Tibetan people suffer at hands of Chinese government

By Francesca Lo Basso
Collegian Staff
March 22, 2006

A Tibetan delegation summoned to China in 1951 had to sign a treaty dictated by the conquerors. It claimed to ensure Tibetan sovereignty, but still allowed the establishment of Chinese civil and military headquarters in the capital city of Lhasa.
Since then, Tibet has known little tranquility. In 1959, the Dalai Lama was forced to flee through the Himalayas, and 47 years have passed without his return. The Chinese government still refuses to acknowledge the Dalai Lama as a spiritual authority.

Meanwhile, followers of Tibetan Buddhism, a religion founded in pacifism and compassion, have been consistently raped, tortured and imprisoned by the Chinese for over 50 years. The most notorious of these arrests was in 1989. In celebration of
the Dalai Lama winning a Nobel Peace Prize, a group of nuns nonviolently protested the Chinese government’s refusal to recognize him. The group was arrested, and the nuns were only released over the course of the past decade—after being maimed,
raped and threatened for years. The last release occurred on March 15, just several days ago.

This nun, Phuntsog Nyidrol, was imprisoned for 15 years. After her release, she arrived in San Francisco to the custody of Mary-Beth Markey, director of the International Campaign for Tibet. Waiting at the airport was her former cellmate, Ngawang
Sangdrol. Markey said, “Phuntsog Nyidrol and Sangdrol have been hugging, holding hands and crying, overjoyed to be reunited. However, it is important to note that despite serious engagement between the U.S. and China over the years, there has been little or no progress on fundamental human rights issues in Tibet. Tibetans like Phuntsog Nyidrol continue to suffer, torture and imprisonment simply for the peaceful expression of their views.”

Coincidentally, the release of Nyidrol took place only a month before an April 19-20 summit involving Chinese president Hu Jintao and George W. Bush. Her release also follows the fifth round of dialogue between the Dalai Lama’s representatives and
Beijing (coincidence my eye). Another prisoner, Rebiya Kadeer, was released to the U.S. in March 2005, soon after Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice traveled to China. Even Ngawang Sangdrol’s release to the U.S. in March 2003 came right before
then-Chinese president Jiang Zemin came to America.

Nyidrol, who served the longest sentence of any female political prisoner in history, was released soon after the U.S. State Department issued its annual human rights report, which found China guilty of “serious human rights abuses” in Tibet. Charges included “execution without due process, torture, arbitrary arrest, detention without public trial and lengthy detention of Tibetans for peacefully expressing their political or religious views.”

Of course, the West couldn’t help but spread its corporate feces on a ground already soaked in devastation. The latest injustice committed by big business is that Google has custom-built a search engine for China that censors information the Chinese authorities deem “sensitive”—including topics such as “human rights,” “democracy” and “freedom.” Google.cn filters its results according to criteria established by the Chinese government. For example, a search for “Dalai Lama” will omit thousands of websites, directing users instead to articles condemning the exiled Tibetan leader and calling him a “splittist.” Searches for “Falun Gong,” “Taiwan independence” and other related terms yield similar results. Searching for “Tibet” will bring up only official Communist Chinese misinformation.

This is more than censorship: it’s propaganda. Google’s executive directors have done nothing to hide their sedition; rather , representative Andrew McLaughlin is quoted as saying, “Filtering our search results clearly compromises our mission. Failing to offer Google search to a fifth of the world’s population, however, does so far more severely.” Since when is misinformation the same thing as enlightenment?

Calling the state of affairs in Tibet “alarming” is a grievous understatement, nearly as ridiculous as calling the Chinese government’s actions “serious.” It’s time to divest ourselves from pretty words with little meaning. It’s like Santa Claus: just because you can’t see him doesn’t mean he’s not there. Instead of calling these injustices half-truths, let’s see them for what they are: full lies.

lobassof1@lasalle.edu