Tibetans from around the world are to hold the biggest assembly of exiles in four years this week as they work out how to react to a disturbing rise in self-immolations and a change of Chinese leadership.
At a special general meeting in the northern Indian hilltown of Dharamshala, 400 Tibetan representatives will try to address a growing despair among the younger generation that has triggered the unprecedented spate of fatal protests.
According to Tibet’s government-in-exile, based in Dharamshala, 51 people have set themselves on fire in the past three years. Forty-one died from their burns.
Photo: AFP
“Tibetans everywhere understand why such drastic actions are taken, given the repression by the Chinese government and the unbearable conditions inside Tibet,” Lobsang Sangay, the Tibetan prime minister, said by telephone from Dharamshala before the four-day meeting that begins tomorrow.
“This week we must formulate ways to ensure that the cries and suffering in Tibet to do not go in vain,” he said.
Many Tibetans have been deeply shocked by the self-immolations, which contradict Buddhist religious teaching that all life is sacred.
The Tibetan leadership is under increasing pressure to find a way to end the protests as frustration grows within the exile community at the absence of any progress in the campaign for freedom in their homeland.
Both Sangay and the Dalai Lama, the revered spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, have appealed for Tibetans not to set themselves on fire, but add that the protests are a result of worsening Chinese repression.
Tsewang Rigzin, president of the Tibetan Youth Congress, expressed anger at the lack of response from the international community over the deaths.
“This meeting must say to world leaders who talk about human rights and democracy that the gross violations inside Tibet are unacceptable,” he said. “We have enough sympathy, what we need is concrete action. We must lobby for immediate international intervention to push the Chinese government and hold them to account for what in happening inside Tibet.”
However, five decades after the Dalai Lama fled Tibet for India after a failed uprising in 1959, the options available to the exiles congregating in Dharamshala this week appear more limited than ever.
China routinely pours scorn on the Dalai Lama, accusing him of seeking to split Tibet from the rest of China — though he says he only seeks greater autonomy for the region.
And Beijing insists that Tibetans enjoy religious freedom and have benefited from improved living standards brought on by China’s economic expansion.
In the latest indication of growing dismay among exiles, two negotiators who headed nine rounds of fruitless talks with the Chinese resigned in June.
One glimmer of hope likely to be a hot topic of discussion at the meeting is the upcoming change of leadership in China, with president-in-waiting, Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平), seen by some observers as more flexible on Tibet.
“There are hints that there may be some very small shift in position by Xi,” Robert Barnett, a professor of Tibetan studies at Columbia University, said. “China could offer to re-start talks, as there have been some statements from Beijing suggesting this.
“But the Tibetan leaders are under pressure to withdraw from future talks because there is no confidence in anything coming from the Chinese side,” Barnett said.
“This problem has been exacerbated by the self-immolations, which have made the community very emotional and anxious that nothing is being done. They desperately want the leadership to come up with some solution or sign of movement,” he said.
The Dalai Lama called the last special meeting in 2008 after he admitted his “middle way” pro-autonomy policy was failing to make any progress.
The delegates chose to support continuing the same policy, but said that a more radical approach could be considered in the near future.
At the end of this year’s meeting on Friday, the Dalai Lama is to hold a prayer session at the main temple in the hill town.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not