ROAD BUILDING IN TIBET: THE TENTACLES OF NEOCOLONIALISM

ROAD BUILDING IN TIBET: THE TENTACLES OF NEOCOLONIALISM

In my analysis, the road building projects in Tibet represent the tentacles of Neocolonialism spreading a sense of deep fear, hopelessness, and frustration grasping Tibetans under perpetual oppression, suppression, and repression imposed by China’s military conquest of Tibet in 1950.

Rudranarasimham Rebbapragada

SPECIAL FRONTIER FORCE

World’s highest super-long tunnel opens in Tibet

Clipped from: https://www.asiaone.com/china/worlds-highest-super-long-tunnel-opens-tibet

Road Building in Tibet: The Tentacles of Neocolonialism grasping the Mila Mountain.

The Mila Mount Tunnel on the Lhasa-Nyingchi Highway in China’s Tibet autonomous region began operations on Friday, symbolizing the full operation of another vital traffic line in the region.

The tunnel is located at the junction of Lhasa and Nyingchi at an average altitude of 4,750 meters above sea level, according to the China Railway Erju Construction Co., Ltd, which constructed the project.

As a key section of the Lhasa-Nyingchi Highway on the National Highway 318, the left lane of the tunnel is 5,727 meters and the right lane is 5,720 meters long respectively, according to the company.

Construction of the Mila Mount tunnel started in April 2015, and it has become the world’s highest super-long tunnel, the company said.

The Mila Mount Tunnel on the Lhasa-Nyingchi Highway of China’s Tibet autonomous region began operations on Friday (April 26).Photo: China Daily/Asia News Network

Linking the regional capital city Lhasa with the region’s eastern tourism city of Nyingchi, the 409-kilometre highway has reduced travel time from the previous eight hours to the current four.

PRAYER FLAGS OF GYIRONG COUNTY, TIBET

PRAYER FLAGS OF GYIRONG COUNTY, TIBET

I recognize the identity of Tibet by simply viewing the Prayer Flags that adorn this Land.

Rudranarasimham Rebbapragada

Special Frontier Force

**Prayer Flags of Gyirong County, Tibet.**

Photo taken on April 28, 2019, shows the scenery in Gyirong County of Xigaze Region, Tibet. (Photo: Xinhua)

Photo taken on April 28, 2019, shows a woman working at Naicun Village in Gyirong County of Xigaze Region, Tibet. (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

Villagers walk in Gyirong County of Xigaze Region, Tibet, April 28, 2019. (Photo: Xinhua)

Photo taken on April 28, 2019, shows a yak resting at Gyironggou in Gyirong County of Xigaze Region, Tibet. (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

Photo taken on April 28, 2019, shows the scenery in Gyirong County of Xigaze Region, Tibet. (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

Photo taken on April 28, 2019, shows plants in Gyirong County of Xigaze Region, Tibet. (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

Photo taken on April 28, 2019, shows the scenery in Gyirong County of Xigaze Region, Tibet. (Photo: Xinhua)

THE SUPREME RULER OF TIBET RETURNS TO HIS BASE

THE SUPREME RULER OF TIBET RETURNS TO HIS BASE

The Supreme Ruler of Tibet returns to his base after treatment in a hospital for a chest infection.

Rudranarasimham Rebbapragada

SPECIAL FRONTIER FORCE

DALAI LAMA BACK HOME AFTER TREATMENT IN A HOSPITAL

Clipped from: https://home.bt.com/news/world-news/dalai-lama-back-home-after-treatment-in-hospital-for-chest-infection-11364357764794

Hundreds welcomed him home as he described the ailment as ‘a little bit serious’.

The Supreme Ruler of Tibet returns to his base after hospital treatment.

The Dalai Lama has returned to his headquarters in the north Indian hill town of Dharmsala after a brief stay in a hospital in the capital for treatment of a chest infection.

Hundreds of exiled Tibetans lined the streets of Dharamsala carrying ceremonial scarves and incense sticks to welcome the Dalai Lama on Friday.

The 83-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader told reporters that he had fully recovered, but that the illness had been “a little bit serious”.

