|
EDITORIAL:
Remembering the Tibetans¡¦ plight
Today marks the 53rd anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese
rule, an anniversary that, sadly, will go unnoticed in most parts of the world.
More than 30 Tibetans have set themselves alight in the past year in protest
against Beijing¡¦s repressive and destructive rule in the so-called Tibetan
Autonomous Region and other areas.
Many of these immolations and protests have occurred in Aba prefecture, Sichuan
Province, in what is euphemistically referred to as ¡§predominantly Tibetan
areas.¡¨ What most wire agency reports fail to say is that these areas were
traditionally part of the Kham region, whose people, the Khampas, started armed
resistance against Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule in 1956, after their
region was merged into Sichuan Province in 1955.
Free Tibet, the International Campaign for Tibet and other rights groups say the
escalation in self-immolations shows the growing desperation and despair of the
Khampas and other ethnic Tibetans under Chinese rule. That rule became even more
draconian after the huge anti-Han, anti-Beijing riots of 2008, in which hundreds
of Han-owned establishments and government offices were torched and hundreds of
people killed.
Beijing tried for decades to suppress Tibetan Buddhism, barring Tibetans from
practicing their faith. This prohibition was gradually eased in the 1980s, as
Beijing realized how profitable it was to let foreign tourists into Lhasa and
some other areas of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. However, many Tibetan areas,
especially in Sichuan, continue to remain off-limits.
When suppressing religious practices failed to quench the Tibetans¡¦ support for
Buddhism, the Dalai Lama and preserving their way of life, Beijing turned to
another method ¡X flooding Lhasa and the Kham regions of Sichuan with Han
migrants ¡X just as it has done in Xinjiang to make Uighurs a minority in their
homeland.
It has also continued its campaign to break Tibetans¡¦ ties with their culture
through pro-Mandarin policies. As Free Tibet noted on its Web site on Sunday, up
to 700 Tibetan students protested upon discovering that their history, biology,
chemistry, math and other textbooks, which had been in Tibetan, had been
replaced by Chinese-language texts.
The CCP recently launched a ¡§patriotic education campaign¡¨ for temples, which
have been asked to display the portraits of former leaders Mao Zedong (¤ò¿AªF) and
Deng Xiaoping (¾H¤p¥), and Chinese President Hu Jintao (JÀAÀÜ), instead of the Dalai
and Panchen lamas and other religious leaders.
Beijing has not only tried to demoralize and dehumanize the Tibetans by claiming
to have ¡§liberated¡¨ them from the oppressive policies of Tibetan rule, it has
also done all it can to destroy the natural environment of Tibet through
deforestation, strip-mining and the dumping of nuclear waste, turning much of
the Tibetan plateau into an arid wasteland.
China¡¦s rule over Tibet has made a mockery of its protests against Western
imperialism and the destruction and looting of Chinese treasures by Western
forces.
There will be a parade in Taipei today, starting at 2pm at the Zhongxiao Fuxing
MRT station, to mark the 53rd anniversary of the uprising. Mongolian and Tibetan
Affairs Commission Minister Luo Ying-shay (ù¼ü³·) has declined to take part
because she is a government official, but anyone who values human rights and
humanity should turn out for the march, or at least take time out from their
busy day to spare a thought ¡X and a prayer ¡X for the Tibetans and their
increasingly beleaguered existence.
The plight of the Tibetans ¡X and the Uighurs ¡X today could well be that of the
Taiwanese tomorrow. If we don¡¦t show we care about them, who will care about us?
|
