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More info on the ethnic cleansing of Tibet

by tristan
Free tibet! End the Occuopation!
China's invasion by 40,000 troops in 1950 was an act of unprovoked aggression. There is no generally accepted legal basis for China's claim of sovereignty.

Ten years later 100,000 Tibetans fled with the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual and temporal ruler.

In 1993 the UN High Commissioner for Refugees handled 3,700 Tibetan cases.

To avoid detection many refugees, who are poorly clothed, are forced to use the 19,000 ft. Nangpa-La pass below Everest. The Nepalese authorities continue to turn refugees over to the Chinese.

Chinese Administration of Tibet

By the 17-Point Agreement of 1951 China undertook not to interfere with Tibet's existing system of government and society, but never kept these promises in eastern Tibet and in 1959 reneged on the treaty altogether.


China has renamed two out of Tibet's three provinces as parts of the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan, and renamed the remaining province of U'Tsang as Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).


There is no evidence to support China's claim that TAR is autonomous: all local legislation is subject to approval of the central government in Beijing; all local government is subject to the regional party, which in Tibet has never been run by a Tibetan. Much enforcement of Chinese law is ad hoc and subject to local interpretation due to wording being deliberately ambiguous.

The Human Cost

Reprisals for the 1959 National Uprising alone involved the elimination of 87,000 Tibetans by the Chinese count, according to a Radio Lhasa broadcast of 1 October 1960. Tibetan exiles claim that 430,000 died during the Uprising and the subsequent 15 years of guerrilla warfare.


Some 1.2 million Tibetans are estimated to have been killed by the Chinese since 1950.


The International Commission of Jurists concluded in its reports, 1959 and 1960, that there was a prima facie case of genocide committed by the Chinese upon the Tibetan nation. These reports deal with events before the Cultural Revolution. Chinese Justice: Protest and Prisons


Exile sources estimate that up to 260,000 people died in prisons and labour camps between 1950 and 1984.


Unarmed demonstrators have been shot without warning by Chinese police on five occasions between 1987 and 1989. Amnesty International believes that "at least 200 civilians" were killed by the security forces during demonstrations in this period. There are also reports of detainees being summarily executed.


Some 3,000 people are believed to have been detained for political offences since September 1987, many of them for writing letters, distributing leaflets or talking to foreigners about the Tibetans' right to independence.


The number of political detainees in Lhasa's main prison, Drapchi, is reported to have doubled between 1990 and 1994. The vast majority of political inmates are monks or nuns. A political prisoner in Tibet can now expect an average sentence of 6.5 years.


Over 230 Tibetans were detained for political offences in 1995, a 50% increase on 1994, bringing the total in custody to over 600.


Detailed accounts show that the Chinese conducted a campaign of torture against Tibetan dissidents in prison from March 1989 to May 1990. However, beatings and torture are still regularly used against political detainees and prisoners today. Such prisoners are held in sub-standard conditions, given insufficient food, forbidden to speak, frequently held incommunicado and denied proper medical treatment.


Beatings and torture with electric shock batons are common; prisoners have died from such treatment. In 1992, Palden Gyatso, a monk who had been tortured by the Chinese for over 30 years, bribed prison guards to hand over implements of torture. The weapons, smuggled out of Tibet, were displayed in the west in 1994 and 1995.


Despite China having ratified a number of UN conventions, including those relating to torture, women, children and racial discrimination, the Chinese authorities have been repeatedly violating these conventions in China and Tibet.


Nearly all prisoners arrested for political protest are beaten extensively at the time of arrest and initial detention. Serious physical maltreatment has also been recorded in a significant proportion of cases. In the period 1994-1995, three nuns died shortly after release from custody as a result of ill-treatment and torture in detention.

The Chinese have refused to allow independent observers to attend so-called public trials. Prison sentences are regularly decided before the trial. Fewer than 2% of cases in China are won by the defence.

Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by anarchista
Is it true or false that the Dalai Lama has (or had) slaves? I feel like that issue cannot be separated from liberals' and the left's support for Tibet.
by and the overthrow of its monarchy.
"Ten years later 100,000 Tibetans fled with the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual and temporal ruler."

You mean, like the Pope used to be?

Also, "ten years later" hardly implies a genocide meanwhile...
Read the international treaties, they are the legal basis for all border/territory definitions. In 1950, all major world powers recognized Tibet as part of China, by treaties, including Britain, USSR, US, and India. Tibet has never had a legal treaty recognizing its independence. In 1912, Tibet and Mongolia supposedly signed a "treaty" of mutual recognition, but it was generally considered invalid, because the person who signed for Mongolia was a Russian Citizen.

You may not like those treaties, but these are the LEGAL documents of all national territories in the world.

