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3/19 Lee Siu Hin: 5 Years of U.S. Invasion At Iraq/What's Going On In Tibet?

by Lee Siu Hin - Immigrant Solidarity Network Thursday, Mar. 20, 2008 at 12:14 AM
info@ImmigrantSolidarity.org (213)403-0131 Los Angeles, CA USA

I still clearly remember on the evening of Tuesday March 18th, 2003 (Iraq time morning of March 19th)....

3/19 Lee Siu Hin: 5 Years of U.S. Invasion At Iraq/What's Going On In Tibet?

I still clearly remember on the evening of Tuesday March 18th, 2003 (Iraq time morning of March 19th), I was nervously finishing my final exam at Cal Poly Pomona for one my MPA (Masters of Public Affairs) class. At the middle of the exam, my classmates begin whispering around me: "Hey, U.S. just begin invading Iraq!" It just completely collapsed my heart, I stop my exam and turn on my computer on to check the latest news on-line. My professor was pissed what I was doing,I got C-grade on the exam....

I also watched the President Bush's speech on invading Iraq. (Video: http://www.activistvideo.org/views.asp?id=334)

On that evening, I made promises that:
- I will do anything to stop this war
- I will visit Iraq asap to show our peace activists solidarity with Iraq.

I didn't had money nor credit to finance the trip, with out of the blue, a "gift" from the heaven, a credit card company suddenly send me a card with $3,000 credit--I used that credit to purchase new camera and airline ticket, and representing Pacifica radio went to Iraq for one month and produced a report series: Report from Baghdad http://www.BaghdadReport.net

Five years later, with million Iraqis and 4,000 U.S. soldiers killed, and I am broke as ever still paining the same credit card debt from the 2003 trip--I still need to say, it's worth it! and necessary--because we cannot allows more killing, and our children will living in war and fear.

Last week, at my midle of busy planning 5 years too many actions (http://www.5yearstoomany.org), two international news had touched deep part of my heart, the riot in Tibet, and the riot in Kosovo.

I went to former Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Kosovo at mid-90's for Pacifica radio, I went there because as peace activist I want to uncover the truth and hypocrisy and to stop the killing--but I failed.

Why Americans never learn? the lies of Iraq's WMD that let us to invade Iraq; the never happened "Bay of Tonkin" incident that let us to bloody Vietnam War. At the eve of 5th years I see the same deceptions happen again at Tibet and Kosovo.

I just finished the an article about what happened in Tibet, as part of my commemoration of 5th Years of U.S. invade Iraq. (Video: http://www.activistvideo.org/views.asp?id=335)

Lee Siu Hin: What's Going On In Tibet?

March 18, 2008
http://www.peacenowar.net/newpeace/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=428&Itemid=1

For the past few days, several friends of mine have been asking 'What's happening in Tibet, and why is it happening?'

As a Chinese American with fairly good knowledge of Tibetan culture, religion and history and having known some Tibetans living in both the U.S. and China, I have a sense of urgent responsibility to tell everyone about what happened in Tibet. This is a very emotional issue; however, many are mixing emotional arguments with facts.

I can be reasonably certain that the riot that took place last week in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa wasn’t a simple black and white argument. What happened in Tibet last week was part of a carefully planned 'Tibetan Independence Movement', with deep historical roots backed and financed by Western powers, most notably the United States and United Kingdom.

I also can responsibly state that, based on the local and western media reports, including interviews by foreigners, as well as TV footage and photos, there’s clearly one group of people attacking other people, burning shops and buildings. There’s no proof or confirmed evidence—except for the unverified rumors--that the Chinese military had killed innocent Tibetans and monks.

Historically, the British wanted to annex Tibet when it colonized India 100 years ago. The 1904 invasion by Colonel Younghusband killed thousands of Tibetans and forced the Dalai Lama to flee to mainland China. I encourage you to visit any local library and check any pre-1949 (the year Communists took power and created the People’s Republic of China, or PRC) U.S. publications, or Atlas of China and Tibet, and you’ll see Tibet was recognized as part of China. Not until the PRC was created and subsequently entered into a cold war proxy anti-communist fight with the U.K. and U.S., did they suddenly claim Tibet is not a part of China.

