Update on Tibetan Unrest Including Eye-Witness Accounts from Lhasa and Interview with Robert Barnett

March 29, 2008
Photos from Tibetan protests in Nepal

 Nepal, which has about 20,000 Tibetan refugees, has been drawn into the crisis that began with protests inside Tibet and the subsequent Chinese crackdown. Nepalese officials have diligently attempted to stop Tibetan demonstrations because they are afraid of upsetting their powerful neighbor to the north, China. Human Rights Watch this week accused the Nepalese government of "pre-emptively arresting Tibetans" and threatening the refugees with deportation back to communist China.

March 28, 2008
TIBET: WHAT WE CAN EXPECT CHINA TO DO NEXT:
INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT BARNETT

Robert Barnett is director of the Modern Tibetan Studies Program at Columbia University and author most recently of Lhasa: Streets with Memories (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006).
(Click here for my review of Barnett's book in Tricycle Magazine.) In the interview below, Barnett explains why the most significant action is taking place outside Lhasa.

Barnett's interview with Foreign Policy:

Foreign Policy: What does the average Tibetan want? Is it independence, or a greater share of Tibet’s modernization and economic growth, which has been dominated by Han Chinese?

Robert Barnett: Not really either of those things. We have to be very careful not to confuse exile politics, which is a demand for anti-China this and anti-China that, with internal politics, which is much more pragmatic, complex, and sophisticated.

A very important sector of Tibetans have become very wealthy because China has poured money into creating a middle class in Tibetan towns, though there hasn’t really been a dividend for the countryside and the underclass. So, we can’t explain this as just economic modernization. We could explain the violence against the [Han] Chinese in that way. It could have to do with that. But the violence is present in just one demonstration out of 50 in the past two weeks.

These protests are really about two things: A huge sector of the rural population has said, “Tibet was independent in the past. We reassert that belief. That doesn’t mean we demand that it be independent again, but we are reinserting that into the discussion.” And, “The Dalai Lama represents our interests.” I suppose a possible third thing is, “We are certainly not happy with Chinese President Hu Jintao.” This is a huge political statement that nobody anticipated.

FP: We’re primarily seeing photos of protests in Lhasa and the protests abroad. But you suggest the real significance is the groundswell of protests in the countryside?

RB: It’s not a groundswell; it’s a tidal wave. It’s the biggest thing to happen in Tibetan history for 40 years. In Lhasa, you get a protest as we [normally] recognize one. But that’s not really significant for China except in a PR way. They deal with those things with security operations; they crack down and put people away. This has nothing to do with the significance of what’s happening. The most significant of the 50 protests are the rural peasants taking over the countryside. These are people who get on horseback or march down to the local government office or police post, burn it to the ground, and raise the Tibetan flag. You can be shot on sight for having a Tibetan flag in Tibet in a non-Olympics year. Nothing like this has been seen in Tibet for decades, and it has untold political significance for China.

FP: Will the protests just fade away, or will they grow and spread?

RB: They’ll definitely fade away because the [Chinese] force level is just so high, and anyway [the Tibetans’] point has been made. We [in the West] think that people do politics by saying, “I’m going to stage this protest in order to get X.” But nobody gets X in China. It just doesn’t work like that. You’re dealing with one of the biggest power systems in the world. Instead, burn a government building, put a flag up, and then you’ve achieved this huge victory because China has created a symbolic form of politics in which everyone is supposed to have forgotten that they were independent once. So, just by doing that, you have completely changed the political equation.

FP: Is there any kind of generation gap in the exile community wherein older exiles are more dovish and the younger exiles want to confront China?

RB: There is certainly a growing group, generally young and English- or Hindi-speaking, who are very strongly animated by the idea that diplomacy doesn’t work—and will never work—in China, and instead you must go for independence. In this case, independence stands for a criticism that China can’t be trusted and an implication that a spiritual figure like the Dalai Lama can’t be tough enough. But it’s quite complicated. These people feel they are adding muscle because they are doing what he can’t as a monk and spiritual figure. But even they do not generally question his standing, and they certainly see him as the solution. Inside Tibet, nobody is questioning his standing or his potential to be key to the solution. If George Bush had 1 percent of the support this man has, George Bush would be a happy man. You cannot beat him for polling figures.

