Negotiation Nightmare!

Seems like China’s offer to talk is nothing more than a shallow offer to talk about the Tibetan issue for the purpose of PR and the Summer Olympics.

It’s the same old story coming from them, and it really is getting tiring. This needs to happen today, not after the Olympics, and Beijing needs to allow foreign security for the Olympics because frankly I wouldn’t trust them with their alleged claims that the Dalai Lama is doing all this.

I see the Chinese Communist Party creating all these problems, not the Dalai Lama or the Tibetan people, and I wouldn’t trust having a seat at the Summer Olympics for fear of my own life, unless the US had security to protect me. It’s a scary place, and I now know how the Tibetan people must feel or the Japanese for being poisoned with tainted gyoza.

NEGOTIATION NIGHTMARE – Jamyang Norbu [read full story]
From the little information we are getting it appears that the Chinese are conducting massive crackdowns and reprisals all over Tibet. First of all it is clear that the trial of the thirty protesters in Lhasa, although a travesty in terms of real justice, is also possibly a red herring. The basic idea of the trial seems to have been to create the impression that not many people have been arrested in Tibet.

In reality thousands of Tibetans have been arrested and will probably be tried in secret (or not have a trial at all) and be incarcerated or shot. Woeser in her last Tibet Update reports that “thousands of Tibetans have met with the fate of being killed, being arrested, being tortured to confess, being missing, committing suicide or having mental disorder, and this has brought disasters to countless Tibetan families.”

I have also heard of many hundreds, maybe even a thousand or so men in rural Amdo and Kham hiding out in the mountains, to avoid police and military crackdowns in their districts. There has been the report of a gunfight between Tibetans and Chinese security personnel. A couple of days ago I received an unconfirmed account of two women in a village in Amdo who were harassed beyond endurance by Chinese policemen about religious images in their home. The women stabbed three policemen to death and were themselves subsequently gunned down. In all likelihood it appears that the situation in Tibet will deteriorate further. The situation is deeply troubling especially since there is little or no information on what is actually happening.

No amount of begging, pleading or further negotiating with Beijing will bring any resolution, even a little improvement, to this crisis. I think that Dharamshala has one real option left to deal with this situation. It must act in a way that is bold, dynamic and totally unanticipated by Beijing. The exile government must declare that in light of the sentiments expressed by Tibetan people in the recent protests, and the harshness and implacability of the Chinese government’s response to the expression of their basic human rights, the Tibetan government is compelled to reconsider its Middle Path policy. That the Kashag and the Tibetan parliament will immediately commence joint hearings to review the Middle Path policy and that representatives of Tibetan organizations advocating independence will be invited to offer their testimonies at the proceedings.

To His Holiness I would respectfully suggest that he make a public announcement stating that though he had genuinely and unreservedly supported China’s bid to host the Olympic Games, the lives and welfare of the thousands of Tibetans – victims of China’s crackdown – were far more important than a sporting event (even one as major as the Olympics). That unless China agreed to allow international agencies as the Red Cross, the UN or Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, and other such organizations, to send their personnel freely throughout Tibet to verify the conditions of these people and check on their legal situation, he would be compelled to appeal to the world to boycott the Beijing Games. Furthermore he would call on all his subjects, his friends, supporters and disciples worldwide, to engage in non-violent but direct action to disrupt China’s massive ultra-nationalist propaganda exercise, for which the 2008 Olympic Games is being effectively employed.

Real negotiations might follow, for the first time.

Genocide Olympics Flame of Shame. Solidarity for Tibet and Darfur people. Shame on the Olympic committee for giving the worldwide Olympics honor to Beijing, while it has issues of genocide.