If you’re open minded, I encourage you to gather and learn information from the relatively comprehensive sources available: simply perform a Google search, and type “Dalai Lama CIA”. You will find thousands of entries from running this search. According to Michael Parenti and his article “Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth”, while he supports the struggle for Tibetan independence, he also notes that:

“….Throughout the 1960s the Tibetan exile community secretly pocketed $1.7 million a year from the CIA, according to documents released by the State Department in 1998. Once this fact was publicized, the Dalai Lama's organization itself issued a statement admitting that it had received millions of dollars from the CIA during the 1960s to send armed squads of exiles into Tibet to undermine the Maoist revolution. The Dalai Lama's annual share was $186,000, making him a paid agent of the CIA. Indian intelligence also financed him and other Tibetan exiles. He has refused to say whether he or his brothers worked with the CIA…. Today, mostly through the National Endowment for Democracy and other conduits that are more respectable-sounding than the CIA, the US Congress continues to allocate an annual $2 million to Tibetans in India, with additional millions for 'democracy activities' within the Tibetan exile community. The Dalai Lama also gets money from financier George Soros, who now runs the CIA-created Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and other institutes.”

If we agree the sole mission of the CIA is to destabilize and even to overthrow other countries the U.S. doesn't support, why would there be a difference in this case?

One of the main problems with the American Left’s romantic notion of a “Free Tibet” (to return to the pre-1951 Chinese “occupied” Tibet), is that “…Most solidarity and environmental groups supporting the Tibetan people's cause have not questioned the Dalai Lama's role in Tibetan history or addressed what it would mean for the Tibetan people if the Dalai Lama and his coterie returned to power…', as Norm Dixon from the Green Left Weekly writes:

“Romantic notions about the ``peaceful'' and ``harmonious'' nature of Tibetan Buddhist monastic life should be tested against reality… The Tibetan ``government'' in Lhasa was composed of lamas selected for their religious piety. At the head of this theocracy was the Dalai Lama. The concepts of democracy, human rights or universal education were unknown. The Dalai Lama and the majority of the elite agreed to give away Tibet's de facto independence in 1950 once they were assured that Beijing's exploitative system would be maintained. Nine years later, only when they felt their privileges were threatened, did they revolt. Suddenly the words ``democracy'' and ``human rights'' entered the vocabulary of the government-in-exile, operating out of Dharamsala in India ever since.” Dixon explains.

Another problem I see from this latest saga in Tibet is the one-sided Western government accusations and media coverage. How many of you have read news reports from China? You might just dismissed them as 'communist China's propaganda' But I also want to remind you, isn’t it the Western media, like the New York Times, CNN, and Fox News that have lied about the First Gulf War, the Second Gulf War about WMD, and the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan?

Still, I cannot avoid differences of opinion with my activist friends, so I would ask them to consider the serious question of demanding independence for Tibet while imposing sanctions against China. Applying this same logic, could one also support:

- The return of ancestral lands stolen by the White colonists from Native Americans (that means most of the U.S.) for the past 300 years, who are now asking for independence from the U.S.A.?

- The demands of Mexican American activists to return the South Western U.S. to Mexico (From California to Texas) as a result of the illegal 1846-48 US-Mexico War?

- To appeal to the international community for economic sanction and international embargo against U.S. because our illegal war and mass killings at Iraq & Afghanistan, with supporting U.N. resolution to send troops to U.S. to disarm the military and arrest top U.S. officials for International War Crime Tribunal?

If you’re answer is: “That’s crazy, it’s not gonna to happen!” then you should ask yourself: “What’s wrong with this?”

Lee Siu Hin is a long time peace, labor, immigrant rights and human rights activists. A long time Pacifica Radio KPFK Los Angeles, CA and WBAI New York, NY producer. Founder and national coordinator of National Immigrant Solidarity Network (http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org), ActionLA Coalition (http://www.ActionLA.org) and Peace NO War Network (http://www.PeaceNOWar.net)


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Not in our Name! And another world is possible!

