New Chinese Voices in Sino-Tibetan Negotiations

By Thubten Samphel Dharamsala and Bejing: the Negotiations that Never Were by Claude Arpi Published by Lancer Publishers and Distributors, New Delhi, 2009 pages 294, price Rs 795 Claude Arpi's judgement of the dialogue process between Dharamsala and Beijing is clear from the title of his latest book. Despite its loud doubts, The Negotiations that Never Were will serve as an essential reference book for researchers and third parties interested in the intermittent Sino-Tibetan dialogue, which, according to the author, began as far aback as 1973 when some Xinhua (official news agency of China) reporters based in Hong Kong used George Patterson, a Scottish missionary- turned writer, as a conduit to establish ties with Dharamsala. The book is enriched by the author's deep access to all those Tibetan principals involved in the dialogue process and the actual negotiations. It is also enriched by the author's own extensive research on a subject much commented but little researched on. The Negotiations that Never Were will form the basis of future Sino-Tibetan negotiations literature because the book's enduring contribution to this literature is the blow-by-blow accounts it gives of all the contacts and discussions between Dharamsala and Beijing. In reviewing this book one marvels at the fact that these negotiations took place at all. In international politics, diplomacy is always backed by military force. In conducting such relations among sovereign nations, the unstated message always is, negotiate, or else. The option of war is used as a compelling argument for concerned parties to choose negotiations as a less expensive way to settle outstanding disputes. Tibetans, committed to non-violence, do not have the military option. Despite this, why did the negotiations take place at all? That these negotiations took place is a reflection of His Holiness the Dalai Lama's hold on his people and the quality of leadership he has provided. They also reflect the diplomatic skills of the Tibetan leadership and those Tibetans involved in the negotiations in persuading China, a fast rising power in the world and a firm believer in the power of the gun, to talk to people committed to non-violence. That nothing came out of the negotiations till now is not at all surprising. What will rack the brains of future scholars will be the reasons why China decided to hold these extensive discussions in the first place. They will explore the reasons why China, while spewing abuse on His Holiness the Dalai Lama, was conducting discussions with his representatives. Zhang Qingli, Beijing's viceroy in Lhasa, once famously demonized His Holiness the Dalai Lama as someone with "a human face and a heart of a beast." What domestic and international compulsions were at work to force Beijing to talk with representatives of a "beast"? The Negotiations that Never Were examines all these issues. It starts by giving a succinct background of the Chinese invasion of Tibet, the signing of the 17-Point Agreement and the mis-steps that provoked the widespread resistance, which culminated in the 1959 uprising that led to the flight of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and thousands of Tibetans to India, Nepal and Bhutan. The author picks up the story of the contacts between Dharamsala and Beijing from 1973 and follows it through to the Tibetans handing over the Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for All Tibetans to the Chinese side in 2008 and what came of the Special Meeting held in Dharamsala. A welcome addition in the book is the author's examination of the attitude of individual Chinese to the Tibet question. Although official China says there is no problem in Tibet, un-official China, that vast interlocking network of human rights and environmental activists, writers and scholars who form the country's nascent but growing civil society, sees that there is a big problem in Tibet and the government is mishandling it. Claude Arpi quotes extensively from Zhang Boshu's article, The Way to Resolve the Tibet Issue, (available on www.chinadigitaltimes.net) to make his point that, though the majority of the Chinese public's thinking on Tibet is shaped by official propaganda, there is a growing public opinion in China that strongly and bitterly disagrees with the government's handling of the issue. In his article, Zhang Boshu of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, says, "The Tibet issue is first of all a human rights issue. Although the authorities are not willing to admit it, I want to say it plainly. This problem that plagues the leadership of the Communist Party, if we look at its origin, was created by the Chinese Communist Party itself as the ruler of China." Zhang Boshu recommends that "Solving the Tibet issue will take courage and great wisdom. Petty scheming could ruin Tibet and ruin China." There are other Chinese who are dismayed that China's current hardline policy on Tibet, rather than solving, is exacerbating China's Tibet crisis. Claude Arpi quotes from Wang Lixiong, well-known Chinese writer, and married to an equally well-known Tibetan author and blogger. Wang Lixiong puts the failure of the talks at the doorstep of that vast anti-splittist bureaucracy that operates in the party, government and army. He points out that the officials who operate this cumbersome bureaucracy are the ones who formulate China's Tibet policy. They are also the ones who shift blame on His Holiness the Dalai Lama and other "splittists" for any unrest provoked by the hardline policies they implement. During the spring 2008 unrest in Tibet, "the highest authorities took no action; all was executed alone by the ever growing (lower) bureaucracy," Wang Lixiong says. During the Tibet unrest, Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao went on a state visit to Laos and before the international media expressed his hope that the Dalai Lama could use his influence to calm things down in Tibet. Wang Lixiong says, "This was unheard of and aroused international attention, seeing it as the highest authorities' new pattern of thinking. However, nothing followed, and no change in the handling was made by the 'anti-secession' institutions." The "anti-splittist" bureaucracy prevented the leadership from taking any flexible steps to resolve the vexed issue. The inclusion of a whole chapter, China's Voices of Dissent in The Negotiations that Never Were is, perhaps, the author's way of saying Tibetans can take comfort in these voices of reason in any just settlement of a protracted issue. Perhaps the author might prove to be right. As China undergoes astonishing changes, there might come a day when Chinese civil society would have a say in shaping Beijing's Tibet policy. The writer is the information secretary at the Department of Information and International Relations (DIIR) of the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala, India This article has been re-published from tibet.net, the official website of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile.

Obama's Nobel 'a little early', says Dalai Lama

Nobel laureate the Dalai Lama called Barack Obama's controversial peace prize "a little early" as the US president used his acceptance speech to defend the war in Afghanistan.

