Sympathy towards Tibetan cause and writing on the wall for China

By Anand Gurung

I don't know if there were any protests by Tibetan exiles in Kathmandu yesterday or if they plan to stage any today. I didn't call Tashi [the Tibetan activist who updates the media on how many Tibetan protestors were arrested from which places in the city, provides photos and tells us how those who have been arrested are doing] nor did he call me. Probably there won't be any protests today. The radio which blurts out hourly news updates is preoccupied with the human tragedy unfurling in eastern Nepal due to damage in Koshi embankment. I turn on the T.V and the same footages of the massive toll the swollen river has taken on the lives of thousands upon thousands of people can only be seen. It is sad to look at the trauma, deaths, destruction, depravation and displacement caused by the natural (or is it man-made?) calamity in the evening news and read it again in gory detail the next morning. But even during immense suffering life has to go on.

On Tuesday police broke up anti-China demonstrations by exiled Tibetans, rounding up more than 200 protestors as they tried to march to the Chinese embassy protesting against China's crackdown in their homeland earlier this year.

The Tibetan protestors, including nuns and monks, shouted 'Free Tibet' and 'China, thief, leave our country', as they were bundled inside waiting police vans and trucks to be driven off to various detention centers, some being just picked up and some dragged by policemen while still chanting anti-China slogans.

Emotions run high in these demonstrations, but compared to the people's movement your correspondent covered back in 2006 where the police high-handedness and, in some instances, brutality could be witnessed first hand [especially when they indiscriminately opened fire on the very people they vowed to protect], this protest was largely tame: It didn't even take the police half an hour to take the situation under control.

Though the sheer scale may be different, there was some kind of resonance of the 19-day long people's movement in the demonstration by Tibetan exiles - it being an expression of pent-up frustration of years of oppression and brutality. The scenes were also similar: the same poorly trained police using more force than required to break up the largely peaceful protest, the beatings, the arrests, the cries and shouts in the ensuing melee and confusion, and all this while the national and international photo journalists captures these moving images in their cameras and reporters and rights activists observe it silently. All were same; except that the protestors were Tibetans and they were demonstrating on a foreign soil against the injustices committed in their homeland from where they were forced to flee.

Watching the Tibetan men and women, old and young, fight it out so passionately in the streets of Kathmandu against the gross human rights violations during the recent Chinese crackdown in Tibet; the brutal suppression of Tibetan religious and political aspirations and the deliberate effort to wipe out the unique cultural identity of Tibetans (by changing the demographic composition of the territory) even as China boasts its own in the Olympics pomp and pageantry – one could almost feel the pain and sadness of these Tibetans in one's whole body. Some fervent protestors even call for freedom in their homeland and although it looks like a distant dream (at least for now), one still sees some sort of legitimacy to the demand.

But ask any government officials and police authorities how they view the Tibetan demonstrations taking place almost on a daily basis in Kathmandu and one often gets the terse, readymade answer - "It's a matter of policy. Nepal considers Tibet as an integral part of China and is against any political activities by the exiles." And parties like United Marxist Leninist and now the ruling CPN (Maoist) party issue statements after statements pledging their stance towards "One China" policy; while their leaders keep brushing off the protest, staged regularly since March of this year, as inconsequential, inspired by "nefarious motives". This even as human rights organizations around the world are criticizing Nepal for its poor handling of the Tibetan protests and condemning the unnecessary use of force to clamp it down.

Agreed that China is now a world power and Nepal, being a small neighbor which looks forward to its support and assistance for its development, should also give importance to her legitimate concerns. Still, there is no need for Nepal to compromise on its own values and risk being portrayed as China's stooge. How can you keep shutting your eye to this modern day human tragedy just to appear as a good neighbor, when the whole world is criticizing China for brutally suppressing the Tibetan aspirations by sealing off the ancient land from the rest of the world. Can we just keep saying that we are a non-aligned nation when the Tibetan cause is giving rise to protest movements around the world with many showing solidarity to the Tibetan cause? If not, then why is Nepal shying away from simply admitting that Tibet was once an independent nation [no matter what may be your definition of "independent"] and that it was overrun by Chinese forces in 1949 in much the same way the neighboring Himalayan nation Sikkim would later captured by India in 1972. Surprisingly, Nepal still fails to see the fact that there was a violent uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet back in 1959 and that thousands fled the country after it failed, more than 20,000 of whom now live a life of an exile in Nepal. Yes, Nepal, as a tiny country which hardly has any say in world matters, can't possibly think about criticizing China, which is projected as the economic and military powerhouse of the 21st century, on its poor human rights record and invite her wrath. Falling in the natural "area of influence" of China, Nepal is also quite vulnerable to China's intimidation should the country appear to be going against her interests. But China has always been a peaceful neighbor; never poking its head on Nepal's internal matters, while still contributing to the development of the country's poor infrastructures by helping build roads, hospitals, transportation system, television station and conference halls (it hardly needs to be mentioned here but the venue for the country's first Constituent Assembly is a Chinese built Birendra International Conference Center); and Nepal is bound to reciprocate by giving a patient ear to its concerns here. Still, Nepal should show the diplomatic dexterity by treating the Tibetan issue with the sensitivity it deserves, while acknowledging the fact that any slip in this matter would tarnish the image of the country while.