The Dalai Lama described the illness as ‘a little bit serious’ (Chris Radburn/PA)

He did not give any details.

The Dalai Lama usually spends several months a year traveling the world to teach Buddhism and highlight Tibetans’ struggle for greater freedom in China.

But he has cut down on his travels in the past year to take care of his health.

LIVING TIBETAN SPIRITS: A FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL

The Living Tibetan Spirits continue to wage a Fight for Survival as they have not yet reached the Final Destination in Life. The Fight for Tibet is the only option while the Dalai Lama is trapped in Exile.

Rudranarasimham Rebbapragada

SPECIAL FRONTIER FORCE

Clipped from: https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2019/04/02/news-stream-kristie-lu-stout-dalai-lama-pkg.cnn

Video: https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2019/04/02/news-stream-kristie-lu-stout-dalai-lama-pkg.cnn

Dalai Lama’s fight for Tibet, 60 years after exile

Duration: 03:29

Tibet’s highest spiritual leader fled his home country and began his life as an exile – advocating for the country’s cultural autonomy. But as China’s grip on Tibet tightens, his fellow Tibetans may face a fight for survival.

CNN

TOUGH TIMES NEVER LAST, BUT TOUGH PEOPLE DO: THE ENDURING SAGA OF THE DALAI LAMA

TOUGH TIMES NEVER LAST, BUT TOUGH PEOPLE DO: THE ENDURING SAGA OF THE DALAI LAMA

Sixty Years ago, His Holiness the 14^th Dalai Lama survived a very tough ordeal to serve his Land and People to the best of his abilities.

Rudranarasimham Rebbapragada

SPECIAL FRONTIER FORCE

Clipped from: https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/apr/01/archive-dalai-lama-flees-to-india-1959

The 14th Dalai Lama flees from Tibet to India across the Himalayas, 1959. He is riding a white pony, third from the right. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images

The Chinese were yesterday using planes and some fifty thousand troops, including paratroops, to search the Tibetan mountain passes for the Dalai Lama. But according to reports from Kalimpong, in North-east India, the Tibetan religious leader, moving only by night, was expected to cross the frontier within a few days.

Meanwhile in New Delhi, Mr. Silun Lukhangwa, a former Tibetan Premier, said it was hoped to send a delegation to the United Nations to protest against Chinese action in his country. He was speaking after two Tibetan groups had appealed for Indian aid in the crisis in an interview with Mr. Nehru. An Indian official press release merely said: “Mr. Nehru spoke to them briefly, expressing the hope that the present difficulties in Tibet would end peacefully. He made it clear that India was not in a position to intervene and in fact would not like to take any steps which might aggravate the situation there.”

The Dalai Lama is accompanied on his flight by his mother and sisters, as well as most members of the Tibetan Cabinet, it was learned yesterday. His progress on the 200-mile trek to safety is slow, but it was believed in Kalimpong yesterday that reports that he had been injured in a fall were incorrect. The territory through which he is believed to be moving is the roadless mountainous region of the Tibetan plateau, south-east of Lhasa, bordering Bhutan and the Indian North-east Frontier Agency. The Indian north-east frontier region has been closed to anyone without a permit, and it was stated in New Delhi that no permits could be issued at present.

Reports said the Chinese were dropping paratroopers in an effort to intercept the Dalai Lama. Other troops were going from village to village and monastery to monastery “harassing” inhabitants and monks to try to extort information about him. Strong cordons of Chinese soldiers were being thrown round many monasteries, including the one at Rongbuk, near Mount Everest.

The Tibetan delegation gave Mr. Nehru a memorandum asking him:

1. To lend his active support in securing the personal safety of the Dalai Lama.

2. To send immediately a mercy mission to Tibet with medical supplies.

3. To sponsor the Tibetan cause before the United Nations.

4. To permit Tibetan refugees to cross over freely into India.

It was thought in New Delhi that Mr. Nehru might well pass on the memorandum to the Chinese for their information. The Tibetan groups’ leader, Mr. Lukhangwa, told reporters: “The Dalai Lama’s wishes are the wishes of the people of Tibet. Whatever he says, we will follow him.”

