| Published on 24-03-2008 In World |
| Viewed 1531 times |
| Tibetans must beware of false 'friends' |
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Written by
Kamlendra Kanwar |
Young, hotheaded Tibetans who have been suffering discrimination and abuse at the hands of the Chinese need to watch out in another direction.
Tibet is tending to become the latest pawn in the game of one-upmanship being played in the international arena. The Bush administration's counsel to China to hold talks with the Dalai Lama and now the visit of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nany Pelosi to Dalhousie where she called on him along with a whole retinue of US congressmen point towards a new strategy to be one up on China.
The US pays much lip service to protection of civil rights in other countries but there are umpteen examples of how the administration looks the other way when it suits them. Barring short intervals, the army has called the shots for decades in Pakistan. In Myanmar too, the army has been at the helm and democracy has been crushed with the US passing adverse judgment on the regime more for form's sake than in actual fact.
In Tibet as elsewhere, the British are in tow with the Americans. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's announcement that he would be happy to meet with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader when he visits London in May is typical of that.
All of a sudden, the Americans and the British have become conscious of the trampling of civil rights of Tibetans by the Chinese in the wake of what so far is only a minor revolt.
This is not to say that the Tibetans are a happy lot. Far from it. There is a growing sense of economic inequity among the local Tibetans compared to the Han Chinese who have been resettled in the region, but, having seen the ruthlessness of the Chinese rulers, most Tibetans are reconciled to the inevitable.
One may well ask where were the Americans and British when an estimated 87,000 Tibetans were butchered during the resistance that accompanied China's annexation of the territory in 1959 when the Dalai Lama was forced to flee to India to save his life?
Clearly, the US sees China as a potential threat to its hegemony of the world and was looking for an excuse to show China in poor light.
Knowing how passionately China is looking upon the upcoming Olympics to raise its stock internationally, the Americans thought this was an appropriate time to embarrass China.
The Chinese have been no paragons of virtue. The aggression they unleashed on India in 1962 stands out as a crude case of bullying of a peaceful and gullible neighbour. They are enhancing their military strength to an awesome level, setting aside huge proportion of their budget on building up their arsenal. The Americans know better than anyone else that the Chinese would be unstoppable in a few years with the speed at which their military power is growing. Surely, they need to look for ways to contain China.
But fanning the flames of subversion in Tibet will certainly not help the Tibetans. The Dalai Lama has been sensible in seeking an end to the repression as well as the revolt in Tibet because he knows that hotheaded youth who take to the streets would be mowed down by the Chinese ruthlessly.
At present at least in public the Chinese are not showing the ruthlessness that they are capable of. They are conducting house-to-house searches and rounding up people who they will torture, away from the glare of international attention.
While all nations must keep a watch on China's treatment of dissenters in Tibet and oppose strongly any acts of repression, it would be wrong to fan the flames to earn a few brownie points against the Chinese. There is merit in keeping a potentially expansionist China under control but not by inciting innocent, unarmed Tibetan youth to pick up cudgels and then get mowed down.
Instead of supporting the Dalai Lama to draw international attention to how gallant they are, the Americans must oppose the manner in which the Chinese Government has acted to incapacitate internet servers in Tibet, block foreign web sites reporting on the situation there, jam the broadcasts of Radio Free Asia and the Voice of America and block overseas telephone calls—all sinister manifestations of how the Chinese would deal with dissent once avenues of information to the outside world are effectively blocked. |
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