Stop distorting Tibet unless you want to do CCP a favor

[earth_as_one]

...Imaging, one landowner built a house for the aboriginal poors who had no place to live, and one day the aboriginals claim that their life in the house is miserable and because of the fact that they used to live there for a long time, the land is theirs, and so is the house. Will you believe those craps?...

I enjoy reading your posts. I learned a fair bit about China in a few posts and I can tell you obviously have more knowledge to share. I look forward to reading more of your posts.

I will admit to feeling uncomfortable when Canada's leaders hammer China on human rights, when they are complicit in Canadian abuse/torture cases like these:

Mahar Arar
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/arar/

Omar Khadr
http://newsdurhamregion.com/news/durham/article/96071

These are the more well known cases. Many others exist.

The Chinese government should counter our criticism of their human rights record by criticizing our human rights record. They'd be doing Canadians a service.

RE the DL,
I've read Dalai speeches and watched interviews. He advocates protest, but only non-violent protest. I see him as similar to Ghandi. He is not a threat to China or the CCP.

One way the CCP could end the protests and make a huge statement would be if they invited the Dalai Lama to the Olympics as their guest. (On condition that he behave non-violently). Let him be seen and make a speech. Its not like he's going to remain unseen or not deliver speeches anyway...

That symbolic gesture would also demonstrate China's willingness to seek non-violent solutions to the world on the eve of the Olympics.

RE: Canada's first nations. The final status of many First Nations remain unnegotiated. Some First Nations have very good legal basis for independance, based on treaties they signed with European powers, to which Canada has legal obligations. Providing food, clothing and shelter while generous, could be interpreted as foreign aid, not welfare.

I doubt any First Nation that will seek independane because of the benefits of being part of Canada. But many are entitled to autonomy. For the most part, that also benefits Canada.

I suspect, many Tibetans would be better off remaining part of China. But their culture and identity would continue to suffer because of the way the CCP rules Tibet. For some people culture and identity are worth more than money.

I support the preservation of First Nation culture in Canada. For the same reason I also support Tibetan autonomy. Independance may or may not come later, and is a less important issue than autonomy.

 

[Zzarchov]

Lets go back in time and discuss Chinese Independance from foreign rule:

In a broad assertion, their claim is not justified.

Admittedly, there were times that they were being "conquered" or "ruled" in history, and that would be something that remains to be controversial. But their situation is not that miserable as they stated. The geographical location makes their neighborhood impossible to develop into an independent nation with a strong and advantaged economy, but for them, the hardest time has already passed with Europe's helping hand. Europe offered them free education, generous tax-cut, limited autonomy, and millions of financial assistants. Now their life is better, and BANG, they want independence. Why the hell didn't they request independence when their life was hundred times miserable than today? Because independence is just an excuse: Imaging, one landowner built a house for the aboriginal poors who had no place to live, and one day the aboriginals claim that their life in the house is miserable and because of the fact that they used to live there for a long time, the land is theirs, and so is the house. Will you believe those craps?

What your arguement sounds like to me, its pure colonial justification. Instead of the "White mans burden" about why Europe had to Colonize the whole world (including "poor pitiful China")

Its now the "Han Burden" about why China has had to colonize its neighbours.

PS, Mongolia was largely subjugated by warfare in 1691, it was very much a conquest from China. While for the time period (and considering China had only recently freed itself from Mongolian conquest) isn't a bad thing

It does mean you cannot honestly claim that Mongolia "has always been part of China" because it hasn't, Nor has Tibet, nor East Turkmenistan.

 

[Just the Facts]

Mahar Arar
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/arar/

Omar Khadr
http://newsdurhamregion.com/news/durham/article/96071

These are the more well known cases. Many others exist.

The Chinese government should counter our criticism of their human rights record by criticizing our human rights record. They'd be doing Canadians a service.

Are you worried about disappearing in the night for having just posted that? No? Maybe being dragged out of your home in broad daylight, shot, and having your family sent the bill? No? There's your difference.

