Tibetan monastery faceoff nears
crisis point By Saransh Sehgal
DHARAMSALA, India - A month-long
confrontation between police and monks at a
monastery in a Tibetan area of China's
southwestern Sichuan province has put Beijing's
Tibet policy back in the international spotlight.
The flare-up began at the Kirti monastery,
located in Ngaba or Aba county, on March 16 after
a 24-year-old monk called Phuntsok set himself
ablaze to mark three years since a bloody
crackdown on Tibetan demonstrators there. Ahead of
the Beijing Summer Olympic Games in 2008, the
monastery was a center of Tibetan unrest.
Phuntsok was seized, allegedly beaten by
the police and died the next day. This prompted
protests, and clashes erupted between security
forces and protesting Tibetans and monks at the
monastery. Authorities
responded by putting the monastery under lock-down
and exile groups say protesters have been detained
and sent for compulsory "patriotic re-education".
The Chinese government has dismissed
reports that it has blockaded the Tibetan
monastery and surrounding areas, saying the
situation there remains "normal".
"According to what we understand, over the
past few days the life and Buddhist activities of
the monks at the Kirti monastery are all normal.
Social order there is also normal. Material
supplies in the temple are totally sufficient,"
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a
press conference on April 19.
On April 22,
state media accused monks at the monastery of
drinking, gambling and using prostitutes. The Aba
county government said it had given some monks
"legal education", in view of their "problems and
illegal activities", reported the state news
agency Xinhua.
"Some monks in the
monastery had visited prostitutes, got drunk,
kicked up rows and engaged in gambling. And some
disseminated pornographic videos," said a
government circular.
"Relations between
the police and the temple have always been
harmonious," said Hong.
Amid the 2008
tensions, Beijing admitted police had shot four
protesters in Aba while exiled Tibetan groups
alleged that 39 Tibetans were killed. Tibetans in
the region fear that they are being marginalized
economically by Han Chinese and that their
religion and culture are under threat from
restrictions imposed by the government.
However, Beijing says Tibetans' living
standards have improved because the government has
invested billions of yuan in infrastructure and
development projects in the region.
Chinese state media have denied that the
young monk was beaten, saying that a post-mortem
found no injuries other than burns. It alleges
that he died because other monks denied him
medical treatment.
However, exiled Tibetan
spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has condemned the
authorities. "Instead of putting out the flames,
the police beat the young monk, which was one of
the causes of his tragic death."
"I am
very concerned that this situation if allowed to
go on may become explosive with catastrophic
consequences for the Tibetans in Ngaba," the Dalai
Lama said in a statement issued on April 15. "In
view of this I urge both the monks and the lay
Tibetans of the area not to do anything that might
be used as a pretext by the local authorities to
massively crack down on them." He urged the
international community, governments around the
world, and international non-governmental
organizations to persuade the Chinese leadership
to "exercise restraint in handling this
situation".
The Tibetan
government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India, has also
expressed deep concern over the clashes, appealing
to China to lift its alleged blockade of the
monastery.
"We deeply regret the tense
stand-off between the local Chinese authorities
and the monks of Kirti monastery and the local
Tibetan population of Ngaba in northeastern
Tibet," said Kalon Kesang Takla from the
Department of Information and International
Relations of the exiled Central Tibetan
Administration.
"We urge in the strongest
possible terms both the Chinese authorities and
the Tibetans in Ngaba to exercise utmost
restraint. At the same time we urge the local
Chinese authorities to immediately stop its
blockade of Kirti Monastery," added Kalon's
statement.
The US-based International
Campaign for Tibet (ICT) has reported that
hundreds of local residents had gathered outside
Kirti last week in fear that authorities would
forcibly remove monks for "patriotic
re-education".
"The authorities have now
imposed a lock-down on the monastery, with a new
barbed wire fence and wall being built around the
back of the monastic complex and armed troops
within the compound preventing monks from leaving
and food from being delivered," reported ICT's
sources.
The ICT said armed police had
unleashed trained dogs on residents outside the
monastery and beaten them when they tried to
prevent forces from entering the compound.
International human-right groups are
asking Beijing to show restraint.
"The use
of violence against peaceful, unarmed
demonstrators including those surrounding the
Kirti monastery would be both unjustifiable and
completely unlawful," said Sophie Richardson, Asia
advocacy director at Human Rights Watch (HRW)
said.
