Jun 30 2008
(CDT)Claims that local police in a county in Guizhou Province helped mask the rape and murder of a teenage girl have triggered China’s second major “mass incident” in recent months. First, the basics from Reuters: Rioters torched a police building and vehicles in southwest China on Saturday, in unrest triggered by allegations of a cover-up over [...] Read more » chinadigitaltimes.net/2008/06/girls-death-sparks-rioting-in-china/
Jun 30 2008
Press Statement
30 June, Dharamsala, H.H. the Dalai Lama´´s Special Envoy Lodi Gyaltsen Gyalri and Envoy Kelsang Gyaltsen will arrive in China for the formail seventh round of discussions with the representatives of the Chinese leadership.
They will be accompanied by senior assistants of Sonam N. Dagpo, Bhuchung K. Tsering, both memebers of Tibetan Task Force on Sino-Tibetan Negotiations, and Jigmey Passang from the secretariat of the Tibetan Task Force.
On 4 May 2008, at the informal meeting between the envoys of His Holiness and the representatives of Chinese Leadership in Shenzhen, China, it was agreed to continue the dialogue process started in 2002 and to hold the formal seventh round of discussions at an early and mutually convenient date.
The meeting is taking place at a crucial time.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama has instructed the envoys to make every effort to bring about tangible progress to alleviate the difficult situation for Tibetans in their homeland. It is hoped that this round of talks will contribute in resolving the long simmering issue through dialogue in the interest of stability, unity and harmony of all nationalities in the Peoples Republic of China.
This discussions will take place from 1st to 2nd Julyin Beijing .
Chhime R. Chhoekyapa
Secretary to
His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Contact: Thubten Sampel (DIIR)
Tel.: (+1892)222510, 222457, 91-9805024662
Jun 30 2008
Beijing, (Focus)China und Tibet einigen sich auf eine Wiederaufnahme der Gespräche. Das Angebot aus China ist eine Konsequenz des internationalen Drucks. Der Westen drohte mit einem Boykott der Eröffnungsfeier der Olympischen Spiele.
Tibet wird abgeriegelt China und die tibetische Exilregierung haben sich nach offiziellen Angaben vom Sonntag auf die Wiederaufnahme ihrer Gespräche Anfang Juli geeinigt. Ein für diesen Monat geplantes Treffen zwischen Vertretern der chinesischen Regierung und Gesandern des Dalai Lama war wegen des verheerenden Erdbebens verschoben worden. Die erste Gesprächsrunde zur Lösung des Tibet-Konflikts hatte Anfang Mai stattgefunden. „Wir hoffen, dass der Dalai Lama diese Gelegenheit zu schätzen weiß und positiv auf die Forderungen der Zentralregierung reagiert“, zitierte die amtliche Nachrichtenagentur Xinhua nun einen Regierungssprecher.
China hatte den Dialog nach der Niederschlagung der Proteste in Tibet erst unter internationalem Druck angeboten. Westliche Vertreter drohten mit einem Boykott der Eröffnungsfeier der Olympischen Spiele diesen Sommer, sollte die kommunistische Führung nicht auf die Tibeter zugehen. Die Himalaya-Region kämpft für mehr Autonomie und mehr kulturelle Rechte. China wirft dem Dalai Lama, dem geistlichen Oberhaupt der Tibeter, dagegen Separatismus vor.
Jun 29 2008
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXx_VjLHlQM
By Mure Dickie in Beijing
Beijing, the Olympic motto of Citius, Altius Fortius - faster, higher, stronger - might have been intended as an inspiration for athletes but for this year’s Chinese hosts, it has also become a rallying call to suppress dissent in Tibet.
The Tibetan capital’s most senior Communist party official cited the 84-year-old motto to urge people to crack down on supporters of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, at an Olympic torch relay ceremony in Lhasa last week.
“Encouraged by the Olympic spirit of faster, higher, stronger, Lhasa people of all nationalities will . . . resolutely smash the Dalai clique’s scheme to destabilise Tibet, sabotage the Olympics and split the motherland,” said Qin Yizhi, Lhasa party secretary.
However, this use of the Olympic spirit to support Chinese rule in Tibet may prove to be a tactical mistake for Mr Qin and his comrades.
In the lead-up to the Games, when activists have tried to link the event with issues such as Tibet, human rights abuses and violence in Sudan’s Darfur region, China has insisted politics should be kept separate from the Olympics.
Yet this week, it was Beijing that was censured by the International Olympic Committee, whose charter bans any “political, religious or racial propaganda” from all Games areas.
“We have written to Bocog [the Beijing Games organising committee] to remind them of the need to separate sport and -politics and to ask for their support in making sure such situations do not arise again,” said the IOC.
Beijing remains unapologetic, however. Responding to the IOC letter, a foreign ministry spokesman said: “For the officials concerned to express their views on some issues is not a politicisation of the Olympics,” he said.
“It is a further effort to restore stability in the Tibet region and to create a benign and stable environment for hosting the Olympic Games.”
However, Beijing is unlikely to mollify critics with its insistence that it is political to criticise its policies on Tibet but not political to defend them.
The Beijing Olympics will hardly be the first to be marred by disputes over politicisation, of course. The huge budget and massive publicity power of the Olympics mean it can never be a simple sporting event.
And separating politics would be particularly difficult in China, where the head of Bocog is also Beijing’s party secretary.
Jun 29 2008
Wang Xianchang (王憲棠) writes an interesting essay (in Chinese) on the Hong Kong Ming Pao Daily, relating two major news events: Tibet unrest and the Wenchuan earthquake. Roland Soong translated the essay on his EastSouthWestNorth blog:
(CDT)After the Sichuan earthquake occurred, I wondered how affected were the Tibetans. After all, the heavily hit epicenter of Wenchuan was inside the Aba Autonomous Prefecture for the Tibetan and Xiang ethnic groups. Readers who are concerned about the Tibet issue will recall that there multiple large-scale protests that were suppressed in the Aba Prefecture after the Lhasa incident in March. So the two biggest news stories in China recently converged here. Although numerous reporters were out there, very few reports linked the two together. This was perplexing.
After waiting for a long time, I finally spotted a related news story in Ming Pao on June 1. The headline was striking, with each word about 3 centimeters big: “Armed Tibet Independence elements robbed disaster relief materiel.” This news story had originated from a mainland news and the Ming Pao reporter made an independent verification. But the report did not explain the basis by which the armed robbers were “Tibet independence elements.”