MARCH 29, 1973: THE UNFINISHED WAR TO CONTAIN COMMUNISM

MARCH 29, 1973: THE UNFINISHED WAR TO CONTAIN COMMUNISM

On March 29, 1973, the U.S. withdraws combat troops from Vietnam after the signing of the Vietnam Peace Agreement in Paris on January 29, 1973. However, the War to contain the threat posed by the spread of Communism to Asia is not over.

Rudranarasimham Rebbapragada

SPECIAL FRONTIER FORCE

Clipped from:

U.S. Withdraws from Vietnam-History

1973

U.S. withdraws from Vietnam

March 29. U.S. withdraws from Vietnam

Two months after the signing of the Vietnam peace agreement, the last U.S. combat troops leave South Vietnam as Hanoi frees the remaining American prisoners of war held in North Vietnam. America’s direct eight-year intervention in the Vietnam War was at an end. In Saigon, some 7,000 U.S. Department of Defense civilian employees remained behind to aid South Vietnam in conducting what looked to be a fierce and ongoing war with communist North Vietnam.

In 1961, after two decades of indirect military aid, U.S. President John F. Kennedy sent the first large force of U.S. military personnel to Vietnam to bolster the ineffectual autocratic regime of South Vietnam against the communist North. Three years later, with the South Vietnamese government crumbling, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered limited bombing raids on North Vietnam, and Congress authorized the use of U.S. troops. By 1965, North Vietnamese offensives left President Johnson with two choices: escalate U.S. involvement or withdraw. Johnson ordered the former, and troop levels soon jumped to more than 300,000 as U.S. air forces commenced the largest bombing campaign in history.

During the next few years, the extended length of the war, the high number of U.S. casualties, and the exposure of U.S. involvement in war crimes, such as the massacre at My Lai, helped turn many in the United States against the Vietnam War. The communists’ Tet Offensive of 1968 crushed U.S. hopes of an imminent end to the conflict and galvanized U.S. opposition to the war. In response, Johnson announced in March 1968 that he would not seek reelection, citing what he perceived to be his responsibility in creating a perilous national division over Vietnam. He also authorized the beginning of peace talks.

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In the spring of 1969, as protests against the war escalated in the United States, U.S. troop strength in the war-torn country reached its peak at nearly 550,000 men. Richard Nixon, the new U.S. president, began U.S. troop withdrawal and “Vietnamization” of the war effort that year, but he intensified bombing. Large U.S. troop withdrawals continued in the early 1970s as President Nixon expanded air and ground operations into Cambodia and Laos in attempts to block enemy supply routes along Vietnam’s borders. This expansion of the war, which accomplished few positive results, led to new waves of protests in the United States and elsewhere.

Finally, in January 1973, representatives of the United States, North and South Vietnam, and the Vietcong signed a peace agreement in Paris, ending the direct U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War. Its key provisions included a cease-fire throughout Vietnam, the withdrawal of U.S. forces, the release of prisoners of war, and the reunification of North and South Vietnam through peaceful means. The South Vietnamese government was to remain in place until new elections were held, and North Vietnamese forces in the South were not to advance further nor be reinforced.

However, the agreement was little more than a face-saving gesture by the U.S. government. Even before the last American troops departed on March 29, the communists violated the cease-fire, and by early 1974 full-scale war had resumed. At the end of 1974, South Vietnamese authorities reported that 80,000 of their soldiers and civilians had been killed in fighting during the year, making it the costliest of the Vietnam War.

On April 30, 1975, the last few Americans still in South Vietnam were airlifted out of the country as Saigon fell to communist forces. North Vietnamese Colonel Bui Tin, accepting the surrender of South Vietnam later in the day, remarked, “You have nothing to fear; between Vietnamese there are no victors and no vanquished. Only the Americans have been defeated.” The Vietnam War was the longest and most unpopular foreign war in U.S. history and cost 58,000 American lives. As many as two million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were killed.

LIVING TIBETAN SPIRITS BEWITCHED BY “PEACEFUL LIBERATION” OF TIBET

LIVING TIBETAN SPIRITS BEWITCHED BY “PEACEFUL LIBERATION” OF TIBET

Living Tibetan Spirits are bewitched by “Peaceful Liberation” of Tibet. Occupation is a Lie. Tibet is Never a Part of China.

