AN APPEAL FROM THE TIBETAN
YOUTH CONGRESS (TYC)New Delhi, 19th April 1998
Today marks the 41st day of our unto-death hunger strike at Jantar Mantar, New
Delhi, and the United Nations has yet to give us a favourable response. All we heard
from the UN Secretary General and the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights
was a request to stop the fast. None of them said a word about addressing any of the
three demands put up by us.
Our activists did not go on this fast to be asked to stop it. They began this hunger
strike only to request the UN to fulfill its responsibility to our nation and implement
the recommendations made to this end by the International Commission of Jurists.
The reaction of the UN has deeply saddened and disappointed the six hunger
strikers and the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC). It has also strengthened their resolve
to continue the fast and fight for the rights of our people. Similarly, the succeding
batches of hunger strikers are now more than ever determined to die until our
demands are met. Our activists know that if life be the price for saving Tibet from the
indignity of slavery and colonialism, then this is what they have to pay.
Tomorrow we will complete the sixth week of our Hunger Strike Unto Death. On this
ocassion, a 48 hour fax jam campaign, directed against the UN Secretary General -
starting from 5:00 pm (Indian Standard Time), will be fitting response to the
indifference of the UN. The fax number of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is 011 -
212 - 963 4879.
I also request all of you to reinvigorate your campaign and pressure your
governments and the UN to act immediately and save our activists and nation from
death.
Finally, I would like to express our deepest thanks to all our friends for their abiding
support to the cause of Tibet. Your support has given us hope and courage as we
move forward on our way to freedom, justice and RANGZEN.
With my warm regards,
Tseten Norbu
President, Tibetan Youth Congress.
Tibetan Deathwatch: Lessons from the Front
by Tashi Rabgey, Harvard Asia Quarterly
15 April 1998
Amidst the high-traffic bustle of New Delhi's Jantor Mantor Park, six Tibetans lie
dying. Representing the six million people of the Tibetan nation, these freedom
activists have vowed to starve themselves to death unless the United Nations takes
up their cause. They intend to alter the fate of the Tibetan people or perish in the
attempt.
As I write, the hunger strikers are on the thirty-seventh day of their protest. Eyes and
cheeks dangerously sunken, they no longer look like the faces that smile out from
their earlier photos. Two artists, a craftsman, a shopkeeper and two elderly
Tibetans--these six represent the frustrations of an exiled community whose
nonviolent struggle to reclaim its homeland has long evoked sympathy but has
garnered no serious political support.
In fact, it has been well over three decades since the UN took any significant action
on the question of Tibetan self-determination. In the immediate aftermath of the
violent suppression of the 1959 uprising, the General Assembly passed several
resolutions deploring Chinese actions in the region. Since that time, the face of
Tibet has changed irrevocably. With the influx of millions of Chinese settlers,
Tibetans have become marginalized in their own land. Forced out of the new
economy and alienated from the new rulers who speak a foreign language, Tibetans
have had to watch silently as their world has been taken apart piece by piece and
rebuilt in someone else's vision. Their future bleak, many Tibetans turn to alcohol.
Others resort to political protest--which may mean simply possessing a photo of the
Dalai Lama. As well, thousands each year risk the treacherous flight into exile on
foot over the Himalayas.
Sixty-eight year old Palzom herself made that dangerous trip not so long ago. So
too did Kunsang (70), Dawa Tsering (53) and Dawa Gyalpo (50). The other two
hunger strikers, Yungdung Tsering (28) and Karma Sichoe (25), were both born and
raised in the refugee community in India. In their desperate attempt to stem the tide
of history, the hunger strikers are demanding that the UN resume its debate on the
Tibet question. They are also calling for the appointment of a Special Rapporteur
to investigate human rights abuses and a Special Envoy to supervise a plebiscite on
the question of Tibetan self-rule.
As days turn into weeks, the urgency of their demands increases, providing a mirror
that sadly reflects the larger Tibet liberation movement itself. Comprising no more
than a drop in a surrounding sea of humanity, Tibetans are engaged in a struggle
not only against an intransigent political adversary, but against time itself. As each
day passes, the death of these six individuals, just as that of the Tibetans as a
people, seems ever more imminent.