FP: Is there any chance that the Chinese recognize that mandate and sit down with the Dalai Lama in the near future?

RB: It certainly is a possibility. But this is the problem: The Dalai Lama’s mandate and most of what he’s been saying is now visibly reinforced many times over by these events. It gets more difficult for the Chinese to sit down at the table with him. Hu Jintao could talk to the Dalai Lama, and he would get enormous dividends internationally in the short term if he did. But he’s thinking about what might come back and bite him. The Chinese understand history. They’re not unreasonable in recognizing that nationalism is no longer a tameable force. You can’t assume that your own political mandate will never be challenged, so you have to constantly go back to the people and say, “We’re listening to your grievances.”

FP: Will India find it harder to tolerate the Tibetan government in exile?

RB: India is clearly moving in the direction of distancing itself from the exiles. Some people think it’s preparing for the death of the Dalai Lama, and then it will distance itself even more. There were indications of a sea change after the Dalai Lama received the Congressional Gold Medal in America last October. The Indians issued an order, presumably under pressure from China, that their cabinet ministers were not allowed to meet him or receive him upon his return. This was seen as very unusual. I don’t want to suggest some major realignment, but the indications are very much that India is maintaining ambiguity but showing that it largely wants to engage with China. That said, it hasn’t taken any irreversible steps yet in terms of the Tibetans.

FP: What is absent from press coverage of Tibet that you think people need to keep in mind?

RB: We have to put aside these questions that fascinate some people, such as, “Is the Dalai Lama losing his power?” That’s the opposite of the issue here. The exile complaints are not about power. And we have to put aside suggestions that the protests in Tibet are because people are unhappy about economic loss. That really is reductive. And I think we have to get over any suggestion that the Chinese are ill-intentioned or trying to wipe out Tibet. It’s obviously horrible that people are being savagely beaten up and killed. But crucially, this is a historic change in the profile of Tibetan politics. We’re looking at something much larger than any immediate anxiety about Olympics, or whether somebody planned one of these things, or whether people are upset about economic disadvantage. Historians are going to tell us that we missed the big picture if we didn’t notice that this is the big story here. All the party cadres are going to be sent to the countryside areas to listen to the Tibetans’ complaints and find out what has gone so wrong with the policy machine in China.

March 25, 2008
Updated Map of Recent Protests in Tibet

March 22, 2008
Interview with a Tibetan Freedom Fighter

Yesterday, my buddy Sam Taylor, Bureau Chief of Agence France Presse in Nepal, interviewed another friend of mine, Norbu Dorje, who was a Tibetan resistant fighter many years ago in Mustang.
Norbu Dorje (top row, third from left). His best friend, Gyantso Tsering (bottom row, center) was abushed and gunned down by Baba Gen Yeshi’s crew two weeks after this photo was taken in the early 1970s. Both men were couriers carrying documents and money back and forth between Pokhara and the freedom fighters hiding out in Mustang. This and all other photos below were first published In my book BUDDHA’S WARRIORS: The Story of the CIA-Backed Tibetan Freedom Fighters, the Chinese Invasion, and the Ultimate Fall of Tibet (Tarcher/Penguin-New York).

SAM TAYLOR’S interview with NORBU DORJE
POKHARA, Nepal, March 21, 2008 (AFP) - A US-trained former Tibetan guerrilla who waged a long campaign against the Chinese says peaceful protests and international pressure are the only ways to end the deadly unrest in Tibet.
   "The Dalai Lama will never change his 'middle way' (of more autonomy but not independence) and or the path of non-violence," 73-year-old Norbu Dorje, who was trained by the CIA nearly half a century ago, told AFP.
   "Most Tibetans will follow what the Dalai Lama says, but there are many young people who want to demonstrate violently. But this will not work," he said.