 

[earth_as_one]

Dalai Lama's Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech:

Acceptance Speech

The 14th Dalai Lama's Acceptance Speech, on the occasion of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, December 10, 1989
Your Majesty, Members of the Nobel Committee, Brothers and Sisters:

I am very happy to be here with you today to receive the Nobel Prize for Peace. I feel honoured, humbled and deeply moved that you should give this important prize to a simple monk from Tibet. I am no one special. But, I believe the prize is a recognition of the true values of altruism, love, compassion and nonviolence which I try to practise, in accordance with the teachings of the Buddha and the great sages of India and Tibet.
I accept the prize with profound gratitude on behalf of the oppressed everywhere and for all those who struggle for freedom and work for world peace. I accept it as a tribute to the man who founded the modern tradition of nonviolent action for change - Mahatma Gandhi - whose life taught and inspired me. And, of course, I accept it on behalf of the six million Tibetan people, my brave countrymen and women inside Tibet, who have suffered and continue to suffer so much. They confront a calculated and systematic strategy aimed at the destruction of their national and cultural identities. The prize reaffirms our conviction that with truth, courage and determination as our weapons, Tibet will be liberated...

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1989/lama-acceptance.html

Limited autonomy would be a reasonable compromise.

This definition:

Autonomy: The right or power to govern oneself; self-determination. It can be less than full independence, as in the case of an ethnic group that is granted autonomy within larger national confines.

 

[earth_as_one]

Are you worried about disappearing in the night for having just posted that? No? Maybe being dragged out of your home in broad daylight, shot, and having your family sent the bill? No? There's your difference.

What happened to Mahar Arar can still happen to any Canadian.

Omar Khadr's case indicates the level of help Canadians can expect from the Canadian government if they find themselves detained in an American torture facility.

If it wasn't for the efforts of Arar's wife, likely Arar would still be in a Syrian prison.

How many other cases like Khadr and Arar exist?

Arar case sheds light on 3 others

Aug 16, 2007 04:30 AM
Thomas Walkom

The release of previously censored portions of the Maher Arar report adds a few new details to the now familiar story of his despicable treatment by the federal government and its security agencies.

Thanks to a federal court judge who overrode most of Ottawa's bogus security claims, we now know what most long suspected: that Ottawa was well aware of the fate awaiting Arar after he was arrested in New York in September 2002. The newly uncensored portions show that the government knew the Americans were deporting Arar to the Middle East to be tortured for information, or as one security bureaucrat cunningly put it, to "have their way with him."

Yet for the entire time that Arar was in jail in Damascus, the Canadian government publicly denied he was in danger of torture. We now know Ottawa was lying.

However, the most important revelations from last week's release relate not to Arar but to three other Canadians whose cases are before a judicial inquiry.

Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin are trying to find out what role Ottawa played in their imprisonment and torture in Syria and Egypt between 2001and 2004.

All are Canadian citizens. All had previously travelled to Syria without incident. All were arrested by the Syrians on subsequent journeys, imprisoned and tortured. El Maati was sent on to Egypt for more torture.

All say they were asked questions by their torturers which could have come only from Canada.

The trio had brief walk-on parts during Justice Dennis O'Connor's investigation of the Arar matter. He recommended that Ottawa establish an "independent and credible" inquiry into their cases.

In December, Prime Minister Stephen Harper asked former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci to do that. But Harper set such rigid constraints (the inquiry is being held almost entirely in secret, with even the complainants denied access to most evidence) that the probe's credibility, if not its independence, is in question.

Yet all are part and parcel of the Arar case. O'Connor's original 2006 report concluded that Arar had been caught up because he knew Almalki and El Maati. He also revealed that the RCMP suspected, without much substantive evidence, that Almalki was a terror kingpin. In order to find out more, the Mounties supplied Syrian torturers with questions for him.

The unexpurgated version, however, shows that the relationship between the Mounties and Syrian intelligence went far deeper. In September 2002, the RCMP used El Maati's so-called confession, obtained under Syrian torture, as the basis for obtaining wiretaps in Canada. Earlier that year, they used similar information obtained from what the report calls "a country with a poor human rights record" to get search warrants. It seems the RCMP found the torturers useful.

