese discourage this in their campaign to misrepresent the Tibetan religion as nothing more than practices in superstition and blind faith rather than what it really is: a functional and scientific philosophy. The Dalai Lama, in his 10 March 1987 statement, said:

'The so-called religious freedom in Tibet today amounts to permitting our people to worship and practice religion in a merely ritualistic and devotional way. There are both direct and indirect restrictions on the teaching and study of Buddhist philosophy. Buddhism, thus, is being reduced to blind faith which is exactly how the Communist Chinese view and define religion.' "

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An excerpt from,

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from the site, [link]

Tibetan Torture Survivors Testify Before Congress as Chinese Vice President Meets Bush Administration
May 2nd, 2002

"Choeying Kunsang (left) and Passang Lhamo (right). Photo: Marco Okhuizen
While China's Vice President Hu Jintao met with Bush Administration officials yesterday at the White House, two Tibetan nuns testified before Congress about their experiences as political prisoners in Tibet's Chinese-run prison system.

The nuns, Choeying Kunsang and Passang Lhamo, testified on Capitol Hill for the Congressional Human Rights Caucus about their experiences in Lhasa's notorious Drapchi prison.

"While Hu was in Washington with the intention of treading lightly on this political testing ground, these nuns spoke honestly to the legacy of harsh policies that Hu has left behind him in Tibet," said John Ackerly, President of the International Campaign for Tibet.

Choeying Kunsang and Passang Lhamo were transferred to Drapchi in the mid 1990's while serving sentences for peacefully demonstrating against the Chinese occupation of Tibet, deemed 'endangering state security' by Chinese authorities.

Kunsang (right) and Lhamo (left) testify before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus
In Drapchi they endured physical and psychological torture and witnessed innumerable human rights violations. Although threatened with dire consequences if they ever spoke of what happened inside Drapchi, they escaped from Tibet to help bring attention to the reality of Chinese occupation there.

Hu Jintao, the man most likely to be the next leader of China, was Communist Party Secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region from 1988 - 1992, and implemented martial law in Lhasa in 1989.

During his tenure, hundreds of Tibetan political prisoners were detained, at least 24 of whom remain in Drapchi prison. Among their cases are some of the most egregious examples of China's campaign against the Tibetan identity.

Also during Hu's time in Tibet, the methodology of dealing with political prisoners changed to embrace tools of intimidation such as the isolation of troublesome individual prisoners from the general prison population and the use of mass prison beatings and sentence extensions."

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An excerpt from,

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"Torture in Tibet
24 March, 2008 11:51:00 Esmé McAvoy

In June 1994, three friends and I attempted a protest in Barkhor Square in the centre of Lhasa. We knew we were taking a big risk. Three monks from our village had been imprisoned for protesting, One had died in prison while the others were now in poor health and visibly scarred from torture. But imprisonment was a risk I was willing to take if it meant freedom for Tibetans.
We chose the day carefully. We knew there would be many people circling the temple and burning incense and we wanted to make sure we were seen by as many people as possible. Ours was a simple march. We carried a Tibetan flag and called out ‘Tibet is an independent country’ and ‘China should leave Tibet.’ It took less than three minutes for the Chinese police to surround us and, despite onlookers’ pleas not to arrest us, we were dragged into a police jeep. As we drove away, a crowd shouted at the police and pelted the car with stones. We were taken to Gutsa detention centre and, once inside, we were stripped naked in front of the other prisoners and left for over two hours.
In the first two months in Gutsa we were beaten and tortured terribly. We were put in separate cells from each other. I was in a small room with 11 other prisoners. There wasn’t enough space to stretch out our legs or lie down, so we had to stay crouched all day. Breakfast was a small bread roll and a black tea. There was no lunch. Dinner was another piece of bread with a spoonful of vegetables.
Every day at 8am a guard would begin calling out names for interrogation. We were taken to different rooms to be individually interrogated and tortured. Officials wanted to know where the flag used in our protest had come from and who had told us Tibet was an independent country. They refused to accept my answers that we’d made the flag ourselves and carried on beating me. I was 19 then and my friends 20 and 21. The interrogators thought older Tibetans must have been behind our protest and demanded to know their names. They used iron rods and a rubber tube filled with sand to hit me and electric batons were used all over my body. The same questions were asked over and over and, as I wouldn’t give them any names, the torture sessions sometimes lasted four or five hours.
After six months of detention and torture I was taken to Lhasa court for sentencing. There were no lawyers, just a judge, his assistant and a person reading out the sentences. I was found guilty of ‘engaging in splittist activities’ and sentenced to six years in prison with three years’ suspension of political rights upon my release. We were moved to Drapchi prison, a huge place with over 2,000 prisoners, where the torturing and interrogations continued. When interrogators weren’t happy with my answers, they would close the door, tie my wrists together and hang me from the ceiling on a rope while they beat me. They would fold my legs under me and bind them so I couldn’t stand. Their electric cattle prods would make you faint and give you nose bleeds.
There were 240 political prisoners in my compound – the rest were ordinary criminals – and there were 12 of us to a room. All prisoners were assigned hard labour and I had to work on the land, growing vegetables. Sometimes we were forced to do exhausting military exercises all day and were beaten if we were too slow.
In winter, the guards would enjoy making us stand on frozen water barefoot for hours at a time while they sat and watched. In summer we’d be forced to wear heavy blankets and stand out in the blazing sun or made to balance on one leg with the other stretched out in front balancing a small rock on top of our foot. If the rock fell, you’d be punished. One prisoner with leprosy was shot by the guards. They claimed he had been throwing sand at them, but the man’s hands were crippled into useless fists, so throwing anything would have been impossible.
In May 1998 there was a full-scale protest by prisoners demanding better human rights and the release of those in solitary confinement. The guards responded by shooting in the air, showering bullets and killing one of the prisoners. I saw one man from my unit being brutally beaten by 12 jailers. At least six prisoners died that day.
On the day of my release in June 2000, friends were waiting to meet me with Tibetan silk scarves and gifts but I wasn’t allowed to see them. Instead I was made to sign papers that I wouldn’t speak about my time in prison to anyone, put in a jeep and driven straight home. My grandmother had died while I was in prison, largely from her constant worrying for me. My nephew, who had won a place to study at a university in China, was forcibly expelled once it was known his uncle was a ‘splittist’.
It took me over four months to recover. Blood had been taken from my arms while I was in Drapchi (we heard it was for the Chinese army) and I’d had fluid extracted from my spine three times. My kidneys remain damaged from the beatings and I still have stomach problems and headaches.
The Tibetan officials assigned to watch me, secretly warned me that I was under observation and to be careful. I tried to find work in Lhasa but every time I got a job I would only get to work for a couple of weeks before Chinese officials came to intimidate my employers, threatening them until they had no choice but to ask me to leave. I then opened a small restaurant with the help of my family but after a few months I was forced to sell the place for less than half I’d paid for it on the grounds that I might create a ‘counter-revolutionary atmosphere’.
Life proved so difficult in Tibet I had little choice but to escape to India. I left in February 2005 and walked for 21 days to reach Nepal. I deliberately chose one of the longer routes so there was less risk of getting caught but it was dangerously steep with heavy snows.
Arriving in Nepal and seeing a big picture of His Holiness the Dalai Lama on the wall of the reception centre in Kathmandu was like a dream. I had a real desire then to meet His Holiness and I got my wish in June 2005 when I arrived in Dharamsala. Since that meeting, my only urge has been to study as hard as I can.
Nowadays I have very limited contact with my family. The Chinese know I’m in India but don’t know where. I want to do my bit for Tibetan freedom here – my feelings from that day of protest haven’t changed. I want to see a big Peace March from India to Tibet. Marches here aren’t big enough to really make a difference. If we want to do something for Tibet, this is the year to do it. Post-Olympics, our fight could be forgotten by the world. It might be too late. I protested in Tibet for my country and would go through the torture again until we are free.