Rudranarasimham Rebbapragada

SPECIAL FRONTIER FORCE

China says Tibet human rights critics ‘bewitched’ by Dalai Lama | Reuters

Clipped from: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-tibet/china-says-tibet-human-rights-critics-bewitched-by-dalai-lama-idUSKCN1R80A3

BEIJING (Reuters) – Those who criticize China over human rights in Tibet have been “bewitched” by the Dalai Lama, a senior Chinese official said on Wednesday, days before the 60th anniversary of the Tibetan spiritual leader’s flight into exile in India.

People cross a road under flags marking Tibetan Serfs’ Emancipation Day on March 28, in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region, China March 26, 2019. Picture taken March 26, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer

China says it “peacefully liberated” Tibet in 1950 and has since exerted enormous effort to bring the remote region into the modern era, abolishing feudal practices while protecting its Buddhist people’s right to freely practise their religion and maintain their culture.

Critics, including the United States, say China rules with an iron fist and has overseen widespread rights abuses.

Deputy Tibet governor Norbu Dondrup said Tibetan society was “very dark and very cruel” before Communist Party rule. He was speaking in Beijing on the release of a policy paper marking six decades since China began what it calls “democratic reforms” in Tibet.

He said ordinary people – or “serfs” – could be bought and sold, thrown in jail, or even killed at will when the Dalai Lama was in charge in Tibet.

“The Dalai Lama attacking our human rights totally has ulterior motives. He tramples on human rights, and has no right, no qualifications, and is unworthy of talking about human rights,” Norbu Dondrup said.

“As for some countries slamming our human rights, they either don’t understand or believe the Dalai clique’s rumors and bewitchments,” he said.

The human rights situation in Tibet was extremely good, he said, listing examples such as free medical care and an abundance of food.

Asked whether China would ever allow an independence referendum in Tibet, as has happened in Scotland and Quebec, Norbu Dondrup said Tibet has been an inseparable part of China since ancient times.

“We have never recognized Tibet independence, and neither has any other country,” he said. “Moreover, the peoples of Tibet in the extended family of the peoples of the motherland now have very happy lives.”

China reviles the Dalai Lama, who crossed the border into exile in India on March 31, 1959, after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

Seen by Beijing as a dangerous separatist, he says he seeks merely genuine autonomy for his mountainous homeland and denies espousing violence.

The Dalai Lama told Reuters last week it was possible that, once he dies, his incarnation could be found in India and warned that any other successor named by China would not be respected.

The officially atheist Communist Party says it must approve his and other reincarnations of Tibetan lamas.

The Tibet issue has also become another irritant in China-U.S. ties after President Donald Trump signed into law a Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act in December.

That seeks to press China to open the region by denying U.S. entry to officials deemed responsible for restricting access to Tibet. China has denounced the law.

Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Paul Tait

THE BATTLE FOR TIBET. TRUTH vs GUN

THE BATTLE FOR TIBET. TRUTH vs GUN

“Our strength, our power is based on truth. Chinese power based on gun,” the Dalai Lama said. “So, for short term, gun is much more decisive, but long term truth is more powerful.”

In my analysis, the Battle for Tibet will not be decided by either Chinese Gun or American Gun. Truth will prevail. China will reap the consequences of her own Evil actions. Tibet’s Identity is shaped by Natural Forces, Natural Causes, and Natural Factors that condition the nature of Tibetan Existence. Nature will unleash physical force to compel China to withdraw from illegally occupied Tibetan Territory.

Rudranarasimham Rebbapragada

Special Frontier Force

Exclusive: Dalai Lama contemplates Chinese gambit after his death. Reuters

Clipped from: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-tibet-dalai-lama-exclusive/exclusive-dalai-lama-contemplates-chinese-gambit-after-his-death-idUSKCN1QZ1NS?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

DHARAMSHALA, India (Reuters) –

The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, said on Monday it was possible that once he dies his incarnation could be found in India, where he has lived in exile for 60 years, and warned that any other successor named by China would not be respected.

