Protest in Tibet

[Daniel]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/15/wo...5tibet.html?hp

March 15, 2008
Chinese Police Clash With Tibet Protesters

By JIM YARDLEY
BEIJING — Violent protests erupted Friday in a busy market area of Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, as Buddhist monks and other ethnic Tibetans clashed with Chinese security forces. Witnesses say the protesters burned shops, cars, military vehicles and at least one tourist bus.

The chaotic scene marked the most violent demonstrations since protests by Buddhist monks began in Lhasa on Monday, the anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule in 1959. The protests have been the largest in Tibet since the late 1980s, when Chinese security forces repeatedly used lethal force to restore order in the region.

The developments prompted the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, to issue a statement, saying he was concerned about the situation and appealing to the Chinese leadership to “stop using force and address the long-simmering resentment of the Tibetan people”.

By Friday night, Chinese authorities had placed much of the central part of the city under a curfew, including neighborhoods around different Buddhist monasteries, according to two Lhasa residents reached by telephone. Military police were blocking roads in some ethnic Tibetan neighborhoods, several Lhasa residents said.

Meanwhile, the United States Embassy in Beijing warned American citizens to stay away from Lhasa. The embassy said it had “received firsthand reports from American citizens in the city who report gunfire and other indications of violence.”

The Chinese government’s official news agency, Xinhua, issued a two-sentence bulletin, in English, confirming that shops in Lhasa had been set on fire and that other stores had closed because of violence on the streets. But the Chinese news media otherwise carried no news about the protests. The disturbances appear to be becoming a major problem for the ruling Communist Party, which is holding its annual meeting of the National People’s Congress this week in Beijing. China is eager to present a harmonious image to the rest of the world as Beijing prepares to play host to the Olympic Games in August.

Information emerging about Friday’s protests was scattered and difficult to verify. But witnesses in Lhasa say the violence erupted on Friday morning at the Tromsikhang Market, a massive, concrete structure built in the old Tibetan section of the city by Chinese authorities in the early 1990s. “It’s chaos in the streets,” said a person who answered the telephone at a bread shop near the market.

A local travel agent, reached by telephone, said a riot broke out at the market and around the nearby Ramoche Temple because of friction between Tibetan and Han Chinese traders. The agent said fires erupted near the Ramoche Temple and elsewhere in the market area, while Tibetan traders also overturned a tour bus and set it ablaze.

“There was a fight between the bus owner and the Tibetans who set the fire,” said the agent, who is Han Chinese. “But not serious. Only several people got hurt.”

The demonstrations apparently expanded as protesters set fire to other shops. Western news agencies reported that monks from the Ramoche Temple went into the streets and clashed with police officers. “The monks are still protesting,” one witness told the Associated Press. “Police and army cars were burned. There are people crying. Hundreds of people, including monks and civilians are in the protests.”

Meanwhile, anxious tourists stranded in Lhasa posted worried comments on online forums for travelers. “The situation seems to be very nervous and paranoid up here,” wrote one person in broken grammar and spelling on a Lonely Planet guide chat room. “There is police and military everywhere. Suddenly you would see some policeman running and rushig somewhere...”

Another Lhasa resident reached by telephone described Friday’s protests as the most violent of the week. “There have been several riots in recent days,” said Ms. Liu, the resident, who would only give her surname. She said friends who witnessed the riots described them to her. “Today’s riot is more serious. I have a full-time job in a state-owned company, and we got notice from our superiors not to go watch the riots.”

In his statement, the Dalai Lama said: “These protests are a manifestation of the deep-rooted resentment of the Tibetan people under the present governance.” He also called on his “fellow Tibetans not to resort to violence.”

Beijing has kept a tight lid on dissent in the months before the Olympic Games. But people with grievances against the governing Communist Party have tried to promote their causes at a time when, with heavy international attention focused on China, top officials may be wary of cracking down using force.

Tibet was taken militarily by China in 1951 and has remained contentious, particularly because of the bitter relations between the Communist Party and the Dalai Lama.

Sporadic talks between China and the Dalai Lama’s representatives have produced no results, and Beijing continues to condemn him as a “splitist” determined to severe the region’s ties to China. In the past, the Dalai Lama has said that he accepts Chinese rule but that Tibetans need greater autonomy to practice their religion.

