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Tibetans decry
Chinese domination
UP IN FLAMES: A series of self-immoliations by
Tibetans are a desperate cry for freedom and should serve a lesson to Taiwan
about the dangers of Chinese rule, exiles have said
By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
Taiwanese should take the capture of Tibet by China to heart and support the
Tibetan people’s pursuit of freedom, Tibetan rights activists said yesterday.
“Buddhists in Taiwan in particular should understand that people of the same
faith in Tibet are suffering brutal oppression when they’re currently engaged in
so-called religious exchanges with China,” Taiwan Friends of Tibet (TFT)
chairperson Chou Mei-li (周美里) said at a symposium.
Participants at the symposium, organized by the TFT and Taiwan Association of
University Professors (TAUP), yesterday in Taipei said that Tibetans striving
for democracy under Chinese domination are being forced into extreme acts such
as self-immolation.
Since 2009, 56 Tibetans, mostly monks, including 53 in China and three overseas,
have committed suicide by setting themselves ablaze to call for Tibetan
independence and religious freedom.
The reasons Tibetans killed themselves by burning themselves alive was similar
to Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕) who also set himself on fire, Chou said, “because it was
their last resort — under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese
Nationalist Party (KMT) regimes respectively — to speak out to the world about
what they believed in.”
What happened in Tibet after it signed the 1951 17-point Sino-Tibet Treaty would
be a good example for Taiwanese to reflect when thinking about cross-strait
relations, especially at a time when President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) appeared to be
interested in signing a peace accord with Beijing, she said.
Sadly, Tibet was a reclusive country with a limited military presence and
international engagement at the time, she said, “most of all, the Tibetan people
were not vigilant and falsely believed that China would keep its promise of
maintaining religious freedoms and social systems.”
“The peace treaty turned out as the prelude to a Chinese invasion and takeover,”
Chou said.
The former director of Taiwan’s Regional Tibetan Youth Congress Tashi Tsering,
who was born and raised in India and who has lived in Taiwan for 14 years, said
self-immolation was the only way Tibetans are able to make the world take notice
of their hardship following more than half century of Chinese oppression.
“While the People’s Liberation Army is armed with guns, Tibetans only have
stones in their hands. Despite their protests against Beijing, Tibetans never
killed Han people and would never resort to terrorism,” Tashi Tsering said.
Khedroop Thondop, a nephew of the Dalai Lama, explained to the audience that the
negotiation process between Tibet and China since 1959 had been unfair and
concluded that Beijing could never be trusted and the regime was not interested
in understanding or respecting Tibetan culture and religion, which is why he
supports Tibetan independence.
The self-immolations were actually sacrifices made to appeal their loss of
freedom and beliefs, the vice president of Amnesty International, Taiwan Lin
Shu-ya (林淑雅) said.
Beijing’s accusations that the dead monks had “violated the spirit of Buddhism
by committing suicide,” is a distortion of the true spirit of Buddhism and is
ironic given the atheist nature of the Chinese regime, she said.
Another irony was that most of the people who died after self-immolation were
young people who grew up under Chinese influence and education, she said.
“That fact tells you something,” Lin said. “They could not know much about
history and yet those young men would still be willing to sacrifice their lives
because they longed for respect and dignity as human beings.”
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