DHARAMSHALA, June 13: China has tightened its control in Tibet to prevent Tibetans from travelling to India for the 33rd Kalachakra initiation by the Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama whom it reviles as a “monk in wolf’s robes”.
Paramilitary troops have been deployed to block Tibetans from making a pilgrimage to the sacred Mount Kailash in western Tibet and restrict travel in border areas, a move ICT said is linked to the authorities’ objectives in preventing Tibetans from attending a major religious teaching, the Kalachakra, by the Dalai Lama across the border in Ladakh from July 3 – 14.
In Lhasa, capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, the Chinese government authorities have stopped issuing new travel permits or renewals and asked those who already have obtained permits to return them to the authorities.
Tibetans have been warned that they would be denied the themthho, a government issued household registration, if they travelled to India for the Kalachakra to be initiated by the Tibetan leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Ladakh. Tibetan officials serving in the government have been asked not to seek leave from April to September this year failing which they would lose their jobs.
Deputy Party Secretary of the TAR Deng Xiaogang last month visited border security and People’s Liberation Army bases in Purang county, where Mt. Kailash is located, and Dram, the town on the border of Nepal. The ICT said Deng’s visit was likely to be intended to send a signal of vigilance by the Party authorities in the buildup to the Kalachakra in Ladakh.
Deng, who is also secretary of the Party Committee on Politics and Law in the TAR, was cited by the state media as saying that border security checkpoints are key to maintaining social stability in the Tibet Autonomous Region.
Woeser, a noted Tibetan writer who lives in Beijing, cited a Chinese traveller who had been told by a travel agency that Tibetans were no longer able to obtain permission to travel in border areas of Tibet such as Purang where Mount Kailash is located.
Tibetans who travelled to India for the Kalachakra in Bodhgaya in 2012 were detained and subjected to intensive ‘patriotic education’ sessions. Some were kept in prison or forced to do hard labor for longer periods, for instance if they were caught with photographs of the Dalai Lama or mementoes of the teaching.
The Tibetan leader, currently in Italy, told reporters that while the Chinese did not face any problems on their return, the Tibetans were subjected to all kinds of questioning and also house detention.
He said he would be giving the Kalachakra Initiation next month in Ladakh, India, and the Chinese authorities had already imposed strict restrictions especially on those Tibetans in Tibet Autonomous Region.
Around 8000 Tibetans from inside Tibetan attended this major teaching in 2012 at the place where the Buddha was enlightened, a place of pilgrimage for Buddhists worldwide.
According to the International Campaign for Tibet, a major security operation has been underway in Pashoe County, Chamdo for the past few weeks involving armed police and work teams, targeting both laypeople and monks. “Local people are not allowed to travel outside Chamdo for two months from June and July 2014,” a Tibetan exile source was quoted as saying. “If any local students need to travel for study, or people need medical treatment outside the area, they have to seek special permission, and will be charged with a criminal offence if they are travelling without papers. The county authorities have banned pilgrimage to Mount Kailash since the end of May and are checking IDs of all passengers and vehicles in the area.”