So these are the reality as recognized by the laws of all nations to be LEGALLY BINDING.
by rv
Western books on this topic:

^ Goldstein, Melvyn, Taxation and the Structure of a Tibetan village, Central Asiatic Journal, 1971, p15: "With the exception of about 300 noble families, all laymen and laywomen in Tibet were serfs (Mi ser) bound via ascription by parallel descent to a particular lord (dPon-po) though an estate, in other words sons were ascribed to their father's lord but daughters to their mother's lord."
^ Goldstein, Melvyn, An Anthropological Study of the Tibetan Political System, 1968, p40
^ Rahul, Ram, The Structure of the Government of Tibet, 1644-1911, 1962, pp263-298
^ Grunfeld, A. Tom, The Making of Modern Tibet, p12: "The vast majority of the people of Tibet were serfs, or as they were known there, mi ser."
by Tongluren
It is truly hard to understand how well meaning bleeding hearts would support this misogynic serf owning Gucci wearing jet hopping "monk." He talks a good game, and yet incites violence on the Chinese - have you seen the brutality with which the Dalai's cultists go after hapless unarmed civilians, literally beating their brains out and setting them on fire?

How is Tibet ethnically cleansed? At the beginning of New China a short 50 years ago, Tibet had only about 1 million in population. Today the 2.6 million are still predominately native (over 90%). What America did in California is ethnic cleansing. What America encouraged Israel to do to the Palestinians in the last 20 years was ethnic cleansing. To be a bleeding heart, you'd thunk they would get their nomenclature right first.

Oh, I know, they will then argue the usual - Cultural Genocide is a favorite. But what are the facts? When New China arrived on the scene, and actually for ALL of the Dalai's 14 incarnations, less than 5% of the native Tibetans were able to read and write the Tibetan script. Today the percentage is 85%. WHAT country spends hundreds of millions annually to fund primary and secondary school education in the native tongue to make sure that the natives do not lose their culture? I know, the Chinese must have copied that practice from the progressive Americans, you know.

America spends tens of millions of dollars preserving the spoken only native languages, creating written forms as necessary lest the natives would lose their heritage through assimilation, and it is well known that Americans spend tens of millions putting down in print the epic poetic works of the natives, preserving it for future generations. Now that is how America shows how it is done right!! The practice is deeply ingrained. Why, just a few years back, upon liberating Baghdad, the GIs were ordered to do their utmost to protect the Iraqi National Museum, and thanks to their efforts artifacts that were thousands of years old were protected from looting and destruction. It was a close call, as the Oil Ministry records, which were not thus protected, went up in smoke.

(Now what am I smoking?)

Next time before you mouth "Cultural Genocide," I suggest that you look up "King Garza," and the Chinese effort at preserving the epic Tibetan poem (hundreds of pages, long beloved by the Tibetans through the oral tradition) in print, and publishing it for the benefit of the Tibetan natives who can now read in script - a feat that the Dalai never accomplished in his 14 incarnations.
Get your history right.

From Wikipedia.com:

The subsequent outbreak of World War I and the division of China into military cliques ruled by warlords caused the Western powers and the infighting factions within China to lose interest in Tibet, and the 13th Dalai Lama ruled undisturbed until his death in 1933. At that time, the government of Tibet controlled all of Ü-Tsang (Dbus-gtsang) and western Kham (Khams), roughly coincident with the borders of Tibet Autonomous Region today.
You know, I tasted real Mexican food, and the US version of Mexican food, totally different. I think the Mexicans are being "culturally genocide" in US.

And when you think about it, all those Casinos that the US taxpayers are paying for the Native American tribes, Worst "cultural genocide" in my opinion. I mean, luring all those tourists and prostitutes onto the Indian Reservations, increased crimes, and most of those casino jobs go to the Caucasian people, especially the high-paying ones.

What would happen if the Native Americans rebelled and set fire to the Casinos??
by please provide links
"It is truly hard to understand how well meaning bleeding hearts would support this misogynic serf owning Gucci wearing jet hopping "monk."

I've never seen a photo of the lama in anything other than robes. He is generally barefoot. Where's this Gucci stuff coming from? Got a photo, maybe?
Mother Theresa took jet planes, too. Its a good way to get around.

" He talks a good game, and yet incites violence on the Chinese - have you seen the brutality with which the Dalai's cultists go after hapless unarmed civilians, literally beating their brains out and setting them on fire?"

Actually- he's been talking non-violence for yeras- and has threatened to resign if violence continues. Once again, can you show us anything he's said that is an incitement to violence?

How is Tibet ethnically cleansed? At the beginning of New China a short 50 years ago, Tibet had only about 1 million in population. Today the 2.6 million are still predominately native (over 90%).

Some 1.2 million Tibetans are estimated to have been killed by the Chinese since 1950. Thats ethnic cleansing. The International Commission of Jurists concluded in its reports, 1959 and 1960, that there was genocide committed by the Chinese upon the Tibetan nation. You are way off with the 90 % (Source?) Among the consequences of the occupation of Tibet by the Chinese are the immense population transfers that have resulted in the Tibetans becoming a minority in their own country. Han Chinese are now the dominant ethnic group in Tibet, and by 1996 they outnumbered Tibetans in Lhasa by a 2-1 ratio.

"These reports deal with events before the Cultural Revolution. Chinese Justice: Protest and Prisons
What America did in California is ethnic cleansing. What America encouraged Israel to do to the Palestinians in the last 20 years was ethnic cleansing. "

By your definition, if there is a population increase, there can't be ethnic cleansing? So how is what is going on in the Middle east ethnic cleansing, when the population has quadrupled?

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