The original version of the O'Connor report noted that in 2002 the Mounties wanted the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to launch a criminal investigation into Almalki. What the government didn't want Canadians to know, and what was revealed only last week, is that the FBI refused. Clearly, the Americans didn't believe he was a much of a terrorist.

Nonetheless, the RCMP continued to help Almalki's torturers.

Like El Maati and Nureddin, Almalki has never been charged with a crime here or anywhere. Like the other two, he is trying to find out why he was put through the hell that is torture.

Last week's declassification of the Arar report provides a few more hints.

http://www.thestar.com/article/246801

[/quote]

 

[Zzarchov]

yes it does,

to be fair, it isn't the governments job to deal with you once you leave Canadian soil, thats the nature of sovereignty.

I don't like it, but the days when holding an Empire passport meant british troops would come get you are over.

 

[Just the Facts]

Also, didn't Arar get what? 10 million dollars? for being tortured (allegedly) by a foreign state. Show me a Chinese victim of the CCP who's ever been compensated. I suspect most of them are just dead. Another huge difference.

 

[earth_as_one]

The Canadian government has an obligation to help Canadian citizens being tortured abroad. In the case of Arar, our government did nothing (initially) to help Arar. Instead our government provided information which was used during Arar's interrogation/torture.

...Arar's rendition
On September 26, 2002, during a stopover in New York City en route from a family vacation in Tunisia to Montreal, Arar was detained by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. The INS was acting upon information supplied by the RCMP.[14] When it became clear he was going to be deported, Arar requested he be deported to Canada; though he had not visited Syria since his move to Canada, he retained Syrian citizenship as Syria does not permit the renunciation of citizenship. Although he was travelling on a Canadian passport, Canadian officials erroneously informed the United States that he was no longer a resident of their nation.[citation needed] Canadian (initially) and American officials have labelled his transfer to Syria as a deportation, but critics have called the removal an example of rendition for torture by proxy, as Syria's government is infamous for its torture of detainees.


[edit] U.S. interrogation
U.S. officials repeatedly questioned Arar about his connection to certain members of Al Qaeda. He repeatedly denied that he had any connections whatsoever to the named individuals.[citation needed] His interrogators also claimed that Arar was an associate of Abdullah Almalki, the Syrian-born Ottawa man whom they suspected of having links to Al Qaeda, and they therefore suspected Arar of being an Al Qaeda member himself. When Arar protested that he only had a casual relationship with Almalki, having once worked with Almalki's brother at an Ottawa high-tech firm, the officials produced a copy of Arar's 1997 rental lease which Almalki had co-signed. The fact that U.S. officials had a Canadian document in their possession was later widely interpreted as evidence of the participation by Canadian authorities in Arar's detention.

Mr. Arar's requests for a lawyer were dismissed on the basis that he was not a U.S. citizen, therefore he did not have the right to receive counsel. Despite his denials, he remained in U.S. custody for two weeks and eventually was put on a small jet which first landed in Washington, D.C. and then in Amman, Jordan. The Canadian government was notified of his rendition on October 10, 2002, and Arar was later discovered to be in the Far'Falastin detention center, near Damascus, Syria.[citation needed]


[edit] Arar's imprisonment in Syria
Once in Amman, Arar was blindfolded, shackled and put in a van. “They made me bend my head down in the back seat,” Mr. Arar recalled. “Then these men started beating me. Every time I tried to talk, they beat me."

Arar was transferred to a prison, where he was beaten for several hours and forced to falsely confess that he had attended an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. “I was willing to do anything to stop the torture,” he says.

Arar described his cell as a three-foot by six-foot “grave” with no light and plenty of rats. During the more than 10 months he was imprisoned and held in solitary confinement, he was beaten regularly with shredded cables.[15] Through the walls of his cell, Mr. Arar could hear the screams of other prisoners who were also being tortured. The Syrian government shared the results of its investigation with the United States.[16] Arar believes that his torturers were given a dossier of specific questions by United States interrogators, noting that he was asked identical questions both in the United States and in Syria.[17]

While he had been imprisoned, Arar's wife Monia Mazigh had been conducting an active campaign in Canada to secure his release. Upon his release in October 2003, Syria announced they could find no terrorist links.[18] Syrian official Imad Moustapha stated that "We tried to find anything. We couldn’t"....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar#U.S._interrogation

I expect the Canadian government to help Canadian citizens abroad as much as they can. I expect the Canadian government to insist Canadians be treated treated fairly and in accordance with international law.