(Tibetan Freedom Fighters in Mustang.) A year before the Dalai Lama fled Tibet after a failed uprising against the Chinese in 1959, Dorje joined the fledgling Tibetan resistance movement at the age of 23.
Twelve months after joining, he was selected to be clandestinely taken to a training camp in the United States where he said he was trained by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents in communications and guerrilla warfare.   
   Dorje spent 14 years waging a war from inside Nepal's border with Chinese-controlled Tibet, but these days he is a firm believer that trying to fight the Chinese will achieve nothing.
   He hopes instead that countries might stay away from the Olympics due to be held in Beijing in August.
"I think people should boycott the Olympics," said Dorje, who recently retired as head of a Tibetan refugee camp in central Nepal.
"People have seen now what the Chinese are doing in Tibet and I think what people are seeing will increase our support. Those who love peace should support us," he said.
   Dorje is from Kham, a province in Eastern Tibet long known for its fierce locals who -- because of the remote, mountainous terrain and lawlessness -- developed a fearsome reputation as horsemen, fighters and bandits.
   For hundreds of years, Khampas were bodyguards to generations of reincarnations of the Dalai Lama, a tradition that continued until the Tibetan spiritual leader's flight into exile in India in 1959.
   In dramatic footage by Canadian TV shown on Wednesday, over 1,000 Tibetans, some on horseback, charged into a remote Chinese town in Gansu, attacking a government building, clashing with soldiers, and hoisting their national flag. It was not immediately clear where the attack took place or when.
   The footage showing Khampas in traditional dress on horseback staging the protest was an emotional moment for Dorje who has not seen his home province in half a century.
   "When I saw them (Khampa protesters) rip down the Chinese flag and put up the Tibetan flag, I was very very proud," Dorje said.
   But the former guerrilla is fearful of what will happen to those who protest.
   "The Khampas (who protested) and all Tibetans are in a very dangerous situation," he said.
"China is not letting any journalists into Tibet so those who continue to protest could be killed or imprisoned and nobody will know," he said.

(Leaders of resistance in Mustang)  In 1960, as hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops flooded into Tibet, resistance leaders decided they needed a base outside the country and the harsh and remote area of Upper Mustang in Nepal was ideal.
Geographically part of Nepal, but culturally and linguistically a part of Tibet, Upper Mustang became the operations base for Dorje and up to 10,000 of his compatriots for nearly a decade and a half.
   "From 1960 to 1965 our lives up there were really miserable. We nearly starved to death and had very basic accommodation," Dorje told AFP.
CIA-trained guerrillas like Dorje were clandestinely parachuted back into Tibet, and once based in the arid alpine desert of Upper Mustang, cash and weapons continued to be dropped in by the Americans.
   The Nepal-based guerrillas faced an formidable foe in the Chinese People's Liberation Army of the 1960s.
   Vastly outnumbered and outgunned, the Tibetans waged a long campaign of hit-and-run raids in Tibet.
A condition of Richard Nixon's rapprochement with China was that the US stop funding and arming the guerrillas in northern Nepal. Officially US help ceased in 1968, but the Tibetan guerrillas fought on.

(General Wangdu, leader of the Tibetan Resistance in Mustang. Photograph taken in early 70s, one month before his murder.)

"When America stopped its support, we carried on ourselves. Their stopping support did not bother us. We had their training and their weapons," said Dorje, adding though that the revolt sputtered out in the face of overwhelming odds.
With China now attempting to control all information coming out of the region, Dorje hopes that his countrymen inside Tibet are not abandoned again.
   "China should give Tibet more autonomy, but so far they are not going in the right direction," the former guerrilla said.
   "Even though they are very big and powerful, what they are doing is illegal. We need other nations to support us strongly."

March 20, 2008

Warning from the State Department for Americans attending the Olympics: You'll be bugged.

The State Department has just issued a warning for Americans planning to attend the Olympic Games in Beijing. Plan on being subjects of surveillance.

"All hotel rooms and offices are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times," the department's Bureau of Consular Affairs advised on Thursday. "Hotel rooms, residences and offices may be accessed at any time without the occupant's consent or knowledge."

"Travelers are strongly encouraged to be aware of their surroundings while in China," the statement said. "Continued vigilance is necessary to reduce the likelihood of becoming a victim of crime." Americans should have "no reasonable expectation of privacy in public or private locations."

