By Phurbu Thinley
Dharamsala, August 24: As Beijing Olympics draws towards its closing ceremony; Tibetan exiles express serious fears that China will further intensify its crackdown in Tibet once the global focus is no longer on it, but vows to carry on their “fight against China’s injustice”.
Tibetans and their supporters in Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibet’s Government-in-exile, on Sunday, the final day of the Beijing Olympics, held a peace rally to call on international community to continue to support the “just cause of Tibet”; saying truth is always on Tibetan side.
Hundreds of Tibetans, including monks and nuns, carrying placards reading Tibetan freedom slogans and waving the magnificent Tibetan National flag, took part in the rally from the upper McLeod Ganj town to lower Dharamsala.
The marchers said they were rallying to join protesters across the world to continue to voice their opposition to China’s ongoing violence against Tibetan people and to bring an end to its illegal occupation of Tibet.
“We urge the international community and especially members of the media, not to divert their attention from China after the Beijing Olympics, as the Chinese authorities are likely to intensify their hostility towards Tibetans post-Olympics,” Tenzin Choeying, National Director of Students for a Free Tibet – India, told a huge gathering at the Main temple before the carrying out their peaceful march.
“Tibetans and supporters all over the world are deeply concerned about the thousands of Tibetans who have been arrested and disappeared since March this year. And we request governments around the world to pressurize China to release all political prisoners,” he said.
For him, sporadic protests by Tibet supporters in Beijing during the Games were a “great success” and an “inspiration” in their struggle for freedom in Tibet. He thinks protests in Beijing and around the world by Tibetans and supporters, during the games, has “effectively challenged Beijing’s propaganda”.
“We have been able to tell the world and the Chinese government at the heart of China that Tibet issue needs to be solved and, until then, Tibetans and their supporters will continue their fight for truth, justice and freedom,” Choeying told Phayul.
“We have been able to use Beijing Olympics to highlight Tibet issue by stealing its spotlight,” he added.
He, however, says more reprisal may follow the Olympics due to massive anti-China unrest in Tibet since March this year. He said intensified crackdown on Tibet demonstrators was almost “imminent” after the games.
He said there were already enough speculations that many Tibetans currently jailed by China for recent demonstrations in Tibet might face possible “death sentences”. If so, he believes the “death sentences” were temporarily withheld due to the games
Former political prisoners Ama Adhe and, Rizin Choekyi and Lhundup Sangmo of the famous 14 “Drapchi singing nuns” of Tibet, were also present at the rally’s function.
The latter two spent more than nine years in Chinese ‘Drapchi’ prison in Tibet, for taking part in peaceful anti-China demonstrations. While Rigzin Choekyi served 12 years in prison, Lhundrub Sangmo spent nine years in Drapchi.
In October 1993, while in Drapchi, the Chinese authorities extended their sentences after the two women with 12 other nuns secretly recorded songs about the Dalai Lama and Tibet’s future on a tape cassette that was smuggled out of prison and reached the West.
The two nuns escaped from Tibet and safely reached India in 2006 after making risky journey across the Himalayas.
Rigzin says voices raised by Tibetans exiles and supporters do help alleviate the sufferings of Tibetan political prisoners languishing in Chinese prisons.
“We can build pressure on China through international bodies and governments to secure their timely or early release,” she told the morning gathering, while narrating her own tragic experience.
Speaking at the rally today, Ama Adhe, who served 27 years in Chinese labour camps since her arrest in 1958 for demonstrating against China’s rule in Tibet, said “Truth and justice is always on our side”.
“I know China deliberately lies to the world. I have survived under Chinese lies myself,” Adhe said.
“We all know and the world knows that Dalai Lama has always stood for peace, truth and non-violence, but China has never stopped defaming our most revered leader and continues to accuse him of supporting separatist activities,” she said.
“This is absolutely not acceptable,” she added.
National Democratic Party of Tibet President Chime Yougndrung opines that the end of the Beijing Olympics will give rise to a much bigger movement for the Tibetan people.
“Tibetans and supporters around the world have been able to undermine China’s attempt to gain global acceptance” and “We will continue our fight against injustices towards Tibetans inside Tibet,” he says.
“With their harsh treatment of protesters and foreign media in Beijing, the Chinese authorities have shown their true face and to the rest of the world,” Chime said during the rally’s gathering.
Tibetan People’s Uprising Movement organized today’s rally.
