Tiny Tibet Chewed by China

[curiousa2z]

and spat out.

March 10

On this day in 1959, Tibetans band together in revolt, surrounding the summer palace of the Dalai Lama in defiance of Chinese occupation forces.

China's occupation of Tibet began nearly a decade before, in October 1950, when troops from its People's Liberation Army (PLA) invaded the country, barely one year after the Communists gained full control of mainland China. The Tibetan government gave into Chinese pressure the following year, signing a treaty that ensured the power of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the country's spiritual leader, over Tibet's domestic affairs. Resistance to the Chinese occupation built steadily over the next several years, including a revolt in several areas of eastern Tibet in 1956. By December 1958, rebellion was simmering in Lhasa, the capital, and the PLA command threatened to bomb the city if order was not maintained.

The March 1959 uprising in Lhasa was triggered by fears of a plot to kidnap the Dalai Lama and take him to Beijing. When Chinese military officers invited His Holiness to visit the PLA headquarters for a theatrical performance and official tea, he was told he must come alone, and that no Tibetan military bodyguards or personnel would be allowed past the edges of the military camp. On March 10, 300,000 loyal Tibetans surrounded Norbulinka Palace, preventing the Dalai Lama from accepting the PLA's invitation. By March 17, Chinese artillery was aimed at the palace, and the Dalai Lama was evacuated to neighboring India. Fighting broke out in Lhasa two days later, with Tibetan rebels hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned. Early on March 21, the Chinese began shelling Norbulinka, slaughtering tens of thousands of men, women and children still camped outside. In the aftermath, the PLA cracked down on Tibetan resistance, executing the Dalai Lama’s guards and destroying Lhasa's major monasteries along with thousands of their inhabitants.

China's stranglehold on Tibet and its brutal suppression of separatist activity has continued in the decades following the unsuccessful uprising. Tens of thousands of Tibetans followed their leader to India, where the Dalai Lama has long maintained a government-in-exile in the foothills of the Himalayas.

 

[curiousa2z]

whoops! I think that generated naughty ads in Chinese!

 

[FBI parte due]

P202612 looks kind of cute.

 

[Dual]

Poor Tibet. Wouldn't call it tiny.

 

[SilentBtViolent]

P518492 is more my style.

 

[Big Dick McGee]

You can probably have any of them for like $39.99 plus shipping.

 

[CaptainWacky]

Why don't the just let Tibet go? Everyone would pat them on the back.

 

[SilentBtViolent]

I saw a hilarious article in Google News earlier from Xinhua, let me see if it's still in the top results...

Dalai Lama's utter distortion of Tibet history


www.chinaview.cn 2009-03-11 0032 Print

BEIJING, March 10 (Xinhua) -- On March 10, 1959, the Dalai Lama and his supporters started an armed rebellion in a desperate attempt to preserve Tibet's feudal serfdom and split the region from China.

On Tuesday, exactly 50 years later, the Dalai Lama claimed that Tibetans have been living in "hell on earth," as if the Tibet under the former feudal serfdom ruled by him were a heaven.

The Dalai Lama also alleged at a gathering in India's Dharamsala to mark his 50 years in exile that "these 50 years have brought untold suffering and destruction to the land and people of Tibet."

Unfortunately, the Dalai Lama has not only been on the wrong side of history, but also has got the history upside down. Miseries of "hell on earth" and "untold suffering" occurred nowhere but in the slavery Tibet symbolized by the Dalai Lama.

Even from historical books written by Western scholars, people can draw the conclusion that Tibet under the rule of the Dalai Lama clique was a society of feudal serfdom that trampled human rights and easily reminded visitors of the dark age of medieval Europe.

The feudal serfdom had truly brought "untold suffering and destruction" to the serfs and slaves who accounted for 90 percent of the then population.

The slavery Tibet was just "hell on earth" as Carles Bell, who lived in Lhasa as a British trade representative in the 1920s, observed that the Dalai Lama's theocratic position enabled him to administer rewards and punishments as he wished. That was because he held absolute sway over both this life and the next of the serfs and coerced them with that power.

In 1959, after the failed rebellion by the Dalai Lama and his followers, the central government of China carried out the long-delayed emancipation of millions of serfs and slaves in Tibet.

Great achievements have been made in Tibet since then in various fields such as politics, economy and culture. The following are just a few examples of those achievements:

-- The central government has adopted a policy of "political unity, freedom of religious belief and separation of politics and religion" in Tibet to ensure locals' political rights and that all religious beliefs are politically equal.

-- Tibet has seen its gross domestic product soar from 174 million yuan (25.4 million U.S. dollars) in 1959 to 39.591 billion Yuan (5.78 billion dollars) in 2008, with an annual growth rate of8.9 percent.

-- Tibet's roads totaled 51,300 km in 2008, a sharp increase from the 7,300 km in 1959.

-- The average life expectancy in Tibet has increased from 35.5years in 1959 to 67 years at present.

Anyone without prejudice will recognize the remarkable progress in Tibet.

"Tibet has achieved remarkable economic progress and undergone profound changes since 1959 when its democratic reform began," Argemiro Procopio, a professor of international relations at the University of Brasilia, said after a trip to Tibet.

Louise T. Blouin Macbain, a well-known publisher and philanthropist, said after traveling to Tibet that "what I have seen is positive and I am especially thankful to the great efforts made by China over the years in preserving Tibetan cultural independence and its monasteries."

When the Dalai Lama claimed there is "cultural genocide" in Tibet, "I don't know which Tibet is he actually describing," she said. "As for me, it's not the one that I have seen with my own eyes."

Why then such a distortion of historical facts by the so-called Nobel Peace Prize winner? Because it is only through the distortion of history could he deceive Western audiences and disguise his true intentions.

Since their exile, the Dalai Lama and his followers have never stopped pursuing activities to split Tibet from China and restore their theocratic rule despite his claims to the opposite.

But just as the rebellion by the Dalai Lama clique failed disgracefully 50 years ago, its fantasy of "Tibet Independence" is also doomed to failure, because of the firm opposition from the Chinese people, including the Tibetans in Tibet.