The State Department also warned that hotels, apartments and other buildings might be fire and safety hazards. "Many hotels and apartment buildings may be of substandard construction, lack emergency exits, fire suppression systems, carbon monoxide monitors and standard security equipment (locks, alarms, and personnel)," the statement said, suggesting Americans review fire evacuation procedures.

Separately, the White House said China's crackdown in Tibet will not cause President George W. Bush to cancel his planned trip to the Beijing Olympics.
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Footage of Tibetan protests on Youtube

click here for Riots in Gansu Province

click here for China Cover Up

click here for Chinese Lies

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March 18, 2008--Tibetan protests in Nepal
Photographs: Sam Kang Li/Nepali Time

At least 44 Tibetan exiles shouting "Free Tibet" were detained in the Nepal capital yesterday after police broke up two protests outside a UN complex, using sticks and tear gas.

According to Agence France Presse, "The Tibetans said they wanted to pressure the United Nations to investigate a crackdown by Beijing on the fiercest uprising against Chinese rule of the Himalayan region in nearly two decades...The demonstrators included Tibetan monks and nuns who were hit during police baton charges... tear gas was also fired.

"'I don't know why police are attacking our peaceful demonstration. We've gathered here to put pressure on the United Nations to investigate the crackdown on Tibetans in Lhasa,'" protester Tashi Lama, 29, told AFP.

Some 20,000 Tibetan refugees now live in Nepal. Approximately 2,500 Tibetan refugees seek safety annually at a UN-run reception centre in Kathmandu and then most proceed to Dharamshala in northern India, home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile.

This photo comes from International Campaign for Tibet. Two Chinese officials were photographed observing the Kathmandu police. One of the officials spat on the American who took this photo and the camera. The Chinese officials yelled in English to the Nepalese police to apprehend the American and take the camera away, which the Nepalese police did not act upon.

Email from an American in Kathmandu who was attacked while protesting with the Tibetan refugees: 
i led a march/talk saturday  in buda the main temple and tibetan place in  Kathmandu..since i was carrying a large foto of dalai lama  i was told  by paid spies from chinese embassy that i couldnt have his foto in public...i raised it higher. said im a tourist and i believe in a Free tibet and i was atacked and punched by 4 thugs...mostly Tibetan women surrounded me and was told thru many tears  thank you thank you. so here in nepal their is HUGE undergroud chinese... these are mostly young/poor nepali thugs being paid...directly by chinesse embassy...
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EYEWITNESS REPORTS FROM LHASA

Received by phone and email
between 9am and 1pm 16th March 2008
Chinese time

Eyewitness 1: from email. Edited to remove identity.
[ ] The rioting, however, has been ALL over Lhasa (unlike 1989), with Chinese & Muslim (Hui) shops (Ge Ti Hu) being targeted and completely destroyed - probably over 1,000 Chinese owned shops all over Lhasa. It's really a massive riot, with cars & motorbikes turned over then burned all over town, Chinese shops' contents splayed out onto the streets, and Han Chinese being literally hunted down, beat up, and sometimes killed with large traditional Tibetan knives. The Han Chinese are terrified, and (surprisingly?) don't understand what's happening. All Tibetans we know think this will continue for days if not weeks, although the Jokhang square seemed to finally have been put under control late Friday evening, the mobs are moving west into the more predominantly Chinese parts of town.

Today (Saturday morning) is martial law, there are soldiers ever 5 feet on all major roads (ie: just down the street from our hotel). Tanks are lining the main street in the old part of town (center of the trouble). One guy estimated 20,000 troops on the streets.

I've been reading international articles about this, and they're suggesting the monks are behind this - well I think the Monks started it earlier in the week, but yesterday's riots were all over the entire city and undertaken by all kinds of Tibetans, one friend saw 11 year old students in their uniforms throwing stones at tanks.

Sunday Morning: yesterday evening I [  ] saw a tank stationed on Sera Road [ ] and a second tank beside it.

[ we have talked to many Tibetans who have been in touch with friends and family]  all over the city and riots were continuing in at least 2 places, by the TV station and south of the Jokhang by Jiang Su Lu.