Still, our leaders (and the government discreetly) and few from the press fraternity take pleasure in thinking that the protests are largely staged, that it is not genuine, that it is backed and possibly even fueled by what they call "foreign elements" to embarrass the Chinese as they host the greatest sporting spectacle of the world. Intent on falling in the good books of Chinese leaders, major communist parties of the country went to every length to denounce the peaceful protests by Tibetan exiles, simply forgetting their own struggle against former king Gyanendra's autocratic regime.

While I myself haven't been to Tibet and couldn't say for sure whether reports that claim China has imposed its brutal authoritarianism in Tibet is largely a "western media propaganda" or whether China's claim that it has 'liberated' Tibet from its feudal past and brought development to its difficult terrain has some truth in it, but hearing and reading reports of hundreds of Tibetan people making dangerous journeys every year through the barren land and treacherous mountain passes, often under the constant fear of being shot at by Chinese border forces, just to cross over to Nepal, to relative freedom, and make it to their exiled spiritual leader Dalai Lama in India -- it becomes clear that there is indeed something not very right about Chinese occupation of Tibet that so many people want to flee from it.

And here again the height of insensitivity is shown by Nepal. Thinking that it is just doing a job of a good neighbor, the country has in the past arrested these poor souls who have made it into Nepal risking their lives and deported them back to China to face an uncertain, and given China's poor human rights record, a possibly perilous fate. And it goes beyond mention how Nepal has tainted its international image by closing down the Dalai Lama's office coming under the pressure of the Chinese government, by carrying out raids in Tibetan refugee camps to arrest recent Tibetan defectors.

Why is China so intent on ruling Tibet under an iron fist? Why is it prodigiously suppressing Tibet's political aspirations for self-governance and denying its people free expression of their unique cultural and religious identity? This goes beyond understanding, especially when China itself allows greater degree of autonomy in Hong Kong and Macao under the concept of two systems in one country? A former British foreign secretary, Sir Malcolm Rifkind rightly, asked in his article not so long ago: If China is able to live with genuine autonomy and cultural freedom in Hong Kong and Macao, and if it would be only too happy to concede it to Taiwan, why can a similar offer not be made to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people?

Except for few radicalized youths who call for end of Chinese rule in Tibet, most Tibetan people would be quite happy if they are offered significant political and cultural freedom in their country. The Dalai Lama has also repeatedly made it clear that he is not seeking independence, saying that it is practically unattainable. But China still appears to be hell-bent on denying the Tibetan people their right to self-governance and practice their unique culture and religion. It all seems to be very futile to make China realize that by doing what it is doing in Tibet it is just betraying what the Olympic Games it is organizing now stands for.

"Increased repression or political and cultural reform are the only choices left available to China and the price they would pay if they opt for repression will be high and will grow," the former British secretary writes in his article, and this seems to be the writing on the wall for the land of the Great Wall.

On the day the Beijing Olympics was to begin on August 8, Kathmandu was witness to the largest anti-China demonstrations by exiled Tibetans followings weeks of intensified demonstrations. Altogether 1,068 protestors were rounded up from various parts of the city all through the day and taken to various detention centers. Same scenes were repeated, some with striking resemblance. Having covered so many of the protests by Tibetans exiles in the past, couple of faces taking part in the protests were quite familiar and with some I was even in talking terms. But looking at them and their friends forced into waiting vans and trucks, often cruelly, even as they appear to be trying to just stage a peaceful protests. When asked why the Tibetans were denied the right to stage peaceful protest, the police in-charge in the area simply said that the place is a"restricted zone" where all kinds of demonstrations are prohibited. And asked since when was the place declared a restricted zone, he bluntly said that it is matter of policy, that they are just acting on orders from"above". When my British journalist friend asked whether by "order from above" he meant "Chinese embassy", the police official denied to make any comments.

Later, after all the protestors were whisked away from the place and the vehicles started to again move without any obstruction in the area, the journalist friend asked me whether he was correct in thinking that Nepalese people don't have any sympathy towards the Tibetan cause.

According to figures, 10,000 Tibetan refugees have been detained during their protests in Kathmandu since March. Although most are released after that very evening or the next day, but given the allegation made by international human rights activists of "excessive use of force" against the protestors and our very own "vibrant" media largely ignoring these protests as unimportant [this even as the international media is keenly following it] my journalist friend was not wrong in coming to this conclusion.

However, it is not that Nepalis don't have any sympathy towards the Tibetans or thier cause. Who else but Nepalese can understand their woes, as the country is home to more than 20,000 Tibetan refugees, a number which keeps increasing every year. But I tell my journalist friend that as Nepal itself is going through such turbulent times, that what he sees as lack of our sympathy is sheer indifference on our part that is brought about by so many problems an ordinary Nepali is force to put up with at present.

Yet again, the sympathy talked about here is too high and noble an emotion which most Nepali can hardly afford. And even the little we may have, we have to share it among the one-lakh Bhutanese refugees and those Nepali speaking refugees who are continually driven away from Assam and elsewhere into Nepal and from here to foreign lands. And what about the Kashmiri cause, the Palestine cause, the Iraqi cause, the Irish cause? It seems the world is too busy trying only to teach China a lesson on human rights.

(The writer can be reached at: andygurung@yahoo.com)

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