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The other side of the Tibet question

by Norm Dixon Monday, Mar. 24, 2008 at 3:10 PM
glparramatta@greenleft.org

Thanks for quoting from my article on the Dalai Lama and his reactionary past. But please also read the following article at http://www.greenleft.org.au/1996/248/13404

We can go on harping about the undoubtedly inadequate leadership of the Tibetan national liberation movement, but let’s not excuse or whitewash the very oppression that China’s rulers have imposed on the Tibetan people. When all is said and dione, that is the source of the conflict and it will not end unless that oppression ends. Of course imperialism seeks to meddle, but the reason they have opportunities to do so is because the Chinese rulers are giving them that opportunity.

And why would the Tibetans listen to the left when many of them seem hell bent on justifying if not glorifying China’s “communist” rulers’ attacks on their national and human rights?

Here’s most of the article:

Tibetans are entitled to claim their right to national self-determination. They have a common language, territory and culture. A distinct, continuous Tibetan history can be traced back 2500 years. Whatever the arguments about the independence or otherwise of Tibet during this long period, when China’s last dynasty was overthrown in 1911, all Chinese officials were expelled and the 13th Dalai Lama issued a proclamation that many Tibetans consider a declaration of independence.

While no country formally recognised this independence, Tibetan officials conducted all governmental functions without reference to, or interference from, Beijing. Lhasa conducted government-to-government relations with many countries, signing trade pacts and other deals. Until 1950, Tibet operated as a de facto independent state.

The Chinese Communist Party once adhered to the traditional Leninist position on the right of nations to self-determination. The 1931 constitution of the soviet government of China stated: “All Mongolians, Tibetans, Miao, Yao, Koreans and others living in the territory of China shall enjoy the full rights to self-determination, i.e., they may either join the Union of Chinese Soviets or secede from it and form their own state as they may prefer”.

By 1949, the CCP’s commitment to the right of self-determination had been quietly dropped. In that year, the new government announced that the liberation of Tibet was a major goal of the People’s Liberation Army. Mao Zedong — aware that Tibet’s de facto independence made a negotiated integration into China preferable to an immediate military attack, which might have brought international repercussions — proposed “peaceful liberation”.

When the Tibetan government failed to meet a deadline for “peaceful liberation”, PLA forces in October 1950 invaded Tibet’s eastern province of Kham and quickly overran Tibet’s poorly armed and led army of 10,000 troops. The PLA stopped its advance, and Beijing again urged Lhasa to begin negotiations.

Tenzin Gyatso, now the Dalai Lama, sent a negotiating team to Beijing which, with little choice, signed an agreement on May 23, 1951, known as the Seventeen Point Agreement. For the first time in recorded history, Tibet’s rulers formally acknowledged in writing China’s sovereignty over Tibet.

The Dalai Lama did not attempt to rally the Tibetan people to defend their former independence. He and the majority of his regime were satisfied, if uncomfortable, since China agreed to maintain Tibet’s oppressive theocratic political system and keep the exploitative semi-feudal economic system intact, with the Dalai Lama at its head. Some of Tibet’s more recalcitrant aristocrats, though, were perturbed by the caveat that this would last until such time as Tibetans wanted reforms. Under this agreement, Chinese troops moved peacefully into Lhasa in the autumn of 1951.

CCP policy in this period recognised that the religious, political and economic hold of the landowners was strong and that the class struggle in Tibet had not developed sufficiently for the peasantry to rebel against their appalling conditions and absolute lack of human rights. Beijing strove instead to work closely with the Tibetan landowning elite and allay their fears.

According to Tibet scholar Melvyn Goldstein, between 1951 and 1959 there was no significant expropriation of property of the aristocratic and religious landlords. Mao was committed to the continued reign of the Dalai Lama because this would reassure the feudal and religious elites of their place in China’s new multi-ethnic state.

The CCP did virtually nothing to encourage the Tibetan masses to challenge the rule of the landlords. In the eyes of both Mao and the Tibetan elite, the peasants were mere appendages of the landowners. The PLA was at first careful to show respect for Tibetan culture and religion, giving alms to all 20,000 monks in the Lhasa area.

