Friday, April 04, 2008

Please Don't Ignore This!


Since the Chinese Government recieved the worlds approval to hold the 2008 Beijing Olympics, they have gone back on every pledge and assurance they made to the rest of the world regarding human rights.

Right now, today, we are staring in the pit of genocide.

The Chinese, blinded by their pride and aging ideology are engaged in a ritualistic tragic display. Unless the rest of the world can somehow intervene, Tibetan culture will be erased.

This is a report from Tibet, dated April 4th.......The momentum of the international communtiy to speak up and intervene is only as powerful as the voices of the masses that make it concious of it's moral imperative.. You are the conciousness, your voice is the power. The time is now, if you do not act, tomorrow will never come......

Chinese paramilitary police have killed eight people after opening fire on several hundred Tibetan monks and villagers in bloody violence that will fuel human rights protests as London prepares to host its leg of the Olympic torch relay this weekend.

Witnesses said the clash – in which dozens were wounded – erupted late last night after a government inspection team entered a monastery in the Chinese province of Sichuan trying to confiscate pictures of the Dalai Lama.

Officials searched the room of every monk in the Donggu monastery, a sprawling 15th century edifice in Ganzi, southwestern Sichuan, confiscating all mobile phones as well as the pictures.

When the inspectors tore up the photographs and threw them on the floor, a 74-year-old monk, identified as Cicheng Danzeng, tried to stop an act seen as a desecration by Tibetans who revere the Dalai Lama as their god king.

A young man working in the monastery, identified as Cicheng Pingcuo, 25, also made a stand and both were arrested.

The team then demanded that all the monks denounce the Dalai Lama, who fled China after a failed uprising in 1959. One monk, Yixi Lima, stood up and voiced his opposition, prompting the other monks to add their voices.

At about 6.30 p.m., the entire monastic body marched down to a nearby river where paramilitary police were encamped and demanded the release of the two men.

They were joined by several hundred local villagers, many of them enraged at the detention of the 74-year-old monk Cicheng Danzeng, who locals say is well respected in the area for his learning and piety.

Shouting “Long Live the Dalai Lama,” “Let the Dalai Lama come back” and “We want freedom”, the crowd demonstrated until about nine in the evening.

Witnesses said that at around that time, as many as 1,000 paramilitary police used force to try to end the protest and opened fire on the crowd. It was not known if the demonstrators had been throwing stones at the police.

In the gunfire, eight people died, according to a local resident in direct contact with the monastery. These included a 27-year-old monk identified as Cangdan and two women named as Zhulongcuo and Danluo.

Witnesses said a 30-year-old villager, Pupu Deley, was killed, along with the son of a villager named Cangdan, and the daughter of villager Cuogu. Two other people, whose identities were not available, were also killed and dozens were wounded, the witnesses said.

They said about ten people were still missing today, including another monk, identified as Ciwang Renzhen.

Armed paramilitary police patrolled the streets of the village today and surrounded the monastery. All communications had been cut.

The latest upsurge of violence highlights the difficulties the Chinese authorities are facing in trying to end nearly a month of protests across the Tibetan region and the depth of anti-Chinese sentiment among a deeply Buddhist minority loyal to the exiled Dalai Lama.

It comes just as the issue of unrest has become a magnet for activists around the world who are criticising China’s human rights record as it prepares to host the Olympic Games in Beijing in August.

The incident, which will cast a shadow of Beijing plans to reopen the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, to tourists by May 1, came as the authorities appeared to have regained control of the vast parts of China that have large ethnic Tibetan populations.

In Lhasa, police issued their Number 13 most wanted list, bringing to 79 the number of people still sought for their roles in a deadly riot on March 14 when angry Tibetans rampaged through the streets of the Tibetan capital, stabbing and stoning ethnic Han Chinese and setting fire to hundreds of shops and offices. At least 18 people died in the violence.

Lhasa authorities today sent out a message by mobile phone to residents, offering a reward of 20,000 yuan (£1,300) to anyone who could offer information leading to the arrest of those wanted for the violence.

Two monks in the mountainous Sichuan province have committed suicide, according to Tibetan sources. A 32-year-old monk at Kirti monastery hanged himself in his room on March 27, leaving a signed suicide note.

A 72-year-old from Guomang temple, apparently upset after being detained while en route to a religious ceremony with his disciples, returned to his monastery and killed himself.



