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The Australia Tibet Council has described tomorrow’s Olympic Torch relay through Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, as “the height of Olympic triumphalism”.
ATC Executive Officer Paul Bourke said: “Taking the Torch through the streets of Lhasa while Tibet is entirely locked down by security forces and over 1,000 Tibetans are unaccounted for has nothing to do with the values which the Olympic movement claims to stand for. The IOC has allowed the Chinese government to misuse the Torch to demonstrate its physical dominance of Tibet.”
Mr Bourke said he believed the IOC would live to bitterly regret the harm tomorrow’s event would cause to the reputation of the Torch.
The torch’s arrival in Lhasa comes just two days after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who in April joined other world leaders in urging China to resolve the Tibet issue through dialogue, confirmed he would attend the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. On the same day a damning report from Amnesty International alleged more than one thousand Tibetans detained since protests began in March remain unaccounted for.
“This confirms our view that Prime Minister Rudd was premature in announcing a decision this week to attend the Olympics Opening Ceremony” added Mr. Bourke.
Read Amnesty International’s media release here:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/china-one-thousand-protesters-unaccounted-tibet-lock-down-20080618
Tibetans and Tibet Support Groups have campaigned for Olympic torch to be kept out of Tibetan areas, which remain off limits to almost all international media and foreign tourists.
No date or location has been confirmed for a new round of formal talks between the Chinese government and representatives of the Dalai Lama, originally expected to take place on 11 June.
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INSIDE TIBET – DEVELOPMENTS SINCE MARCH 2008
Casualties and Arrests
Working from both Tibetan and Chinese sources, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) has tallied 203 deaths, around 1,000 injured and 5,175 arrests since 14 March 2008. Official Chinese reports continue to list just one Tibetan ‘insurgent’ killed.
Amnesty International, in its report released on Wednesday (18 June) claims:
‘Many hundreds, possibly thousands, of Tibetans languish in prisons or detention centres without the government publicly acknowledging their whereabouts or formally charging them with a criminal offence.’
Working from Chinese government statements on the number of Tibetans arrested, charged, detained without charge or released, Amnesty concludes that over 1,000 individuals remain unaccounted for.
The full report from Amnesty International is available here:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA17/085/2008/en
Restrictions on Media
Despite Chinese government promises of complete media freedom in the run-up to the Olympics, Tibetan areas remain off-limits to all but a handful of approved foreign journalists.
Access to international media has been limited to three tightly controlled government-organized visits, on 27-28 March, 9 April and 6 June. Most international media have had no access at all to Tibet since March.
By contrast, the government initially allowed almost unfettered access to areas impacted by the devastating earthquake in Sichuan on 12 May.
The Foreign Correspondents Club of China has recorded numerous incidents of foreign journalists facing obstruction while reporting on topics related to Tibet. In some instances Chinese authorities scrutinized, confiscated or deleted reporting materials. In addition, both Tibetans and Han Chinese have been punished and intimidated for talking to foreign journalists.
Attacks on the Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama has repeatedly assured the Chinese Government that he does not seek independence for Tibet but instead proposes a level of meaningful autonomy for Tibetans within the People’s Republic of China. Nonetheless, Chinese authorities have intensified verbal attacks on the Dalai Lama through the state-controlled media, prompting doubt over the sincerity of the offer to hold a seventh formal round of the Tibet-China dialogue.
The Dalai Lama has been labelled a ‘master of rhetoric’ who is attempting to ‘split the motherland’. Meanwhile the ‘Dalai Clique’ is accused of having ‘meticulously planned and organized’ the unrest in Tibet.
‘Patriotic Education’
At the beginning of April Chinese authorities launched a renewed two-month ‘patriotic eduction’ campaign. Whereas previous such campaigns have primarily targeted the monastic institutions, new efforts focus also not only at monastic institutions but also government employees, security forces, farmers and nomads.
The stated aim of the new campaign is to “vehemently oppose the Dalai clique” and “to expose the true nature of the Dalai clique” and “March 14 Riot”. Special work teams are sent to monasteries, schools and other institutions to carry out the campaign. Tools include inviting ‘experts’ to give speeches, screening propaganda films and holding denunciation sessions of the Dalai Lama. Sessions are compulsory with attendees forced to accept and endorse particular versions of history and particular accounts of events that led to unrest in March this year.
Ongoing Protests
While protests in Lhasa have been successfully suppressed through a combination of massive troop deployments, surveillance and the arrest and detention of thousands, demonstrations have continued up to the present in many Tibetan areas.
Certain areas have witnessed particularly frequent protests and violent responses from Chinese security forces. Aba (Chinese- Ngawa) and Kardze (Chinese- Ganzi) Counties in Sichuan remain significant hotspots with scores of monks and nuns arrested in recent weeks. |
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