But the damage had been done with the taking of Kham by force and the entry of Chinese troops, no matter how well behaved, into Lhasa. The Tibetan people felt humiliated at the loss of their independence and feared for their future. The sudden presence of Chinese troops was disturbing after 40 years in which there had been virtually no Chinese in Tibet. When the disgruntled landlords felt their economic and political monopoly was threatened, they were able to clothe their reactionary rebellion in a nationalist garb and win many poor Tibetans to their side.

A section of the landholders, convinced that the CCP would eventually introduce land reform and fearing the impact on their power of the development of Tibet’s infrastructure, began to organise an armed rebellion. There were landlord-inspired disturbances in eastern Tibet triggered when the Chinese authorities levied taxes on traders returning from India and demanded that monasteries supply lists of property for tax assessment. By 1957, the US had altered its ambivalent position on Tibet, and the CIA was arming and training Tibetan rebels.

In 1957, Mao made a last-ditch attempt to placate the landlords. The numbers of Chinese CCP cadre and troops in Tibet were reduced, and the Dalai Lama was promised in writing that China would not implement land reform for another six years. If conditions were not “ripe” then, reforms would be postponed again.

The landlords were not convinced. The Dalai Lama, with 80,000 supporters, fled to India at the height of several days of massive demonstrations that began on March 10, 1959. Soon after the Dalai Lama’s retreat, fighting broke out. Chinese troops put down the uprising, which involved tens of thousands of Tibetans. Beijing says 87,000 people were killed.

The CCP concluded that the cause of the rebellion was its policy of “moderation” toward minorities. Beijing tore up the Seventeen Point Agreement and abolished the traditional government, confiscated the estates of the religious and aristocratic elites and closed thousands of monasteries. Policy toward Tibet has been marked ever since by varying degrees of brute force and terror, with systematic discrimination, reaching its worst extremes during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

While land reform and other measures undoubtedly benefited Tibet’s poor peasants, its arbitrary implementation and the brutal suppression of Tibetan culture and religion sowed hatred and fuelled Tibetan nationalism. The brutality and colonisation imposed by the Chinese government became the overriding issue for Tibetans, giving new life to the illusion that all sections of Tibetan society have fundamental common interests.

Since the late 1980s, there has been an upsurge of protest. Following significant protests in 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1990, extreme police repression has prevented further outbreaks. Recent visitors report a heavy police presence in Lhasa, with surveillance cameras mounted in the streets. Gatherings of three ot more Tibetans are broken up by police.

According to Amnesty International’s most recent annual report, hundreds of people were detained in 1995 for peaceful pro-independence activities. Police and troops continue to raid monasteries and convents. AI says there are more than 650 Tibetan political prisoners.

Reflecting both the original backwardness of landlord-dominated Tibet and Beijing’s anti-Tibet policies, official Chinese figures show Tibet to be languishing. In 1990, literacy was 56% compared to China’s 74%; Tibet has the lowest life expectancy at 45 years, compared to China’s 75; Tibet’s per capita GDP for 1993 was US$242, compared to China’s $462.

Tibet’s problems have intensified with the Chinese bureaucracy’s rush to restore capitalism. In 1992, Lhasa was declared a special economic zone. Waves of state-subsidised Chinese settlers took over new business opportunities, and Chinese skilled workers dominate jobs created by demand for new housing and services. Tibetans are being increasingly marginalised in their own homeland. The non-Tibetan population of Lhasa is now estimated at 50%. Racism towards Tibetans is reportedly rife.

After more than four decades of Chinese rule, Tibetans are seething with resentment at what they see as a systematic campaign to destroy and uproot their culture. This is the product of more than four decades of heavy handed, ill-directed and insensitive attempts by the Stalinist Chinese bureaucracy to suppress the influence of Tibet’s former landlord class, now in exile in India.

But the harsh reality is that Beijing’s indiscriminate and apolitical assaults — arbitrarily softened or hardened depending on the bureaucratic wind blowing from the capital — have served only to drive most Tibetans into the arms of their former oppressors, now able to wear the mantle of “freedom fighters”.
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