Accounts from Tibetan advocacy groups, from the United States-financed Radio Free Asia and from tourists’ postings on the Internet suggest that protests emerged from three of the most famous monasteries in Tibetan Buddhism.

Robert Barnett, a Tibet specialist at Columbia University who has communicated with Tibetan exiles, said the initial incident occurred Monday afternoon when about 400 monks left Drepung Loseling Monastery intending to march five miles west to the city center. Police officers stopped the march at the halfway point and arrested 50 or 60 monks.

But Mr. Barnett said the remaining monks held the equivalent of a sit-down strike and were joined by an additional 100 monks from Drepung. The monks “were demanding specific changes on religious restrictions in the monastery,” said Mr. Barnett. He said monks want the authorities to ease rules on “patriotic education” in which monks are required to study government propaganda and write denunciations of the Dalai Lama.

On Tuesday morning, the Drepung monks apparently agreed to return to the monastery.

But another protest was under way in the heart of the city, outside the Jokhang Temple, the most sacred temple in Tibet. About a dozen monks from the Sera Monastery staged a pro-independence protest, waving a Tibetan flag in front of onlookers in the crowded square outside the temple. Police officers arrested the monks. Foreign tourists posted video on the Internet of officers shooing away people.

The arrests sparked another protest on Tuesday. Witnesses told Radio Free Asia that 500 or 600 monks poured out of the Sera Monastery, about two miles north of the Jokhang Temple. They shouted slogans and demanded the release of their fellow monks.

“Free our people, or we won’t go back!” the monks chanted, Radio Free Asia reported. “We want an independent Tibet!”

Witnesses said that police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd.

A protest was reported Wednesday at Ganden Monastery, about 35 miles east of Lhasa.

Radio Free Asia reported Thursday that two monks at Drepung had attempted suicide.

Mr. Barnett said the protests were the largest in Lhasa since 1989, when protests by monks from the Drepung and Sera monasteries led to a bloody clash with Chinese security forces and the imposition of martial law.

Huang Yuanxi, Zhang Jing and Jake Hooker contributed research from Beijing. Graham Bowley contributed reporting from New York.

[Daniel]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/wo...hp&oref=slogin

Tibetans Clash With Chinese Police in 2nd City

By JIM YARDLEY
Published: March 16, 2008
BEIJING — Thousands of Buddhist monks and other Tibetans clashed with the riot police in a second Chinese city on Saturday, while the authorities said they had regained control of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, a day after a rampaging mob ransacked shops and set fire to cars and storefronts in a deadly riot.

Conflicting reports emerged about the violence in Lhasa on Friday. The Chinese authorities denied that they had fired on protesters there, but Tibetan leaders in India told news agencies on Saturday that they had confirmed that 30 Tibetans had died and that they had unconfirmed reports that put the number at more than 100.

Demonstrations erupted for the second consecutive day in the city of Xiahe in Gansu Province, where an estimated 4,000 Tibetans gathered near the Labrang Monastery. Local monks had held a smaller protest on Friday, but the confrontation escalated Saturday afternoon, according to witnesses and Tibetans in India who spoke with protesters by telephone.

Residents in Xiahe, reached by telephone, heard loud noises similar to gunshots or explosions. A waitress described the scene as “chaos” and said many injured people had been sent to a local hospital. Large numbers of military police and security officers fired tear gas while Tibetans hurled rocks, according to the Tibetans in India.

“Their slogans were, ‘The Dalai Lama must return to Tibet’ and ‘Tibetans need to have human rights in Tibet,’ ” said Jamyang, a Tibetan in Dharamsala, India, the seat of the Tibetan government in exile, who spoke to protesters.

The violence in Lhasa and Xiahe has created a major political and public relations challenge for the ruling Communist Party as Beijing prepares to play host to the Olympic Games in August. The demonstrations are the largest in Tibet since 1989, when Chinese troops used lethal force to crush an uprising by thousands of Tibetan protesters.

China’s response to the week’s demonstrations is being watched carefully by the outside world. The European Union and the United States have both called on China to act with restraint. The White House called on China to “respect Tibetan culture” and issued a renewed call for dialogue between Beijing and the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism.

The president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, rejected calls for a boycott of the games to protest the crackdown.