Sat in an office next to a temple ringed by green hills and snow-capped mountains, the 14th Dalai Lama spoke to Reuters a day after Tibetans in the northern Indian town of Dharamshala marked the anniversary of his escape from the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, disguised as a soldier.

He fled to India in early 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule and has since worked to draw global support for linguistic and cultural autonomy in his remote and mountainous homeland.

China, which took control of Tibet in 1950, brands the 83-year-old Nobel peace laureate a dangerous separatist.

Pondering what might happen after his death, the Dalai Lama anticipated some attempt by Beijing to foist a successor on Tibetan Buddhists.

“China considers Dalai Lama’s reincarnation as something very important. They have more concern about the next Dalai Lama than me,” said the Dalai Lama, swathed in his traditional red robes and yellow scarf.

“In future, in case you see two Dalai Lamas come, one from here, in free country, one chosen by Chinese, then nobody will trust, nobody will respect (the one chosen by China). So that’s an additional problem for the Chinese! It’s possible, it can happen,” he added, laughing.

China has said its leaders have the right to approve the Dalai Lama’s successor, as a legacy inherited from China’s emperors.

But many Tibetans – whose tradition holds that the soul of a senior Buddhist monk is reincarnated in the body of a child on his death – suspect any Chinese role as a ploy to exert influence on the community.

Born in 1935, the current Dalai Lama was identified as the reincarnation of his predecessor when he was two years old.

Speaking in Beijing at a daily news briefing on Tuesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the 14th Dalai Lama himself was chosen by following centuries-old religious rituals and history, which were “respected and protected” in rules and ordinances regulating religion.

“Therefore reincarnations, including that of the Dalai Lama, should observe the country’s laws and regulations and follow the rituals and history of religion,” Geng said.

UP FOR DISCUSSION

Many of China’s more than 6 million Tibetans still venerate the Dalai Lama despite government prohibitions on displays of his picture or any public display of devotion.

The Dalai Lama said contact between Tibetans living in their homeland and in exile was increasing, but that no formal meetings have happened between Chinese and his officials since 2010.

Informally, however, some retired Chinese officials and businessman with connections to Beijing do visit him from time to time, he added.

He said the role of the Dalai Lama after his death, including whether to keep it, could be discussed during a meeting of Tibetan Buddhists in India later this year.

He, however, added that though there was no reincarnation of Buddha, his teachings have remained.

“If the majority of (Tibetan people) really want to keep this institution, then this institution will remain,” he said. “Then comes the question of the reincarnation of the 15th Dalai Lama.”

FILE PHOTO: Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, Patron of Children in Crossfire, speaks during a press conference in Londonderry, Northern Ireland September 11, 2017. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne/File Photo

If there is one, he would still have “no political responsibility”, said the Dalai Lama, who gave up his political duties in 2001, developing a democratic system for the up to 100,000 Tibetans living in India.

SEMINAR IN CHINA?

During the interview, the Dalai Lama spoke passionately about his love for cosmology, neurobiology, quantum physics and psychology.

If he was ever allowed to visit his homeland, he said he’d like to speak about those subjects in a Chinese university.

But he wasn’t expecting to go while China remained under Communist rule.

“China – great nation, ancient nation – but it’s political system is totalitarian system, no freedom. So therefore, I prefer to remain here, in this country.”

The Dalai Lama was born to a family of farmers in Taktser, a village on the northeastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, in China’s Qinghai province.

During a recent Reuters visit to Taktser, police armed with automatic weapons blocked the road. Police and more than a dozen plain-clothed officials said the village was not open to non-locals.

“Our strength, our power is based on truth. Chinese power based on gun,” the Dalai Lama said. “So, for short term, gun is much more decisive, but long term truth is more powerful.”

Reporting by Krishna N. Das; Additional reporting by Philip Wen in BEIJING; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore

I SAY GOD MUST REINCARNATE TO DEFY THE CHINESE RULE OVER TIBET

I say God must reincarnate to defy the Chinese Rule over Tibet. If not, I ask God to give me a few pebbles to knock down The Goliath.