We've been hearing loud booms / bangs (guns / tanks) throughout the day yesterday and some last night as well.

Last night we heard a large group of voices singing in Tibetan somewhere within a couple blocks, a very curious response. [ ]   There is still tremendous debris from the Chinese shops splayed out on the road [ ] and down the street, with Toilet Paper strewn on all the electrical wires all the way down [the] street.

We heard this morning that the raids will happen tomorrow morning. No Tibetans can walk around without ID cards.

[we have heard] There are so called "massacres" over by the Great Mosque, with intense fighting between Muslims & Tibetans.

[ ]  and a Tibetan out on Friday or Saturday told us another Tibtean told him he saw 50 Tibetans and a child get gunned down by soldiers on Ramoche street. [obviously this is not confirm....what the hell happened at Ramoche....there are many reports about this]
Source: (Anon.)

Eyewitness 2: translated/transcribed from phone conversation. Edited to remove identity.

This witness was in an establishment on Friday afternoon with views of the end of Ramoche road and then moved to an establishment on [location withheld] and has been there ever since.  This witness talked with Chinese soldiers on a number of occassions.

"The whole thing was very surprising no rumours no nothing.

I heard a commotion outside and looked out to see about 15 very young police or army in the middle of the street, sitting down in a group. They then got up and pulled riot gear from the back of a military truck…geared up and formed a human barricade across Ramoche. 4 more riot police or army formations like a phalanx charged down Ramoche. Almost immediately they were rushed by a massive group of Tibetans. It was just 15 young police with their riot shields face a group fof 500-1000 Tibetans.  The Tibetans were armed with iron bars and rocks and chunks of conrete…I don't know where they got all this stuff from. They then charged at the plice/army pelting them with objects.  Some of their sheilds broke and some fell, obviously injured.  They ran down Ramoche with the crowd chasing them.  Some Tibetan friends told me that another mob of Tibetans was coming down from the other end of the road so it is sickening to think what happen to those young riot police. The noise was so intense I have never seen or heard anything like it. I was so amazed that all sorts of Tibetans were taking part, kids, women, men…..it was a total riot mentality.  I am also very surprised that they did not take out the surviellence camera on the corner of the street….everyone knows it is there they were being recorded.  They didn't seem to care at all."

"I then walked down Mentsikung Lu towards the Jokhang and hid inside an establishment while the rioting spread to the Jokhang area and the whole place just went crazy. I have been in [name withheld] ever since."

"I have talked with army personel and they appear very disorganised.  They do not know what is going on and who is giving orders.  A group of tourists was escorted out of the hotel and dropped on Jiangsu Lu.  They were heavily questioned and asked where they had hidden their camera memory sticks. The Army guys said that they should look for a hotel as the one they had been staying in had burned.  From what I understand…….the army just left them there on Jiangsu Lu with no clue whatsoever!"

"Now it looks like a total war zone.  Maybe half the shops are burnt….hundreds of them.   There is telegraph poles knocked down by tanks, a tank has driven straight over the top of an SUV out the front of the hotel. There is a barricade of smashed cars that the tanks have bulldozed into a protective ring around the Army compound out front of the Jokhang. We have heard that the army is inside the Jokhang buut cannot go over there to look.  We also heard reports of a young injured monk who look unconscious being carried on the back of a soldier."

"Yesterday we saw some very shocking things that I never want to see again."

"I saw army going from door to door, knocking and sometimes dragging people outside. We could hear them banging on doors for some time.  I saw what I think is Chinese special forces with high powered rifles.  I saw one soldier fire his weapon into a shop. The noise was so loud.  I couldn't see what was inside.  I haven't seen any bodies on the street but I was inside during the worst of the action.  The most horrible thing I saw was a person riding their bike down the road.  A mob ran up behind them and pelted them with large rocks, knocking him/her to the ground."

"I heard occasional gunfire (I assume it is gunfire) this morning.  It is now quite quiet but everyone is very scared.  We have enough food for some time but have heard of many Chinese workers locked in their workplaces and to scared to come out.  Friends talked to some workers who said they had eaten all their Ramen noodles and had no food left."