8 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you believe everything you read on the news, and filtered out the other side of the story, you will never be able to find out the truth.
Tibet's situation is China's domestic situation. Chinese government has the right to do anything necessary to make sure the country is stable. Just like any other government would do.
Dalai's over the top popularity in the west has made people like you believe that he is the 'right' person to believe. If you want to find out the truth, let go of your prejudice on China, and truly find out who he really is and what the majority of the REAL Tibetian people want. Listening to those who has never lived in Tibet - Tibetian will make your blog lose your credit.
Unfortunately, you are living in the Western media controlled world. There is no freedom of news here :)

microdot said...

Frankly, It is an anonymous blogger parroting the propaganda of the Chinese Government who will never have any crediblity here!
I have seen the organized blogging movement comeing out of China to spread this klind of disinformation.
My interest in Tibet is the result of my ongoing reading of history, the news and political theory going back to the 60's.
If you were at all aware of my writing and my opinions, you would see that I have been able to suupport China and their revolution, but it is time for the ideology to stop and start paying attention to human reality.
Your vague arguments have no credibility here and the ridiculous nationalistic and beligerent statements that I have seen by the organized propaganda blogging by the Chinese government only serve to discredit and make you look brutally ridiculous to the rest of the world!

Anonymous said...

You know what? I am residing in USA and read all these CNN and Washington Post news. I don't believe them. I have been posted a lot of comments around the Tibet issues, all contracting to what CNN and Washington Post says. Most of these comments are from overseas Chinese who are well informed. Not from inside China.

All these CNN news are biased. Not many people in the western countries really know what the Dalai Lama wants. They are fooled by Dalai Lama.

Anonymous said...

Dear microdot:

I can't help to laught that you claim "My interest in Tibet is the result of my ongoing reading of history, the news and political theory going back to the 60's." The history of Tibet and its relation with China dated back to many centries ago. For example, do you know the first Dalai lama was installed by Chinese minitary about 6 hundrad years ago? Do you also know the status of current Dalai lama was approved by Chinese nationalist government? Please read more. The history is much more complicated.

microdot said...

Well, I don't live in the USA and I have been getting my information from many different sources for the last 50 years. All these CNN News is biased? What news isn't biased according to you?
Should I be getting my news only from The Chinese State News Services?
Should I be reading only State approved revised and sanitized history?
Should I be ignoring the reports of the real deaths and injuries and cultural destruction in Tibet and listen to only what you want me to believe?
You are so lucky to have George Bush as a supporter. He's going to go to the Olympic Opening Ceremony and make everyone proud.

Now suppose you tell me what you think I should be saying as to what the Dalai Lama really wants.

microdot said...

It's almost 24 hours later and the Torch is passing through London.
I am watching the live coverage on Al Jazeera. If you propagandists are interested in stopping any negative reports about what is going on, why don't you just bomb Al Jazeera's Studios?
Is this the future of international relations with China?
Pure bullying and insolent defiance in the face of world opinion because you are too proud to change the course of your aging ideology?

You can censor the internet and rewrite history inside the borders of your country, but the truth still and will always exist and the tide of humanity will always strive for feedom and truth.

I admire China and it's revolutionary struggle in the 20th Century, but it is the 21st Century and it is time to think beyond selfish nationalism and injustice fueled by pride.

China becomes more free and modern, but America becomes more like China. Is this the future? A moral mediocrity with no soul?
Open your hearts and minds and learn to become bigger humans...
Learn that it isn't weakness to have a soul which can be touched!

Savo Heleta said...

It is a shame what China is doing in Tibet. But since the Western world depends on cheap Chinese goods, no one will do anything special to help Tibetans.

If Tibetans would proclaim their independence like Kosovo recently, no one in the West would support it due to the Western interests in China.

It’s an ugly world we live in. If there is no interest, some people simply don’t matter.

SAVO HELETA
Author of "Not My Turn to Die:
Memoirs of a Broken Childhood in Bosnia"
http://savoheleta.livejournal.com

microdot said...

savo, I sure agree with what you have said in your comment. I just went to your blog site and am really floored by the content and emotion and experience which you convey.
I have known people on both sides of the conflict in Bosnia and have heard about the injustices committed by each side.
I want to read more about what you are saying and your experience and I will try to say somnething about it in a post and provide a link.
Thank you very much for your comment after almost 500 aggressive posts from the Chinese internet propaganda police, it was refreshing to get a post that was completely different and I didn't have to delete!