Any Canadian citizen travelling abroad (even in the US) could find themselves in Arar's situation. Allegations of terrorism does not mean Canadian citizens are no longer Canadian citizens or that our government no longer has responsibility to ensure the rights of Canadians are respected.

As I learn more and more about Khadr's case, the more it appears that a Canadian juvenile was tortured by the US and our government did nothing to stop it. We didn't even complain.

Even if the allegations against Khadr are true and not based on false testimony (as appears to be the case), our government should have insisted that Khadr be treated humanely. Canada should have offered to take Khadr and interrogate him here.

Given what we know about Arar and Khadr, how likely is it that other Canadians are being tortured abroad with the cooperation of our government?

 

[Zzarchov]

Since when is it the governments business to bail our asses out of trouble once we leave the country?

Sovereignty. That means our jurisdiction ends at our borders.

I think if you can make it to an embassy, you are golden.

But the idea that every country in the world should meddle in every other countries affairs is madness.

How would you like it if every time we arrested a foreign national for things that aren't illegal in their home country (Honour Killings, Spousal Abuse, etc) we had a barrage of foreign interference.

That being said, I certainly have no problem with using Canadian influence to help our citizens abroad, but It certainly isn't the governments duty.

Suggestion: Don't leave the country if you don't wanna risk dealing with other countries.

 

[earth_as_one]

Jurisdiction may end at the border, but responsibility to ensure Canadians are treated fairly and in accordance with international laws, treaties and conventions do not.

Section 6 Federal Government Responsibility and Capacity to Protect Canadians and Their Rights Overseas, Including Respect for International Law Provisions

The responsibility of a state to protect its citizens both at home and abroad is a fundamental, uncontested and long-established part of the doctrine of state sovereignty. The capacity of a state to protect its citizens abroad presents challenges wholly different from domestic security provisions. The symbolic nature of the extension of a governmental duty to protect Canadians abroad is highlighted in the official passage that appears in all Canadian passports:

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada requests, in the name of her Majesty the Queen, all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary.70

In Canada the responsibility to protect Canadians abroad, as the passage indicates, lies with the federal Department of Foreign Affairs. Protection of Canadians depends on the capacity of that lead department to help Canadians on foreign soil. Canadian action occurs within a complex web of international law provisions, state-to-state relations, and foreign state legal practices and codes. The complexity of the issue increases when Canadians find themselves trapped in war zones, held under duress in lawless areas, incarcerated by states that do not abide by accepted Western norms, or somehow caught up in the extra-legal practices that have emerged, post-9/11, as part of the US-led war on terror...

http://www.chrc-ccdp.ca/research_program_recherche/ns_sn/page7-en.asp

 

[Zzarchov]

Thats a big inferral and rewriting of the laws, perhaps it would be best to let the duly elected government rewrite the laws rather than declaring them changed?

This is what is written:
"The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada requests, in the name of her Majesty the Queen, all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary."

It says the Queen's representatives asks nicely that if you read this passport, please treat the bearer fairly and offer assistance.

It does not say

"The bearer of this passport is entitled to the full protection the Canadian state can offer, mess with them at your peril"

Its a nice little note saying "Canada would like it, if you treat our citizens fairly overseas"

 

[hegel325]

Lets go back in time and discuss Chinese Independance from foreign rule:




What your arguement sounds like to me, its pure colonial justification. Instead of the "White mans burden" about why Europe had to Colonize the whole world (including "poor pitiful China")

Its now the "Han Burden" about why China has had to colonize its neighbours.

PS, Mongolia was largely subjugated by warfare in 1691, it was very much a conquest from China. While for the time period (and considering China had only recently freed itself from Mongolian conquest) isn't a bad thing

It does mean you cannot honestly claim that Mongolia "has always been part of China" because it hasn't, Nor has Tibet, nor East Turkmenistan.