“We believe that the boycott doesn’t solve anything,” he said Saturday on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, The Associated Press reported. “On the contrary. It is penalizing innocent athletes and it is stopping the organization from something that definitely is worthwhile organizing."

The tumult also undercuts a theme regularly promoted by China’s propaganda officials, that Tibetans are a happy minority group, smoothly integrated into the country’s broader ethnic fabric.

“What we see right now, what is happening in Tibet, blows the whole propaganda strategy in Tibet wide open,” said Lhadon Tethong, an official with the New York-based advocacy group Students for a Free Tibet.

On Saturday the Chinese authorities defended their response to the violence in Lhasa. “We fired no gunshots,” said Qiangba Puncog, chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Regional Government, according to state media.

But Tibetan advocacy groups and witnesses in Lhasa offered contradictory accounts. The Tibetan government in exile said at least 30 Tibetans died in the protests, according to Agence France-Presse. Witnesses told Radio Free Asia, the nonprofit news agency financed by the United States government, that numerous Tibetans were dead. A 13-year-old Tibetan boy, reached by telephone, said he watched the violence from his apartment and saw four or five Tibetans fall to the ground after military police officers fired upon them.

Foreign journalists are being restricted from traveling to Lhasa, and the precise death toll remains unknown. State media reported 10 deaths and characterized most of them as shopkeepers. The government’s official news agency, Xinhua, reported that the victims had been “burned to death.”

The demonstrations in Lhasa began Monday and continued through Wednesday as peaceful protests by Buddhist monks from three different monasteries. Some monks protested religious restrictions, while others demanded an end to Chinese rule and even waved the Tibetan flag. The police arrested scores of monks and then reportedly tightened security around the three monasteries so that monks could not leave.

Initially, the protests were largely ignored in the Chinese news media, which were providing blanket coverage of the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress, the Communist Party-controlled national legislature.

But with growing international concern about the protests, and reports that Chinese security forces had attacked monks, the Xinhua news agency issued a short statement blaming rioters for the violence. By Saturday morning, China’s state television network, CCTV, was broadcasting video of Tibetans burning buildings as anchors read directly from a Xinhua report that blamed the Dalai Lama for the violence.

Chinese officials demanded the surrender of the “lawbreakers” in Lhasa and offered leniency to people who turned themselves into the authorities by midnight Monday. Senior officials described the unrest as “sabotage” orchestrated by the Dalai Lama and credited the military police for rescuing 580 people from banks, schools and hospitals that were set afire by rioters.

Gen. Yang Deqing of the People’s Liberation Army said Chinese soldiers would not be deployed and the protests were being handled by local police officers and the country’s paramilitary force, the People’s Armed Police.

“We’ll let the police and the military police handle the disturbance,” General Yang said at the National People’s Congress, where he was a delegate. “We won’t be involved.”

Witnesses in Lhasa on Saturday reported seeing large numbers of military police, armored vehicles and, according to a few reports, tanks.

Several residents, reached by telephone, said that an uneasy calm had settled over the city. Tibetans living in the suburbs said officers were blocking people from entering the city center. Local television broadcast instructions. Power and telephone service, suspended in some neighborhoods on Friday, were being restored on Saturday. Traffic was light on city streets, while most shops were closed.

“It is all under control now,” said one resident, who identified himself as Mr. Liu and who lives near the old part of the city where the violence started. “We were notified to stay at home last night.”

It is still uncertain what set off Friday’s unrest. Tibetan advocates say ordinary Tibetans began rioting after military police officers attacked monks trying to protest outside a monastery in the center of the city.

The extent of the violence was evident in photographs and video shown on the Internet: fires raging from rooftops and from charred vehicles, shattered storefronts and huge crowds trolling city streets.

News agencies reported that foreign tourists were now being prohibited from entering Tibet. The United States Embassy in Beijing issued a new warning on Saturday advising American citizens about danger in Lhasa and other regions.

Huang Yuanxi and Zhang Jing contributed research from Beijing.

Peace monks demonstrating. Sounds like a lot of them were gunned down. And what is the world's response? A shrugging of the shoulders.

This matter concerns us here: these monks face oppression in ways that we can't even imagine.

