Lodi Gyari’s Summary of the Current Situation in Tibet

In brief, with little official information available, we can report that:

• Chinese government authorities have acknowledged the “surrender” or detention of some 4,000 Tibetans.
• We know of numerous deaths as a result of Chinese forces firing into crowds of demonstrators in several areas of Tibet.
• Many monasteries have been sealed off and under lockdown across Tibet, and monks within subjected to many deprivations and punishments.
• Police have been carrying out house-to-house night raids in Lhasa, in villages and nomad encampments, dragging away many Tibetans.
• Hundreds of Tibetans have been loaded onto the new train in Lhasa and taken away to prisons in China.
• Large numbers of Chinese forces have been sent to all the Tibetan areas where demonstrations have occurred. In the Amdo and Kham areas of eastern Tibet, demonstrations have been widespread and large-scale, and retaliation has been brutal.
• One or more instances of protest have been reported in at least 52 county-level locations, as well as Chengdu (the capital of Sichuan), Lanzhou (the capital of Gansu) and Beijing.
• More than 98 protests have been counted so far, and they are still happening. In only one of those protests, as far as we are aware, has violence been used against Chinese civilians.
• In recent weeks a new wave of protests has begun, in response to stringent patriotic education campaigns in monasteries and requirements to denounce the Dalai Lama. The actions of the authorities are doing nothing to create stability - they are provoking further resentment, despair and unrest. For instance, in a raid on Labrang monastery on April 15, Chinese forces smashed altars in monks’ cells and burned images of the Dalai Lama that some monks had kept at great risk. At Tongkor monastery in Kardze, photographs of His Holiness were trampled upon. When monks and laypeople protested about the actions of the work team and called for His Holiness to return to Tibet, troops fired into the crowd, killing 15 Tibetans including monks, a young woman and a teenage boy.
• In the Tibet Autonomous Region alone, authorities have announced that they will try some 1000 Tibetans by May 1st. China has virtually closed the TAR. With the exception of two show-tours, no journalists or diplomats have secured permission to visit the TAR since the crisis began, so these trials will be carried out absent outside observers.
• Major monasteries and townships including Labrang Monastery, Kanhlo TAP, Gansu; Amchok Monastery, Ngaba TAP, Sichuan; Kardze Monastery, Kardze TAP, Sichuan; Tonkhor Monastery, Kardze TAP, Qinghai; Thonggu Monastery, Kardze TAP, Qinghai; Kirti Monastery, Ngaba TAP, Sichuan; Wara Monastery, Kardze TAP; Shiwa Monastery, Nyarong Prefecture, Kardze, TAP and Larung Gar, Serthar, Sichuan, are sealed off or are under intense surveillance.

Extracted from U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Testimony, April 23rd, 2008.

The full text is here.

Tags: china, crisis, dalai lama, Lodi Gyari, Senate, Tibet