First, you've got the time sequencing wrong. The "colony" thing, if you prefer to call it that way, started from 60 BC, while the Uyghur appeared around 400 AD, so who were the victims when China "colinized" Xinjiang? We actually don't know, but what we do know is that China had been the most powerful country in East Asia until 1840, thus Chinese was everywhere in East Asia, including Xinjiang. Now you see, while in Xinjiang in the first place, there were many Chinese, and some nomads, including maybe a part of the ancestors of Uyghur, can you assert that China colonized the "nation" of "Uyghur"?

Second of all, fine, assuming China was and is a "colonist", I'll give you that one. But please don't forget our colonist friends in north America and Australia, it is not fair accusing China of being a colonist while rest of you found you country in the colony like nothing's happened. At least we Chinese colonist has been in the colony for 2, 000 years while you guys just arrived several hundreds years ago for the most.

And for Mongolia, I don't know whether you referred to the War of Ulan Butong, cause it happened in the year of 1690. I've explained the relationship between Beijing and Mongolia in Qing Dynasty alrealdy, and the War of Ulan Butong was initialed by one tribe of Mongolia. Its leader, Ge'er Dan, who was supported by Russians, invaded other Mongolian tribes' territory. When his territory got larger and larger, Ge'er dan turned his army at Beijing, and at one time they were only 200 kilometers away from Beijing. At last, the emperor Kangxi defeated Ge'er Dan in Ulan Butong. Please tell me why you define it as a "conquest", and BTW, Kangxi himself is half-Mongolian.

=================================================================================
It does mean you cannot honestly claim that Mongolia "has always been part of China" because it hasn't, Nor has Tibet, nor East Turkmenistan
=================================================================================
I don't have to prove that A must "has always been a part of B" in such arguments, because you will find countless legitimate regions in the world had once not belonged to where it currently belongs. Logic is the last thing that matters in history, and what matters the most is our human beings. Since westerners usually use human rights as the main reason for supporting Tibet and East Turkmenistan, for you record, I would love you to know that the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dalai Lama, a human right guardee, made the SKINS of two slave children as the sacrifice for his birthday when he was the emporer; and for the East Turkmenistan "human right" protestors, they almost successfully did the 911 again in a Urumqi-Beijing flight early this year.

 

[dancing-loon]

Hi, Hegel ;-) I'm reading your contribution with interest!

 

[Zzarchov]

Oh I don't disagree Tibet was a horrible, horrible place to live. Downright disgusting, it was a feudal theocracy.

That being said, that doesn't mean colonization is the right response. China during the "Great leap forward" and the "Cultural Revolution" was also a horrible horrible place, my in-laws are Chinese and lived through the hellish conditions there in. That doesn't mean if Russia had conquered and colonized China at that time, that it would be a good thing.

China is in the wrong because it began colonizing the world (a horrible thing) just as the colonial era of humanity was finally coming to an end (by and large) with the dismantling of European and Japanese colonial holdings.

 

[hegel325]

Oh I don't disagree Tibet was a horrible, horrible place to live. Downright disgusting, it was a feudal theocracy.

That being said, that doesn't mean colonization is the right response. China during the "Great leap forward" and the "Cultural Revolution" was also a horrible horrible place, my in-laws are Chinese and lived through the hellish conditions there in. That doesn't mean if Russia had conquered and colonized China at that time, that it would be a good thing.

China is in the wrong because it began colonizing the world (a horrible thing) just as the colonial era of humanity was finally coming to an end (by and large) with the dismantling of European and Japanese colonial holdings.

I agree with you, and that "Great leap forward" and the "Cultural Revolution" period was horrible. My parents were born at that time and I've known a lot from what they have suffered, and that is one of the reasons why I am strongly against Communism. Today there are still so many issues that deserve to be criticized in China, but I don't think the ethnic independence thing in Tibet/Xinjiang/Inner Mongolia needs to be one of the issues under criticism, as you and I will probably never reach an agreement on "colony in Xinjiang"

 

[Zzarchov]

Of course, right up until Algieria finally was made independant, France could not see it as a colony, only as part of France itself.

