http://tinyurl.com/64bbtj
=AB Samdhong Rinpoche=92s Statement issued on FridayLodi Gyari=92s Summary
of the Current Situation in Tibet
In brief, with little official information available, we can re****t
that:
Chinese government authorities have acknowledged the =93surrender=94 or
detention of some 4,000 Tibetans.
We know of numerous deaths as a result of Chinese forces firing into
crowds of demonstrators in several areas of Tibet.
Many monasteries have been sealed off and under lockdown across Tibet,
and monks within subjected to many deprivations and punishments.
Police have been carrying out house-to-house night raids in Lhasa, in
villages and nomad encampments, dragging away many Tibetans.
Hundreds of Tibetans have been loaded onto the new train in Lhasa and
taken away to prisons in China.
Large numbers of Chinese forces have been sent to all the Tibetan
areas where demonstrations have occurred. In the Amdo and Kham areas
of eastern Tibet, demonstrations have been widespread and large-scale,
and retaliation has been brutal.
One or more instances of protest have been re****ted in at least 52
county-level locations, as well as Chengdu (the capital of Sichuan),
Lanzhou (the capital of Gansu) and Beijing.
More than 98 protests have been counted so far, and they are still
happening. In only one of those protests, as far as we are aware, has
violence been used against Chinese civilians.
In recent weeks a new wave of protests has begun, in response to
stringent patriotic education campaigns in monasteries and
requirements to denounce the Dalai Lama. The actions of the
authorities are doing nothing to create stability - they are provoking
further resentment, despair and unrest. For instance, in a raid on
Labrang monastery on April 15, Chinese forces smashed altars in monks=92
cells and burned images of the Dalai Lama that some monks had kept at
great risk. At Tongkor monastery in Kardze, photographs of His
Holiness were trampled upon. When monks and laypeople protested about
the actions of the work team and called for His Holiness to return to
Tibet, troops fired into the crowd, killing 15 Tibetans including
monks, a young woman and a teenage boy.
In the Tibet Autonomous Region alone, authorities have announced that
they will try some 1000 Tibetans by May 1st. China has virtually
closed the TAR. With the exception of two show-tours, no journalists
or diplomats have secured permission to visit the TAR since the crisis
began, so these trials will be carried out absent outside observers.
Major monasteries and town****ps including Labrang Monastery, Kanhlo
TAP, Gansu; Amchok Monastery, Ngaba TAP, Sichuan; Kardze Monastery,
Kardze TAP, Sichuan; Tonkhor Monastery, Kardze TAP, Qinghai; Thonggu
Monastery, Kardze TAP, Qinghai; Kirti Monastery, Ngaba TAP, Sichuan;
Wara Monastery, Kardze TAP; ****wa Monastery, Nyarong Prefecture,
Kardze, TAP and Larung Gar, Serthar, Sichuan, are sealed off or are
under intense surveillance.
Extracted from U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Testimony,
April 23rd, 2008.
The full text is here.
|
