Local Tibetans launch hunger strike

Called the “49-hour hunger strike against Chinese repression in Tibet,” the Taiwan government-sanctioned protest is slated to continue until 4 p.m. Sunday. It will also act as an official — yet somewhat belated — memorial of the March 10, 1959 rebellion.

Massive demonstrations took place in Tibet’s capital Lhasa in March 1959, during the flight of the Dalai Lama and some 80,000 refugees to neighboring countries such as Nepal and India.

The recent crackdown on protesters was the third time the province has been placed under martial law since Tibet was “liberated” in 1956 by the China’s Peoples Liberation Army (PLA). The second crackdown was in reaction to a revolt in 1989.

“We resolutely oppose all activities to split the county and undermine ethnic unity,” said the Panchen Lama, Gyaincain Norbu, a senior religious figure chosen by Beijing to act in place of the exiled Dalai Lama.

Rioters have since been allowed to speak with foreign journalists in their prison cells after being arrested. Many claim that the uprising was a spontaneous outburst, rather than a calculated revolt.

“This wasn’t organized, it just happened all of a sudden,” a detained man explained from his cell, as reported in the Wall Street Journal.

The Dalai Lama has denounced the violence on all sides, threatened to step down as a spiritual leader and reiterated that he does not seek independence from China.

Indeed, his official stance has been to realize “true autonomy within the Peoples Republic of China” framework, which he says is a right deserved by himself and fellow Tibetans, as stated in the CCP-propagated Law on Regional Ethnic Autonomy in the People’s Republic of China.

This stance was supported yesterday by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had told him on Wednesday Wen was willing to begin dialogue with the Dalai Lama. However, the talks would only be possible under certain conditions, which have so far not been made clear.

The first point made at the outset of yesterday’s Taipei protest was that Beijing must immediately cease any violent suppression of Tibetans and monks. The second demand was for international organizations to enter Tibet and “impartially determine the true story” behind the riots. The third demand: for Beijing to halt its “smearing of Tibetans through manipulation of China’s media.” The fourth: that the Beijing Olympic torch “must not pass through a bloodied Tibet.”

Finally, the activists pressed for religious freedom, which they said has so far been denied to them.

“This violence was organized and had a goal, they wanted to undermine stability and unity,” said Tibetan chief doctor Zhan Dui, after his Tibetan-run clinic was attacked by a mob.

Tibet proclaimed independence from China at the end of the last Chinese Dynasty in 1911, but was formally integrated back into Chinese rule in 1951 by CCP Chairman Mao Zedong, two years after Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang government made a tactical retreat to Taiwan in 1949. The 1951 “liberation” of Tibet was officiated by the signing of the “Seventeen Point Agreement” by the Tibetan government.

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