By Sherab Woeser
Dharamshala: A 59-member delegation of top Chinese leaders headed by vice-president Xi Jinping arrived in the Tibetan capital Lhasa July 17 to attend a series of celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the “liberation” of Tibet.
At the exile base of Dharamshala, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) in a press conference today condemned China’s misrule in Tibet saying “large parts of Tibet are still under martial law”.
“The grim situation in Karze and Ngaba in eastern and northeastern Tibet is a clear judgement made by the Tibetan people of China’s sixty years rule of Tibet”, said CTA spokesperson Mr Thubten Samphel.
Calling China’s latest white paper on Tibet as “another whitewash”, Mr Samphel said that the paper released by China’s State Information Office is “an attempt to cover up the darkest period experienced by the Tibetan people after China’s invasion of Tibet”.
“Every vestige of the Tibetan identity is annihilated and more that 1.2 million Tibetans died as a direct result of China’s rule of Tibet”, Mr Samphel told reporters.
China’s state media agency, Xinhua, has reported grand celebrations in Lhasa according a warm welcome to the central government delegation. Besides Xi, who is tipped to succeed President Hu Jintao next year, the delegation included Vice Premier Hui Liangyu, Du Qinglin, the director of the United Front Works Department and others.
Tibet has been placed under complete lockdown with its borders closed to visitors and international media in anticipation of the highly sensitive ‘celebrations’.
CTA expressed its confidence in the international community of not getting fooled by China’s white papers on Tibet, warning China that “no amount of cycled and recycled white papers can silence those brave Chinese voices that demand democracy in China and Tibetan voices that call for greater freedom for the Tibetan people”.
“The Central Tibetan Administration take this opportunity to inform Beijing that the day when the State Council feels that there is no need to issue white papers on Tibet is the day when the reality in Tibet conforms to official Chinese Communist rhetoric”, Mr Samphel said.
Mr Tenzin P. Atisha, International Relations Secretary of CTA told reporters that the exile administration will issue a detailed response to the distortion of historical facts and other propaganda on Tibet presented in the latest white paper.