Ironically, it is because of their frustration with this very race against time that these
Tibetans have undertaken such extreme measures. In the words of Dawa Gyalpo,
"The Chinese are wasting time - they have not negotiated with the Dalai Lama on
his middle path request. They are waiting for His Holiness to die. For this cause, I
donate my life." With this simple statement and dramatic gesture of protest, the
former shopkeeper exposes the chicanery of the political pundits who currently
dominate the discourse on Sino-Tibetan affairs.
Dawa Gyalpo's declaration undermines two pervasive myths in particular. The first is
the oft-repeated contention--most recently made by a distinguished Harvard China
scholar speaking on a panel at the Kennedy School--that the current stalemate on
the Tibet question is due to the Dalai Lama's obstinacy in pursuing the goal of
independence. In fact, fully a decade ago (and much to the dismay of many
Tibetans), the Dalai Lama formally accepted the Chinese precondition that he
abandon the demand for Tibetan independence. With his proposal at the European
Parliament in Strasbourg in 1988, the Dalai Lama sought to reopen negotiations
with the Chinese leadership by conceding to the reality of Chinese sovereignty over
Tibet in exchange for a constitutional framework that would ensure "genuine
autonomy" for Tibetans.
According to the Strasbourg proposal, the Chinese authorities would maintain
effective control in the spheres of foreign policy and defense, while the Tibetan
government would exercise autonomy in all other areas. Since then, he has
repeated his commitment to this dramatic concession in countless forums and
venues--most recently, during his visit to the hunger strikers on 2 April: "I am always
ready for dialogue, as soon as some positive things come from China side, I'm ready.
I am not seeking independence."
This points to the second, perhaps less egregious but ultimately more damaging,
myth--one perpetuated by anthropologist Melvyn Goldstein in his recent lecture at
the Fairbank Center. This is the fanciful idea that as regards the current impasse in
negotiations, "the ball is clearly in the Dalai Lama's court". Goldstein contends that
if only the Dalai Lama would settle for less, if only he would act reasonably and
send some "clear and dramatic signal" to Beijing to demonstrate his goodwill and
trustworthiness, then perhaps there might be some possibility for progress. The
resolution of the Tibet question is all in the hands of the Dalai Lama and if he
weren't so busy pursuing his international "anti-China" campaign, then we might see
an end to the Sino-Tibetan hostilities. The subtext of this strongly argued position is
that the moderates in the Chinese leadership are simply waiting for the Dalai Lama
to take a more conciliatory line so that they will have some leverage in overstepping
the hard-liners. In Goldstein's conception of the game, the problem is not the
intransigent Chinese government but the opportunistic Dalai Lama.
The truth of the matter, however, is that these spin-doctors keep changing the rules
of the game. Prior to Strasbourg, the wisdom was that the abandonment of
independence as a goal would facilitate negotiations. Once this major concession
had been achieved, however, the bottom line was then raised to require the
rejection of any formulation of self-rule, even within the confines of the legal
sovereignty of the PRC. Thus, in his analysis of the Dalai Lama's recent March 10th
statement, Goldstein conveniently ignored the Tibetan leader's clear and
unequivocal declaration that he was not seeking independence, and instead
publicly rebuked him at some length for his "hard-line" approach in speaking of
"genuine self-rule".
Unfortunately for Tibetans, it seems that what counts as "hard-line" will always keep
shifting. This of course is because the Chinese leadership is at present not interested
in negotiating at all. They are not, as Goldstein would have us believe, waiting for a
"clear and dramatic signal" of compromise from the Dalai Lama. Rather, they are
simply waiting for his death.
The six Tibetan hunger strikers have sought to disrupt this deathwatch by replacing it
with their own. What this should teach the Chinese leadership is that the Tibetan
liberation struggle will not end with the demise of any single institution -- even that
which is most sacred and beloved.