[Daniel]

Dalai Lama Calls for Tibet Inquiry

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 16, 2008
Filed at 8:07 a.m. ET

BEIJING (AP) -- The Dalai Lama called Sunday for an international investigation into China's crackdown against protesters in Tibet, which he said is facing a ''cultural genocide'' and where his exiled government said 80 people were killed in the violence.

The demonstrations were the fiercest challenge to Beijing's rule in the region in nearly two decades, leading to sympathy protests elsewhere and embarrassing China ahead of the Olympic Games.

Along with 80 killed, some 72 people were injured in the protests, said Thubten Samphel, a spokesman for the exiles. He said the figures were confirmed by multiple sources inside Tibet who had counted corpses. China's state media said 10 people died.

Meanwhile, hundreds of armed police and soldiers patrolled the streets of Lhasa two days after Tibetans torched buildings and stoned Chinese residents. Hong Kong Cable TV reported some 200 military vehicles, carrying 40 to 60 armed soldiers each, drove into the city center of Lhasa on Sunday.

Footage showed the streets were mostly empty other than the security forces. Messages on loudspeakers warned residents to ''Discern between enemies and friends, maintain order'' and ''Have a clear stand to oppose violence, maintain stability.''

The Tibetan spiritual leader, speaking in Dharmsala, the north Indian hill town where Tibet's government-in-exile is based, said ''Some respected international organization can find out what the situation is in Tibet and what is the cause.''

''Whether the (Chinese) government there admits or not, there is a problem. There is an ancient cultural heritage that is facing serious danger,'' the Dalai Lama said. ''Whether intentionally or unintentionally, some kind of cultural genocide is taking place.''

It was not immediately clear if he was referring to China's overall policies in Tibet when he spoke of a genocide, or the recent crackdown.

The violence erupted just two weeks before China's Summer Olympic celebrations kick off with the start of the torch relay, which passes through Tibet. China is gambling that its crackdown will not draw an international outcry over human rights violations that could lead to boycotts of the Olympics.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on China ''to exercise restraint in dealing with these protests,'' while the State Department issued a travel alert for Americans in the region. Her statement also called for China to release monks and others jailed for protesting.

China's official Xinhua News Agency reported at least 10 civilians were burned to death on Friday. But the Tibetan exiles said that, of the 80 they confirmed were killed, 26 alone died Saturday next to the Drapchi prison in Lhasa. Five girls were killed in the town's central Tibetan neighborhood, said Tenzin Taklha, the senior aide to the Dalai Lama.

China restricts access to Tibet for foreign media, making it difficult to independently verify the casualties and the scale of protests and suppression.

The latest unrest began Monday on the anniversary of a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. Tibet was effectively independent for decades before communist troops entered in 1950.

Initially, the protests were led by Buddhist monks demanding the release of other detained monks. Their demands spiraled to include cries for Tibet's independence and turned violent Friday when police tried to stop a group of protesting monks. Pent-up grievances against Chinese rule came to the fore, as Tibetans directed their anger against Chinese and their shops, hotels and other businesses.

Amid the clampdown that followed, foreign tourists in Lhasa were told to leave, a hotel manager and travel guide said, with the guide adding that some were turned back at the airport.

Even as Chinese forces appeared to reassert control in Lhasa, sympathy protests had erupted on Saturday in an important Tibetan town 750 miles away in Gansu Province.

Police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of Buddhist monks and other Tibetans after they marched from the historic Labrang monastery and smashed windows in the county police headquarters in Xiahe, witnesses said.

On Sunday, Gansu provincial Governor Xu Shousheng called the protests ''a planned and organized destructive activity'' and blamed the ''outside Dalai group'' for instigating the riots.

Also in recent days, demonstrations by Tibetan exiles and their supporters sprouted up in neighboring Nepal, New York, Switzerland and Australia.

The Chinese government is hoping a successful Olympics will boost its popularity at home as well as its image abroad. But Beijing's hosting of the Olympics has already attracted scrutiny of China's human rights record and its pollution problems.

So far, international criticism of the crackdown in Tibet has been mild. The U.S. and European Union called for Chinese restraint without any threats of an Olympic boycott or other sanctions.

''What is happening in Tibet and Beijing's responses to it will not affect the games very much unless the issue really gets out of control,'' said Xu Guoqi, a China-born historian at Kalamazoo College in Michigan.