Tsering Samdup’s story was told to freelance writer Esmé McAvoy, with the aid of Tibetan translator Sonam Dolkar of the Gu Chu Sum movement for ex-political prisoners."

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This is an important one. The Dalai Lama has long envisaged a peaceful Tibet. Here is an excerpt from his five point peace plan.

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An excerpt from,

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"This peace plan contains five basic components:

1. Transformation of the whole of Tibet into a zone of peace;
2. Abandonment of China's population transfer policy which threatens the very existence of the Tibetan's as a people;
3. Respect for the Tibetan people's fundamental human rights and democratic freedoms;
4. Restoration and protection of Tibet's natural environment and the abandonment of China's use of Tibet for the production of nuclear weapons and dumping of nuclear waste;
5. Commencement of earnest negotiations on the future status of Tibet and of relations between the Tibetan and Chinese peoples.

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This is important also. It is a widely held belief that 1.2 million Tibetans have died. I have recently been given links to the 1953 Tibetan census among other articles, which indicate that this figure is largely exaggerated, not neccessarily intentionally, but, with the passage of time it has stuck in the collective conscious.

I would hate to think I had perpetuated an untruth, and, in the spirit of making information available will provide some links.

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These are not particularly scholarly, but give still show the discrepency between the popularly proclaimed figure and that of the 1953 census. If anyone has more to add to that please let me know.

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I would also like to provide this link. It is the Chinese embassy in Australia. I have read two articles from the site which provided another view on the entire concern. Many people who are pro-Tibet I have found to be anti-China. This, in my humble opinion, is no way forward. I have learnt more in the last week from Chinese people about China's current involvement with Tibet than I had in the last year. It has to be said that China has done much for the region. Even if Chinese figures are exagerated they have still provided materially and have also made many concessions to the Tibetan minority, much as the Australian Government has for the Aboriginal people. Wether these work is another argument entirely, but doesnt change the fact that they are, at the very least, a step in the right direction.

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Their Tibetan Culture Forum

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This is an excellent link provided to me by hazenet, I disagree with some of the points raised, for a number of reasons...I warn you all that this is very looong, but really worth the read. I think in some ways however it can be a little too interested in cold hard facts and less interested in the humans involved. Having said that it raises some great concerns from both sides and I really got a lot out of it. It is really worth the read if only for the fact that it isný written from a "Tibet is heaven on earth who did no wrong ever" point of view which can often be the case when western involvement ocurs...

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I have recently been guilty of spouting off figures which I had not properly checked, yet I have been following the Tibetan occupation for some time at least semi seriously. There is a great danger, which I (and I am sure others) have already seen, which is the taking up of the Tibetan cause as trend. The issue is a serious one, which has two sides. I do not support uninformed protest, and I do not support violence in any form or directed at any person. I wish to make information available so that others may be better informed of an issue which is gaining much media coverage.