Rudranarasimham Rebbapragada

SPECIAL FRONTIER FORCE

China says Dalai Lama reincarnation ‘must comply’ with Chinese laws

Clipped from: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/03/21/china-says-dalai-lama-reincarnation-must-comply-chinese-laws/

The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, warned that the successor chosen by China could not be trusted Credit: BIJU BORO/AFP/Getty Images

The Dalai Lama has warned of a possible “double reincarnation” with one from a “free country” after Beijing reiterated that his next incarnation must comply with Chinese law.

The Tibetan Buddhist leader on Monday warned that a successor chosen by Beijing after his eventual death could not be trusted.

He said it is possible that his reincarnation could be found in India, where he has lived in exile for 60 years upon fleeing Tibet following a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

“In future, in case you see two Dalai Lamas come, one from here, in free country, one chosen by Chinese, then nobody will trust, nobody will respect [the one chosen by China].

“So that’s an additional problem for the Chinese! It’s possible, it can happen,” he told Reuters in an interview.

The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in northern India since the failed uprising, along with other Tibetans Credit: MONEY SHARMA/AFP/Getty Images

China stated in response that its leaders have the right to approve the Dalai Lama’s successor. The selection process “must comply with Chinese laws and regulations,” according to Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the foreign ministry.

Chinese state media highlighted those laws, titled “New Regulations on Religious Affairs and the Rules on the Management of the Reincarnation of Tibetan Living Buddhas.”

Many Tibetans, who believe that the soul of a senior Buddhist monk is reincarnated into the physical body of a child upon his death, worry a successor chosen by Beijing will be under the thumb of the ruling Communist Party.

The current Dalai Lama was identified as the reincarnation of his predecessor when he was two years old.

Now at 83, it’s getting harder for him to travel the world to boost awareness, and his influence is waning just as China’s is growing on the world stage.

The Dalai Lama is now 83 Credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images

Beijing has recently cracked down heavily on religion under president Xi Jinping, after the government vowed to “Sinicize” faith. The wave of repression has affected Muslims, Christians, and Buddhists.

“China considers Dalai Lama’s reincarnation as something very important,” the Dalai Lama said in an interview with Reuters. “They have more concern about the next Dalai Lama than me.”

Beijing has previously co-opted the spiritual reincarnation process with a goal of bringing Tibetan Buddhism within party lines.

In 1995, the Dalai Lama named a young Tibetan boy as the reincarnation of the previous Panchen Lama – the second highest in spiritual authority after himself. But the child was then put under what Chinese officials described as protective custody.

Beijing put forth another successor and the Dalai Lama’s choice – then only six years old – disappeared from public.

‘Chinese interference is routine’

The Chinese government has sought to discredit the Dalai Lama. In February, Wu Yingjie, leader of a parliamentary delegation from Tibet, said that Tibetans didn’t love the Dalai Lama at all.

“Since Dalai Lama defected from Tibet, he has never done a single thing that was for the benefit for the Tibetan people,” Mr. Wu said. Instead, “they are grateful for what the Party brings to them.”

Last May, Tashi Wangchuk, a Tibetan businessman, was given a five-year prison sentence by China for promoting the Tibetan language, based on comments made in interviews with the New York Times.

The Tibet Autonomous Region, in China’s far west, is considered a homeland to many Tibetans and remains on lockdown. Travel in and out of the region is difficult, even for Tibetans.

Foreign journalists cannot visit without government permission, and those requests are frequently denied. Chinese officials have said they are concerned this is out of concern that foreigners may find it difficult to acclimate to the high altitudes on the Tibetan plateau.

MY LIFE’S STRUGGLE IN THE SHADOWS OF TIBET’S STRUGGLE

MY LIFE’S STRUGGLE IN THE SHADOWS OF TIBET’S STRUGGLE

I can best describe my life as an incessant struggle in the Shadows of Tibet’s Struggle for Freedom, Peace, and Justice in Occupied Tibet.

Rudranarasimham Rebbapragada

SPECIAL FRONTIER FORCE

Tibet struggle’s slow slide off the global radar as Dalai Lama ages

Clipped from: https://news.yahoo.com/tibet-struggles-slow-slide-off-global-radar-dalai-074037209.html

The iconic Potala Palace in Tibet’s regional capital of Lhasa (AFP Photo/JOHANNES EISELE)

Sixty years after the Dalai Lama fled into permanent Indian exile, the cause of Tibetan freedom that earned him a Nobel prize and a celebrity-studded international following has lost much of its momentum — neutralized, analysts say, by the passage of time and China’s rising global power.