Rather than give up Hawaii, America unlawfully annexed it (via a referendum which had no independance option and allowed military presence to vote and swing the balance away from natives)

I would expect it would be quite difficult for anyone with any nationalistic or patriotic feelings to wave goodbye to part of their countries holdings.

 

[jimmoyer]

There's one more thing about perceptions of colonialism here.

What did the Uighers get to see in the 90s ?

Right across the border, they got to see country after country pop up out of the former Soviet Union.

Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakstan.

Step off the bus gus,
making new plans, " Stans,"

just drop off the keys, Lee

and let yourself be free...

 

[baeirr]

I am talking here not mean to interfere in the politic things.I believe as a instrument for the governors, at ideological status, politics cannot be understood by anyone clearly.

I advise you to view the following link: http://marongspace.spaces.live.com/
that is my article to show you a real tibet in a traveller's eyes.

Peace is the primary necessity of the world's people.

China is a big country with 9.6 million square kilometers and 1.3 billion people.Although sometimes we also feel disappointed at some of our government's policies, we can understand how difficult it is to rule such a large country and be absolutely fair.You also cannot promise your government is absolutely fair to you all,to everything.Nothing is perfect in this world.We need time and experiences to improve and develop.Why cannot you just be a little tolerant to our country?

And my other point is:
Tibet is one part of China,please dont intervene in China's internal affairs.China welcomes your friendly suggestion but not unreasonable accusation.

Olympic Games is an international event,sports is entirely removed from politics.I hope everyone respects our endeavor and respects the union of people all over the world.

Thank you.

 

[Zzarchov]

Of course Tibet is one part of China... NOW.

And tommorow, Mongolia will be one part of China, Then Korea will be one part of China, then the Phillipenes will be one part of China.

The whole point is Tibet is a colony, not a part of a China. Its not an internal affair.


Three giant Stone pillars (One at the Chinese Palace, one in Tibet) that reads in part

"Both Tibet and China shall keep the country and frontiers of which they are now possessed. The whole region to the East of that being the country of Great China and the whole region to the West being assuredly the country of Great Tibet, from either side there shall be no hostile invasion, and no seizure of territory... and in order that this agreement establishing a great era when Tibetans shall be happy in Tibet and Chinese shall be happy in China shall never be changed, the Three Jewels, the body of Saints, the sun and the moon, planets and stars have been invoked as witness."

Pretty clear cut.

 

[baeirr]

1. “And tommorow, Mongolia will be one part of China, Then Korea will be one part of China, then the Phillipenes will be one part of China.”

Please tell me who has given you this idea or who has showed you this proposal? Chinese government? Canadian government? Or only your own imagination?

Please remember during WWII, it was Japanese who invaded other Asian countries and China is also a victim. However after the war, China has passed the sponge over all Japan’s war reparation.

Our national character decides we are mild and friendly, we don’t mean to offend any other countries. We want peace; I hope you also want that. Mongolia, Korea, Philippines…we are not interested.

2. You know too much in the forum, but you know little about Tibetan history, so you can say: “Tibet is a colony”.

My link in my last post shows you a real Tibet in 2006-that was before the riot. I hope you can be patient to read it and think about what you so called “Colonial” Tibetans’ ordinary life.

Here is an article below from a foreigner, talking some about Tibetan history. I just give you the information objectively; hopefully you can find out by yourself whether your definition to Tibet about “colony” is right or not.

3.( this point is not to ZZarchov) Regarding this thread, I don’t know why someone mix CCP topic with Tibet things, just as I don’t understand why some people mix Tibetan unrest with Olympics.

CCP is a political thing; agreeing or disagreeing with it is anyone’s freedom. Just as when we have some different ideas with someone, we never ask him first: “do you support Conservative Party or Liberal Party?”.
Deal with this issue on its own merits, mixing Tibetan and Olympic issues with CCP is really kind of absurd.

Quoted passage:
“Tibet was for centuries an autonomous concordat between Nepal and China. Sometimes China ruled Nepal as well. The king of Tibet used therefore to have one Chinese wife and one Nepalese and then a number of Tibetan ones.

