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INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR TIBET
lay people trying to protect monks and nuns, and vice versa, from the excesses of the
repression. The use of mobile phones for text messaging and the internet has undoubtedly
contributed to the spread of dissent across the entire plateau and the momentum
of the protests after March 10.
The Chinese authorities’ response to the protests has been a massive and wide-ranging
crackdown, with the deployment of thousands more troops to the plateau, combined
with an intensified and aggressive ‘anti Dalai Lama’ campaign that forces
Tibetans to denounce the Tibetan leader they revere. This requirement, imposed after
hundreds of Tibetans have risked their lives to demonstrate their loyalty to the Dalai
Lama, has led to further unrest and dissent. Similarly, the crackdown and detention of
Tibetans have led to a new cycle of protests in support and sympathy, including the
first known demonstration by Tibetans in the heart of China’s capital, Beijing. The
Chinese government is creating further instability through its policies of suppression,
and appears to have found itself with no other means than force and intimidation
to re-impose its control.
The protests that broke out across the plateau on March 10, and that are still continuing
in some areas, are a result of 50 years of Chinese misrule and reveal a breakdown
of Beijing’s Tibet policy. The clear message of Tibetan protestors across the plateau is
that the Dalai Lama represents their interests, not the Chinese state.
Beijing has had two decades of unfettered control to find a way to manage Tibet and
win a measure of legitimacy to govern the tebetan people. By any measure, it has
failed. China has instituted increasingly hardline policies that undermine Tibetan
culture and religion; the Tibetan people have been denied freedom of expression;
their language has been downgraded; and their economic resources have been
appropriated by the Chinese state and increasing numbers of Chinese migrants to
the Tibetan plateau. The Tibetan people had reached a breaking point. In risking their
lives to make their feelings clear, from March 10 onwards, they propelled Tibet to the
top of the international news agenda and forced the international community to view
Tibet as a more serious issue than before, resolvable only through political means.
Disappearances and detentions as climate of fear deepens in Tibet
Since the first protests in Lhasa and Qinghai on March 10, the 49th anniversary of
the Lhasa uprising, monasteries have been encircled by armed soldiers, while thousands
of Tibetans — farmers, nomads, monks, nuns, students, shopkeepers — have
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