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said Saturday he opposed an Olympic boycott over Tibet. ''We believe that the boycott doesn't solve anything,'' Rogge told reporters on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts. ''On the contrary, it is penalizing innocent athletes and it is stopping the organization from something that definitely is worthwhile organizing.''

The details emerging from witness accounts and government statements suggested Beijing was preparing a methodical campaign to deal with the unrest -- one that if carefully modulated would minimize bloodshed and avoid wrecking Beijing's grand plans for the Aug. 8-24 Olympics.

In Lhasa, law-enforcement agencies issued a notice offering leniency for demonstrators who surrender before the end of Monday and threatening severe punishment for those who do not.

------

Associated Press Writer Gavin Rabinowitz contributed to this report from Dharmsala, India.

------

On the Net:

International Campaign for Tibet: http://www.savetibet.org

Chinese official news agency (in English): http://www.chinaview.cn

Is that because the issuse of this thread is 'over there' and nothing anyone here- seeminly- can do anything about? 'They' are Buddhist's while most of the participants of this forum - 'us'- are gay Christian and fighting for our own dream in our neck of the woods?

I don't know, but it dismays me that nary a word- or post- has been said by anyone else but myself. And I wonder why that it. The Tibetan people are part and parcel of the very same people who- in a long chain of events- had a hand in bringing about the whole idea of nonviolence which resulted in King and Gandhi.

Have we really lost touch with our own history?

Ok. If ya all think I'm going to turn into Gordon girl and try to make this forum into something entirely different that what it was intended to....well....that ain't gonna happen.

A voice crying into a stiff hard wind. I just wish I wasn't alone.

Neither do the Tibetans it seems.

[Daniel]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/wo...7tibet.html?hp

[Alecto]

The truth is, I've lately been feeling more and more powerless about affecting any change in this country. Or in my state. Or city. Or pretty much any locality outside of my circle of friends. Recent events have made me tired in a way that I don't often feel tired. And, yeah, part of that's a little bit my fault: I've been keeping myself cooped up which I know will eventually drive me nuts. But I just wanted to say that I do care about these events, it's just I don't even know where to begin on commenting, much less doing something about it.

[Daniel]

Originally Posted by Alecto

The truth is, I've lately been feeling more and more powerless about affecting any change in this country. Or in my state. Or city. Or pretty much any locality outside of my circle of friends. Recent events have made me tired in a way that I don't often feel tired. And, yeah, part of that's a little bit my fault: I've been keeping myself cooped up which I know will eventually drive me nuts. But I just wanted to say that I do care about these events, it's just I don't even know where to begin on commenting, much less doing something about it.

....and understand- totally- how you feel.

I've been watching, reading and hearing about Tibet for a long time now. At one time, I knew a gentlemen who started one of the first relief agencies for Tibetans (he died of cancer some years ago). Through him, I got something of a view into the world of Tibetans.

They are- by and large- a very warm and loving people. They really do take the whole business about compassion seriously. So for there to be protests in Tibet- well....that's serious. Very serious. And monks setting themselves afire in protest? It boggles my mind.

There are some links in one of the previous posts on this thread. Perhaps you could check them out- maybe write your Senator a letter- send 10 bucks to www.savetibet.org Something. Anything. Say a prayer.

All I know is that we are not powerless, though we do feel this way. But feelings change if we stay with them long enough- that's one thing I've learned from these wonderful people.

They taught me - and it's a hard business sometimes- to have compassion with myself- then others. That's hard- really hard. It means facing all kinds of stuff we're rather not face. It means looking into the best and worst about ourselves. Not leaving anything out. Not shying away from our gifts and what makes us all so frail and human.

Holding each other- in our worst and best- change will come- perhaps slowly- but it will come.

I send you much peace- and give myself that peace too.

[Pablo Rafael]

Originally Posted by Daniel

Is that because the issuse of this thread is 'over there' and nothing anyone here- seemingly- can do anything about? 'They' are Buddhist's while most of the participants of this forum - 'us'- are gay Christian and fighting for our own dream in our neck of the woods?

Daniel, Your comment here makes me think. It is very easy to get caught up in our own problems. I haven't given a lot of thought to the problems in Tibet. Now I have to think, "Why?". I think it is because I can't do much about it, and I have my own problems to deal with. It is so easy to get into that selfish mindset. Justice for all the oppressed in this world should be my concern. Thanks for the reminder.