"It is vital that Chinese security
forces respect the safety of all concerned, use
the minimum force needed to keep public order, and
fully respect both the monks and bystanders' right
to freely practice religion, assemble and
peacefully carry out protests."
HRW also
said in a statement, "Human Rights Watch's concern
for the safety of the local residents around the
Kirti monastery has been heightened by the fact
that Chinese security forces are increasingly
disregarding the rule of law as part of a campaign
involving the arrests and disappearances of dozens
of the country's most prominent lawyers,
human-rights defenders, and Internet activists in
recent months."
However, such reports
originate from campaigners or groups that support
the Free Tibet movement, while the Chinese
authorities have restricted access to the region.
This makes it difficult to independently verify
any information coming out of the Tibetan areas.
Despite this, following the Dalai Lama's
appeal for the international community to
intervene, the United States and European Union
have stepped forward to criticize the Chinese
government over the situation in Aba, urging
Beijing to end the crisis and respect religious
freedoms.
The intervention of Chinese
security forces in the Kirti monastery is
"inconsistent with internationally recognized
principles of religious freedom and human rights",
US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said last
week. According to Toner, security forces "have
cordoned off the Kirti monastery". He added that
the US administration had raised the issue with
Chinese officials. "We continue to monitor the
situation closely and obviously are concerned by
it," Toner said.
The European parliament
on April 19 expressed deep concern over the
situation, asking the Chinese government to end
the standoff.
"This brutality is typical
of the Chinese regime. The authorities must show
restraint by withdrawing the armed security police
and ending the lock-down of Kirti monastery," said
European parliament vice president Edward
McMillan-Scott. "I strongly condemn the treatment
of the local lay people who were beaten whilst
trying to prevent the armed police from entering
the monastery. The Chinese have the responsibility
to resolve the grievances of the locals in a fair
and transparent way," he said.
The Chinese
government has rebuked the statements by stressing
that the US stop interfering in the internal
affairs of other nations using the issue of
human-rights as an excuse. Chinese Foreign
Ministry spokesman Hong Lei called on the US to
stop making "irresponsible remarks".
Observers say the crisis inside Tibet is
of a similar magnitude to riots that erupted in
March 2008 in the capital Lhasa that were quashed
by Chinese police. Exiled Tibetans across the
world are protesting against China for the crisis,
and supporters in Dharamsala have begun hunger
strikes, candle-lit vigils and rallies.
"On behalf of the Tibetan
parliament-in-exile, I beg to draw your attention
to the deteriorating human-rights situation in
Tibet," deputy speaker Dolma Gyari wrote in a
letter to the United Nations secretary general Ban
Ki-moon on April 16. The deputy speaker told the
UN chief that the monastery in Ngaba has virtually
been turned into a prison camp.
Outgoing
Tibetan prime minister-in-exile Samdhong Rinpoche
fears the standoff may turn into a disaster, "We
are afraid there may be mass brutal treatment
towards the monks and they may be killed or
tortured, we are very concerned and can only pray
and appeal to the international community to
appeal to PRC [People's Republic of China] to
refrain from this genocide. We feel very
helpless," he said.
Kirti Rinpoche, a lama
from Kirti monastery in Dharamsala said, "Armed
troops in conjunction with government officials
are currently enforcing a brutal clampdown on
Kirti monastery in Ngaba, depriving it of all
freedom and reducing it to desperation, and it is
out of the suffering and frustration so caused
that we seek to address you now."
"China
should withdraw its soldiers from the entire
monastery and institutions around that area, and
in reality they should come up to solve the Tibet
issue," said Acharya Yeshee, a protestor currently
on a hunger strike in India's capital New Delhi,
was quoted as saying by Asia News International on
April 22.
On April 23, China banned
foreigners from entering Tibetan-inhabitant areas
in Sichuan, in an apparent attempt to completely
close off the remote, mountainous region.
In the midst of the crisis, Lobsang
Sangay, an international law expert and Harvard
scholar, was elected head of the Tibet
government-in-exile on Wednesday. Lobsang Sangay
easily beat two other candidates for the prime
minister's post, winning 55% of the vote.
Saransh Sehgal is a contributor
based in Dharamsala, India, who can be reached
at info@mcllo.com.
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