Tibet Crisis Deepens, Chinese State Media Say "Crush" Protesters
The Chinese government’s military crackdown on demonstrators in Tibet and in neighboring Chinese provinces has been intense, though foreign media have been unable to confirm reports of mounting death tolls. In Sichuan province, there are allegations of 23 killed by security forces in one incident, including a 16-year-old. Reports of mounting fear among civilians in Tibet and Sichuan have become common in recent days.
Despite early official reports from Chinese state-run media claiming that protests were limited to radicals in the capital, they have in fact spread across Tibet and well into China. According to the Sunday Times:
[T]he violence reached right into the centre of Chengdu, a city of 11m, where nerves were on edge last week. In scenes not witnessed in a Chinese city since 1989, troops in battledress joined black-uniformed special police in clamping a cordon around the Tibetan quarter.
The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has condemned the military assault on civilians, calling the situation “a challenge to the conscience of the world”. She also said “If freedom loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China’s oppression in China and Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world”.
While Tibet’s independence struggle is political and cultural, linked to the Chinese invasion 60 years ago (political in resisting occupation, cultural in resisting what Tibetan Buddhists believe is Beijing’s intention to eliminate its religious traditions), the planned mass migration of ethnic Han Chinese into the agrarian mountain region has caused an escalation in interethnic tensions, and resentment among Tibetans who say economic growth and educational opportunities have been concentrated in Han Chinese communities.
Now, some observers believe, China is facing what appears to be the failure of its post-Tiananmen plan to use economic development as a lure to long-term peace and integration. Chinese in Tibet and in neighboring provinces have reportedly been expressing feelings of despair over the Tibet situation, saying they don’t see how Tibet could win its independence, or how China will win Tibetans’ hearts.
The conflict could continue to deepen if China depends more heavily on impunity, masking the use of force by way of censored and structured media reports, than on dialogue and working toward a political solution. Some Tibetans are alleging Beijing’s plan is to eradicate Tibetan opposition by way of a kind of “economic ethnic cleansing”, forcing Tibetans from their homes or even into Chinese cities in search of work.
Today, 29 prominent Chinese intellectuals published an open letter calling on their government to “stop the violent suppression”, and suggesting 12 ways to better deal with the worsening but long-lived tensions. The letter went as far as to urge that “As the Chinese government is committed to integrating into the international community, we maintain that it should display a style of governing that conforms to the standards of modern civilization”.
admin @ March 22, 2008