"Yesterday we saw the military escorting Chinese people out of the Barkor area under heavy guard.  We think they were hiding in their shops and only came out when the military showed up. They looked very very scared."

"Friends heard the train whistle or horn this morning so we think the train is running. But we assume only outgoing traffic.  We think a lot of Chinese people will be leaving Lhasa." Source (Anon.)


Eyewitness 3: translated/transcribed from phone conversation. Edited to remove identity.

"I am inside a hotel [location withheld] and have been here since the start of the rioting.  We cannot go outside.  There are maybe 50 of us inside, maybe a few more.  We really cannot see or hear much.  We have heard that the Mosque is damaged and that the old part of town is now completely sealed off.  We heard this morning that there had been a big clash with Muslims but have no confirmation of this.  We are OK.  They are serving only two meals a day as there is not much food.  We are worried about running out of food."
(Anon.)

Eyewitness 4: E-mail from Qinhai.
In Qinhai, a large number of army tanks are being sent to Lhasa and further south.
(Anon)

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP
Although the violence and the consequential repercussions on Tibetans are horrible, perhaps even unthinkable, the events that have transpired in the last week could mark a shift in public awareness of the ongoing plight of a repressed people. All of us can help. There are many organizations that are working 24/7 to keep this story in the limelight with constant updates, to urge Beijing to use moderation, and to support the Tibetan struggle for freedom. I suggest several organizations in particular:

International Campaign for Tibet   click here for their website

Students for a Free Tibet    click here for their website

International Tibet Support Network  click here for their website

These organizations have long-reaching programs and can help you get in contact with local organizations near you.

Also, if you receive any electronic images or reports from friends inside Tibet, Nepal or India, please pass them along to me. I will post them on this website and forward them to other pertinent organizations. My email: khampa2@aol.com
 
March 15, 2008

This week, the Tibetan capital of Lhasa was transformed into a war zone following the fiercest anti-Chinese protests in 20 years. Yesterday, thousands of Tibetans took to the streets, clashing with riot police and setting fire to Han Chinese shops and vehicles – a sudden escalation after days of largely peaceful demonstrations led by Buddhist monks. Western tourists were ordered to stay inside their hotels. Telephones and electricity were shut off. Security forces, which poured into the city, used fire hoses, teargas and, finally, guns to turn back the crowd. The number of dead is still undetermined. China officials have confirmed ten dead, though most of my sources, some of them from Lhasa, have said that the final number will be “many times greater.” The Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile announced that the number could climb to a hundred or more. Arrests throughout Tibet are said to number in the thousands.

How China's current president Hu Jintao responds could have enormous repercussions both domestically and internationally. China regards the August Olympics as a kind of coming out party – the country’s opportunity to win the affection and respect of the outside world. But it should not be forgotten that during the 1989 Tiananmen Square carnage, this same Hu Jintao was the top communist party leader in Tibet: His declaration of martial law and the bloody crackdown on Tibetan monasteries remains a stinging memory to anyone who values freedom of religion.

This morning, the Lhasan streets are reported to be empty save military blockades cutting off whole portions of the city, innumerable troops in camouflage, unloading army trucks, burned cars and motorcycles. Smoke still clings to the valley from the structures that were burned down – many around the Jokhang (the holiest building in Tibet) and the old Barkor district.

While Lhasa steals the headlines, there are reports of other skirmishes and demonstrations within districts of Tibetan population. In the Chinese province of Ganzu, several hundred monks marched to Labrang monastery. Moving on to Xiahe, and gathering protestors along the way, the crowd smashed windows at police headquarters. 

Protests in neighboring India and Nepal have also been more widely reported. Just this morning, police broke up a march by 200 Tibetans in the Nepalese capital, beating them with bamboo batons and arresting at least 20. And the government of Nepal has agreed to China's request to temporarily block access to Mount Everest -- this in an effort to prevent Tibetans from staging a mountain protest to prevent the Olympic torch from originating there. Climbers will be banned from going beyond the Everest's base camp until May 10.  
 

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