Violence in Tibet: Yet Another Reason Why the Beijing Olympics are a Crime Against Humanity

Free Tibet!

The slogan is everywhere, from T-shirts to bumper stickers, splashed across skater mags and on backpack patches. As protests this past weekend in Tibet once again highlight this cause, it seems clearer than ever that the only way a Free Tibet will ever occur is if China itself is freed from its’ totalitarian, anti-human rights, repressive regime.

Last week, on the anniversary of the 1959 uprising against Chinese rule, Tibetan monks held a series of peaceful protests to draw attention to their concerns.

On March 14 (Friday morning), the police decided to crack down, prompting Tibetans to riot.

According to the Economist’s correspondent in Tibet,

“The violence was fuelled by rumours of killings, beatings and detention of Buddhist monks by security forces in Lhasa this week. Access to the city’s big three monasteries has been blocked by police since the beginning of the week when hundreds of monks staged protests coinciding with the March 10th anniversary of the 1959 revolt. Dozens of them, residents believe, have been arrested. On Friday morning, rumours spread that monks had been shot dead outside the Jokhang temple, the holiest shrine of Tibetan Buddhism in the heart of the Tibetan quarter. A couple of monks outside another temple were said to have been beaten by police.”

The scene is reminiscent of the protests in Burma (Myanmar) last September when the government similarly cracked down on protesting monks—except for one thing—unlike the riots in Burma where the Burmese rioted against the government, the target of Friday’s riots was the Han Chinese immigrant population—whom they saw as representative of China’s efforts to eradicate Tibetan culture.

The same correspondent for the Economist states,

“As your correspondent spoke to a monk in the backroom of a monastery, a teenage boy rushed in and prostrated himself before him. He was a member of China’s ethnic-Han majority, terrified of the mobs outside. The monk helped him to hide.”

The LA Times quotes a Chinese migrant worker,

“I saw mayhem everywhere: Tibetans throwing rocks, setting fires, people running scared like cats and dogs [...] The Tibetans were looking for Han Chinese to kill, adults and children.”

On Tuesday, the Dali Lama, Spiritual Leader of Tibet, said he will have no choice but to resign if violence against the Han Chinese continues. The LA Times quotes him stating,

“Whether we like it or not, we have to live together side by side [...] We must oppose Chinese policy but not the Chinese. Not on a racist basis.”

For the angry and repressed Tibetans, the Chinese immigrants symbolize their persecution by the Chinese government. Over the years, the Chinese government has encouraged such immigration on the premise that it will aid economic growth. While Tibet’s current GDP is in fact 28 times greater than it was in 1978, Tibetans argue that this belies the actual situation. In the first place, according to the Tibetans, the Chinese send most of their earning back to China, rather than using it within Tibet. In the second place, they argue, although Tibetans make up about 93% of the population, the Chinese are perceived to hold a large percentage of economic positions.

Friday’s altercations between Chinese and Tibetans highlight the negative impacts of China’s overall policy. As my articles on the Beijing Olympics discussed, the Chinese are equally victims at the hands of their government. An eyewitness account by the Economist’s correspondent reveals the Chinese government’s disregard for its own citizen’s safety.

He reports that during the rioting on Friday, in which numerous Chinese owned stores were burned down and looted, and mobs attacked Chinese bystanders,

“A handful of riot police with shields and helmets (but no guns visible) patrolled in front of the Jokhang as the riots continued around them, while others stood in lines at the perimeter of the riot-torn area. But for many hours they made no attempt to intervene.”

If you’ve been following the news, you know that Friday was only the beginning. The death toll is rising in Tibet as police, monks, Tibetans, and Chinese clash. As horribly cynical as it may sound, the 80+ dead may very well have died in vain. There is no reason for China to relax its’ repressive grip over Tibet. If anything, the willingness of world leaders to flock to Beijing this August in the face of such brutality seriously harms the international community’s ability to impact China’s policies.