Pablo

[Daniel]

Originally Posted by Pablo Rafael

Daniel, Your comment here makes me think. It is very easy to get caught up in our own problems. I haven't given a lot of thought to the problems in Tibet. Now I have to think, "Why?". I think it is because I can't do much about it, and I have my own problems to deal with. It is so easy to get into that selfish mindset. Justice for all the oppressed in this world should be my concern. Thanks for the reminder.

I hear ya- I'm caught up in my own bloody problems this morning: woke up feeling awful- a cold coming on- sore throat- the works- which- as a singer- doesn't make me a happy camper. Hard to care about the rest of world.

Aside from my personal drama: I grieve for the Tibetans. Like the American Indians, they are getting the shaft in full view of God and Country: I don't see any organized - that is- national or international action - being taken on their behalf: for all intent and purposes they are being beseiged out of existence by the Chinese, who, as a matter of course, we will do will not respond to anything this nations says because we are in debt up to our ears to their banks.

Like Darfur- little or nothing is going to be done. Oh....how I would love to be wrong. But I doubt it.

God. I hate my perspective this morning. But I think it's more than the cold at work.

When is any nation actually going to stand up for these people?

I feel like some old prophet in the old testament. When Oh Lord? When? When will you hear the cries of your people?

China Blocks YouTube After Videos of Tibet Protests Are Posted

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/bu...17youtube.html

[keltic63]

Originally Posted by Daniel

Is that because the issuse of this thread is 'over there' and nothing anyone here- seeminly- can do anything about? 'They' are Buddhist's while most of the participants of this forum - 'us'- are gay Christian and fighting for our own dream in our neck of the woods?

I don't know, but it dismays me that nary a word- or post- has been said by anyone else but myself. And I wonder why that it. The Tibetan people are part and parcel of the very same people who- in a long chain of events- had a hand in bringing about the whole idea of nonviolence which resulted in King and Gandhi.

Have we really lost touch with our own history?

I do believe we have lost touch with our history, but is that also because there are fewer gay men left to tell it, thanks to the Aids crisis? Is it because there are some influential people who want to see that story repressed?

If all one has ever been taught about lgbt people is that they drink, party, hook up, and tend to be shallow or bitchy or queeny or all of that, then it is somewhat natural to take on those qualities and take them to new heights. Where is the incentive to learn about the lgbt leaders who have fought so hard to bring about change?

I know that's a long way back to why we haven't responded well to this thread and this issue, but my point is, if we can't respond to our own recent history, how can we move beyond that to this issue?

Originally Posted by Pablo Rafael

Daniel, Your comment here makes me think. It is very easy to get caught up in our own problems. I haven't given a lot of thought to the problems in Tibet. Now I have to think, "Why?". I think it is because I can't do much about it, and I have my own problems to deal with. It is so easy to get into that selfish mindset. Justice for all the oppressed in this world should be my concern. Thanks for the reminder.

Pablo

our own problems: absolutely we have them, and they can take up so much of our time. I read this thread when Daniel first posted, and thought to myself "I don't have time for this right now, but I want to come back to it." I've been so busy that I haven't made it back here, and meanwhile, the people in Tibet continue to suffer. What has finally brought me back is a news report I heard on NPR. There were more important details raised, but the one that hit me was the fact that Chinese television is showing the Tibetans at their most violent in order to portray the Chinese as being the victims. I knew then that I had to visit this thread and learn some more.

Daniel, thanks for posting about this.
Pablo, thanks for being candid with your thoughts on this issue.

[keltic63]

Originally Posted by Daniel

There are some links in one of the previous posts on this thread. Perhaps you could check them out- maybe write your Senator a letter- send 10 bucks to www.savetibet.org Something. Anything. Say a prayer.

I'm not sure how much we can do, but it took me only a minute to go to the website, click on the "donate" link, and send them $20. Anyone else with me?

[paul]

Daniel,

Thanks for persevering in this. You are right, we are not powerless.

Over the years I have contributed to an organization "Voice of the Martyrs." Richard Wurmbrand founded it. He was imprisoned for 15 years because of his religious beliefs. He used to tell stories about how conditions would improve when he was in prision when Americans would protest or make statements to our government on behalf of the imprisoned.