With the fifth Dalai Lama, the religious and the political power were unified under the rule of one person, The Dalai Lama. Tibet became a theocratic dictatorship and closed itself for the rest of the world. No foreigners were anymore allowed in.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the famous Swedish traveller Sven Hedin made an attempt to reach Lhasa but was sent politely back, out of Tibet by Dalai Lama.

A French woman, Alexandra David-Néel was more successful. She visited Lhasa dressed as a Tibetan pilgrim and she was fluent in the Tibetan language. She told how she was afraid many times that she should be discovered and then she knew that she like other suspects or opponents should "happen to fall down" from the walls of the Potala palace.
Tibet was not a paradise. Tibet was an inhuman dictatorship!

The weakened Chinese Qing Dynasty had more and more lost its influence in Tibet. Tibet became more and more interesting for the Russian empire in the north and the British in the south.

In 1903 a British army expedition directed by the colonel Younghusband reached Lhasa. The British lost 4 soldiers but slaughtered more the 700 Tibetans that tryed to stop them, mainly by magic. The British installed "a commercial representation" in Lhasa. The Chinese evacuated Dalai Lama to the Qinghai plateau where he hade limited rights of move, probably for preventing him from having contacts with the British occupants.


The Finnish national hero, Marshal Mannerheim, visited him there in 1907 during his famous horseback trip through central Asia. He was then a colonel in the Tsar Russian army and his trip was in reality a spy trip. Therefore the 13th Dalai Lama was interesting.

The power of Dalai Lama was weakened. In 1950 the PLA marched in to Tibet without war. The 14th Dalai Lama seems at the beginning to have accepted this just as a security for his power as the theocratic dictator he was. He enlarged and restructured the Norbulingka Summer Palace in a luxury way in 1954.

The Chinese decided anyhow to finish with the cruel theocratic dictatorship under which the opponents fell down from Potala. The borders where during this dictatorship closed for all foreigners and the only schools where the religious ones. It is well known that it is easier to rule a population with a low education and is ignoring the outside world. In Tibet, about 5% of the population owned everything and the rest literally nothing. About 40% of the Tibetans were monks and nuns living as parasites on the rest of the population that had to feed them. Tibet was not a paradise!

Now China decided that the Tibetans should have the same rights and place in the society as the rest of the country's population. The monasteries should be emptied from their excessively large monk and nun populations.

Tibet could earlier be reached only by some horse trails and was for the rest insulated. The Chinese built rapidly a trafficable road. The insulation was broken.

In 1959, the young Dalai Lama caused a peoples upraising, using the religion as power since he was loosing his own powerful position. The upraising was however stopped, may be in not a too clever and smooth manner. Dalai Lama then left Tibet and his fellow citizens and escaped to India wherefrom he has continued to fight for his come back and reinstall the theocratic dictatorship that China will never allow again.

Then followed the ten years of Cultural Revolution that was an unhappy time for all China that closed itself to the rest of the world.

Now Lhasa has a modern airport and a railway. China has invested a lot in Tibet. The standard of living has been raised a lot in Tibet and last Xmas I have seen Tibetans spending sun-holidays on Hainan Island! Very lucky looking old women in traditional dresses walking on the beach with their husbands and the youngsters dressed like other young people enjoying the beach life.

The possibilities for Dalai Lama to take back his power has diminished and he does not anymore have the population with him. China and India are developing their cooperation and with the closer friendship, India will for sure also not more admit Dalai Lama to disturb this development. His possibilities to act against China will be diminished.

Therefore he undertook recently an around the world diplomatic travel since he has seen the possibility of harming the now good international image of China and provoking boycotts of the Olympic games in Beijing.

The Lhasa riots where very well prepared. Curriers where crossing the borders illegally for to see Dalai Lama and get his orders. A group of foreign mountain climbers filmed recently across the border an unlucky incident when one of these curriers got shot and another that crossed the border openly declared that he wanted to go to see the Dalai Lama. I have seen that in television just before I left for China in November.

China is no longer a closed country. There is no need for illegal border crossings if you are not doing something illegally! You just ask for a passport and take the necessary visas and cross the border at a legal border crossing or better, just take a regular flight from Lhasa to Kathmandu!”
…