Inside Tibet, Beijing has effectively wiped out any organized opposition to its iron-clad rule, while outside, the once-vocal support of sympathetic governments and world leaders has dwindled to near-silence in recent years despite the 14th Dalai Lama’s enduring personal popularity.

“The fate of Tibet is in the hands of the Chinese state… Tibetans outside the region are not very relevant to the fate of Tibet, and this includes the Dalai Lama”, said Nathan Hill, convener of Tibetan studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.

In 2007, the Buddhist spiritual leader said his homeland was facing its “darkest period in 2,000 years”. The following year, with the world’s eyes on China in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics, protests unfurled across Tibet, sparking a furious response from Beijing.

“You don’t see protests like that anymore,” said Kate Saunders of the US-based International Campaign for Tibet, attributing the shift in part to Tibetans abiding by the Dalai Lama’s message of non-violence and to massive Chinese state surveillance.

Although the Dalai Lama’s campaign largely focused on autonomy rather than independence, negotiations with China stalled in 2010, amid suspicion that Beijing was intentionally dragging on pointless talks, hoping international pressure would ease with his eventual death.

The 83-year-old has sought to pre-empt any attempt by Beijing to name his reincarnated successor, even announcing in 2011 that he may be the last in the lineage.

The officially atheist Communist Party has already shown it will intervene in the reincarnation of important figures in Tibetan Buddhism, such as the Panchen Lama who traditionally plays a significant role in choosing the Dalai Lama’s successor.

The boy chosen by the Dalai Lama to serve as the Panchen Lama was detained by Chinese authorities at the age of six and has not been seen since, with Beijing appointing its own candidate in 1995.

Although the exiled leader remains a hugely popular speaker, he has cut back on his global engagements and has not met a world leader since 2016 — while governments have been wary of extending invitations to him for fear of angering Beijing.

“The craze for Tibet among Westerners in the 1980s and the following decades has decreased significantly”, said Katia Buffetrille, a Tibetologist at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris.

Even India, which offered asylum to the Dalai Lama in 1959 when he made a daring escape across the Himalayas dressed as a soldier, has turned its back, with the government reportedly warning officials against attending events featuring him, citing diplomatic sensitivities.

– Buying freedom –

As the exile-led movement loses momentum, Tibetans at home are struggling to keep their traditions alive.

“Tibetans live in a totalitarian police state — if they challenge restrictions, they face the consequences,” said Gray Tuttle, a professor of modern Tibetan studies at Columbia University.

“Previous protests from the 1980s on… have yielded no tangible benefits, rather they have generated a worse political outcome and further clampdown.”

At least 150 Tibetans have set themselves on fire since 2009 in protest against Beijing, most of whom have died from their injuries. But the frequency of self-immolations has lessened.

China’s investment in the region includes a huge outlay on security to build a surveillance state that makes it harder to organize protests. Rights groups say that a government campaign targeting the family and friends of protesters has also helped suppress dissent.

Beijing insists that Tibetans enjoy extensive freedoms and argues it has brought economic growth to the mountainous region.

The oppression of Uighurs in Xinjiang has also overtaken Tibet as the focus of China’s human rights critics.

When Germany’s top human rights official Barbel Kofler asked to visit Xinjiang last year, she was taken instead to Tibet — an indication of how much Beijing feels secure about the situation there, even though foreign journalists are still barred from reporting independently in the region.

Many locals accuse Beijing of repressing their religion and diluting their culture, but nonetheless the economic growth — boosted by government subsidies — has even seen Tibetan exiles return to the region.

Tibetologist Francoise Robin, who visits the region every year, told AFP that Beijing had effectively sidelined any talk of freedom by pumping money into Tibet.

“This is what is paradoxical in the case of Tibet, compared to other similar situations, because China is a country… that is on the rise. Often, in order for a rebellion, for a mass movement to rise, you need economic despair.”

burs-amu/fox/fa