Our real powerlessness comes when we believe the lie that we are powerless.

[Daniel]

Originally Posted by keltic63

Anyone else with me?

With ya!

Originally Posted by paul

Our real powerlessness comes when we believe the lie that we are powerless.

This cranky cold-ridden mess of a man- bows to the truth of your words.

(sniffle)

[Zerbie]

Dear, dear Danny!

Now I regret that I did not read this thread until now. Several times in the past few days I saw it, saw that you had added to it, and that there had been no response. Several times I nearly posted just to say thank you for bringing it up and for caring.

Originally Posted by Daniel

Is that because the issuse of this thread is 'over there' and nothing anyone here- seeminly- can do anything about? 'They' are Buddhist's while most of the participants of this forum - 'us'- are gay Christian and fighting for our own dream in our neck of the woods?

I don't know, but it dismays me that nary a word- or post- has been said by anyone else but myself. And I wonder why that it.

. I just wish I wasn't alone.

.

Dear, dear Danny, you are NEVER going to resemble "gordon girl"! This is in NO way similar.

I'll tell you why I have not been responding. The situation there is triggering me. I must avoid exposure to these details or I will degenerate into a series of negative reactions that, rather than helping anyone or anything, will only generate petty negativity towards the people who ARE around me. This is something that I cannot deal with. So it's like I have to ground myself like a naughty teenager until the reaction has calmed down.

Don't take this to mean I don't WANT to be able to deal with it. But right now that sounds like asking me to power lift a 400 pound barbell.

[Daniel]

China Defends Response in Tibet

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/wo...8tibet.html?hp

And don't we know this story? The abuser gives all the reasons why those who are abused should be beaten, shot and murdered.

It's their fault! Those Tibetans should know better than to get all uppity. How ungrateful of them! We try to improve (by taking over) their country and they get all huffy?

In sum: China says: If you didn't act this way we wouldn't have to kill you.

Kinda like the thug who yells fag and then hits you.

But good things may be developing......

Originally Posted by NYTimes

Demonstrations also reached the capital of Beijing, with about 80 students at the Central University for Minorities staging a sit-down protest on the campus late Monday night.

University officials were negotiating with the students, witnesses said, but failed to persuade them to disperse.

Senior Chinese officials seemed anxious on Monday to avoid the appearance of any parallels between the Tibetan protests and the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy demonstrations.

China usually squashes all kinds of protests. So I do not expect these supportive actions to last. China is one repressive country. And our biggest trading partner. How's that for cognitive dissonance?

[Daniel]

I understand......really......I do.

[keltic63]

Originally Posted by Daniel

China Defends Response in Tibet

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/wo...8tibet.html?hp

And don't we know this story? The abuser gives all the reasons why those who are abused should be beaten, shot and murdered.

It's their fault! Those Tibetans should know better than to get all uppity. How ungrateful of them! We try to improve (by taking over) their country and they get all huffy?

In sum: China says: If you didn't act this way we wouldn't have to kill you.

Kinda like the thug who yells fag and then hits you.

But good things may be developing......



China usually squashes all kinds of protests. So I do not expect these supportive actions to last. China is one repressive country. And our biggest trading partner. How's that for cognitive dissonance?

how much will my $20 help?

[Vanessa White]

I feel really small when events of the world come up like this. Small, insignificant and powerless, as others have said. There are days when my head and heart are wide open for any new information that can come my way, and other days where I feel like I cannot sustain one more issue to be informed about. Does that sound bitchy?? I don't mean for it to. I just feel so overwhelmed by details of human cruelty and injustice, I sometimes know about myself that I don't have additional energy to put toward it, because when I fully take in the information, it becomes less intellectual and more heartfelt and profound.

What your recent posts, and the posts of others here, have prompted me to do is to get educated and knowledgable a bit more about what is going on there. And, I will send prayers up now and ongoing for the Tibetan people and the monks there as well.

Thanks for the nudge, Daniel. Sounds like many of us needed it. Hope you are nursing your cold......

[Daniel]

Originally Posted by keltic63

how much will my $20 help?

It will certainly help those who manage to cross over the mountains and end up in Dharamsala. And it will help keep the Tibetan community there intact.

As I listened to the news tonight, I have the sense that there is a real crisis within the Tibetan community: the DD has always...ALWAYS...cautions his followers not to use violence- but nonviolence resistance. However, there is a faction within the community that isn't happy with this. They want change now.

What's not clear to me is who is organizing these protests- I do not believe (have not heard to the contrary) that the DD is behind it. I seriously doubt it. Since these protests are coming form within Tibet, this tells me that the oppression of the Chinese must be ramping up because of the 'Games' and the ever greater influx of non-Tibetans into Tibet. After they built a railway massive amounts of Chinese people relocated to Tibet, virtually turning the Tibetans into an minority within their own country.

It is no exggageration to say that the Chinese look down on the Tibetans, and see them as being hood-winked by the DD. They have even gone so far as to try to be the arbitrator of who is the next DD. In short, they want to control Tibet. Why? It's vast mineral resources. This whole conflict- on the part of the Chinese- is not about national unity, but about economics.

It's like the our own story here: we took the land Native Indians and 'educated' them, thus depriving them of their heritage.

And there is so much ignorance on the part of Chinese officals....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/wo...8china.html?hp

BEIJING — Chinese leaders have blamed “splittists” led by the exiled Dalai Lama for spurring violent protests in Tibet and orchestrating a public relations sneak attack on the Communist Party, as they gear up to play host to the Olympics Games this summer.

But to many Tibetans and their sympathizers, the weeklong uprising against Chinese rule in Lhasa reflects years of simmering resentment over Beijing’s interference in Buddhist religious rites, its tightened political control and the destruction of the environment across the Himalayan territory the Tibetans consider sacred. If there is a surprise, it may be that Beijing has managed to keep things stable for so long.

Since the last big anti-Chinese riots in Tibet two decades ago, Beijing has sought to smother Tibetan separatism by sparking economic development and by inserting itself into the metaphysics of Tibetan Buddhism. But an influx of Han Chinese to Tibet, and a growing sense among Tibetans that China is irreparably altering their way of life, produced a backlash when Communist Party leaders most needed stability there, analysts say.

“Why did the unrest take off?” asked Liu Junning, a liberal political scientist in Beijing. “I think it has something to do with the long-term policy failure of the central authorities. They failed to earn the respect of the people there.”

Tibetans staged anti-Chinese protests in several parts of China on Monday before a midnight deadline to surrender or face harsh consequences. Even in Beijing, Tibetan students held a sit-in to support demonstrators in Lhasa. Around the world there were sympathy protests outside Chinese diplomatic missions..

My sense is that the only reason that there haven't been protests earlier is that the DD was intent on a different solution: but China was deaf to this.

[Gregory_de_Bois]

Originally Posted by Daniel

China Defends Response in Tibet

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/wo...8tibet.html?hp

And don't we know this story? The abuser gives all the reasons why those who are abused should be beaten, shot and murdered.

It's their fault! Those Tibetans should know better than to get all uppity. How ungrateful of them! We try to improve (by taking over) their country and they get all huffy?

In sum: China says: If you didn't act this way we wouldn't have to kill you.

Kinda like the thug who yells fag and then hits you.

But good things may be developing......



China usually squashes all kinds of protests. So I do not expect these supportive actions to last. China is one repressive country. And our biggest trading partner. How's that for cognitive dissonance?

I know. I am so surprised that we are in such open trade with China. The country has no standards. Even ignoring the plethora of toxins in what they ship over here, the human rights abuses that go on in that country are deplorable. I was listening to NPR a while back and there was an interview with this couple who lived one year without buying anything from China. Apparently there were many, many things they had to live without (coffee makers comes to mind). I also remember hearing that China's and Our economies are so intertwined that we have become completely dependent on the other. It is really sickening. It destroys the very fabric of civilisation. If only the anti-gays could make this their scapegoat, already I can envision how much better the world would be.

[Vanessa White]

I just heard an update on NPR from Beijing, that the Dalai Lama has stated that he will step down if the violence does not stop, by whatever group is protesting violently. I know that I am new to the topic and the discussion, but I don't have the sense either that he orchestrated these protests; it seems like he consistently stands by his nonviolent principles. However, I did wonder how it might have been "incited" in some way by the Chinese government, as a response to the government's oppressive behaviors or to make the government appear like they are trying to take care of the issue. How is that for cynical?