The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader told Sky News that Obama was energetic and "very able" but admitted the peace prize, also handed out to Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, may be slightly premature. "I think if you are realistic, it may have been a little early," he said during a visit to Australia. "But it doesn't matter, I know Obama is a very able person."

Obama was revealed as this year's winner in October, nine months into his presidency, and received the award in Oslo just days after announcing 30,000 more troops to fight the Taliban. Thousands of protesters joined demonstrations in the Norwegian capital on Thursday, chanting, "Yes, Yes, Yes We Can, Stop the War in Afghanistan," in a parody of Obama's election campaign slogan.

The Dalai Lama, who won the prize in 1989, said the world might have to wait to see the true merits of placing Obama on the same list as Aung San Suu Kyi and Lech Walesa.

"When the peace prize was announced, (it was) a young American president, a very energetic president, (so) everybody feels very, very happy," he said. "However, when this was announced ... there was some opinion that it is a little too early. But there is also some reason (to give it to Obama) so we have to wait."

Addressing the ceremony at Oslo City Hall, Obama sought to justify the Afghan war and admitted others were "far more deserving of this honour than I". "I'm responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill, and some will be killed," he said.

"So, I come here with an acute sense of the costs of armed conflict - filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other."

He argued that war could "sometimes be not only necessary but morally justified", referring to the threat from Islamic militants such as Al-Qaeda.

"Compared to some of the giants of history who have received this prize - (Albert) Schweitzer and King; (George) Marshall and Mandela -- my accomplishments are slight," he added.

The Nobel Committee chose Obama "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen in international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" in announcing the award in October."Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the prize announcement said.

Obama later joked that he was still not sure he deserved the honour. "I thought it was an excellent speech, and I was almost convinced that I deserved it," he said at a ceremonial banquet.

World vs China on Tibet: The Blind Talking To The Deaf 

(By Rajinder Puri | The Statesman | December 6, 2009)

Recently Chinese troops threatened Indian workers building a road in Ladakh. They enforced stoppage of work. The Chinese themselves are building air strips for strategic purposes on the border. China curtly dismissed Indian protests. “China has a dispute with India on the border issue. The two sides should work together to ensure peace and stability in the border area until the pending dispute is resolved,” China’s foreign ministry spokesman told the media. 

The Minister of State for Defence, MMP Raju, told reporters that China was merely building infrastructure, there was nothing to worry. Home Minister Chidambaram advised the media that only after studying the Chinese response will “the government take a view”. Can capitulation be more shameless? The questions are: Why is China acting in this manner? Why is China succeeding in having its way? Let us address both questions in that order. 

The short answer to the first question is that China acts the way it does because of Tibet. Until it obtains total success in achieving its goal in Tibet it will not relent. Its Tibet policy has served it exceedingly well for six decades. Why should China change it? Tibet is crucial for totalitarian China. The minorities in China are roughly 8 per cent of the population. The land mass they occupy is almost one-third of China. Tibet and Xingjian are China’s two largest sparsely populated provinces. China is especially paranoid about retaining Tibet because it forcibly annexed it as recently as 1959. Thereby Tibet ceased to be a buffer between China and India, which is the only Asian state that can potentially balance China. 

The annexation of an independent Tibet is irrefutably outlined in Claude Arpi’s book, Tibet: The Lost Frontier, which was published last year. Arpi, a Frenchman based in Auroville, is arguably India’s most effective communicator of the Tibetan cause. He displays the research of a scholar and the insight of a strategist. This year he has written a follow-up book, Dharamsala and Beijing : the Negotiations that Never Were, published by Lancer Publishers. The book is an eye-opener. It meticulously describes the entire farcical engagement since inception between Beijing and the Dalai Lama’s aides. It also exposes the pathetic conduct of America and India that witnessed this dialogue. 

In 1947 there was no India-China border. There was only the India-Tibet border. Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai hoodwinked Pandit Nehru. From then up till now the Chinese brazenly lied, indulged in doubletalk and blandly denied self-evident truths. From then up till now India and America lamely accepted such contemptuous treatment. In 1954 India and China signed a treaty for eight years by which among other things India recognised Tibet to be part of China. Beijing violated the assurances given in that treaty by transgressing the border. A confused Nehru decided to keep Parliament in the dark. He persisted with secrecy about Chinese encroachments during the following years. That was when this reviewer through an article in 1960 demanded Nehru’s resignation. As a junior he made this reasonable demand when media doyens critical of Nehru’s China policies such as S Mulgaokar and Frank Moraes could not bring themselves to state this. No wonder it took a child to blurt that the Emperor wore no clothes! Zhou told Nehru that he was ignorant about the McMahon Line until he studied the border problem. And today China claims Arunachal Pradesh to be part of China! 

Beijing and Tibet broke ice. Beijing allowed fact-finding missions from Dharamsala to visit Tibet and view its progress. The Chinese genuinely thought that better roads and infrastructure had made Tibetans happy. The frenzied reception given to the Dalai Lama’s representatives by the Tibetans stunned them. Four succeeding missions were doomed to fail. I think the Chinese fail to empathize with Tibet because Tibetans believe in God. Most Chinese don’t. In 2005 former Defence Minister, Army Chief and Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, Chi Haotian, said in a speech: “Maybe you have now come to understand why we … promulgate atheism… if we let all Chinese people listen to God and follow God, who will obediently listen to us and follow us?” 

Meanwhile, many rounds of border talks between India and China were also held. These talks led nowhere. The door to China was opened in February 1976. Indira Gandhi during the Emergency ignored the parliamentary resolution forbidding dealing with China until it vacated all illegally occupied territory. She established ambassadorial relations with Beijing. Why did she do this with a country that had betrayed her father and humiliated India ? Was it not simply because by that time through Kissinger’s exertions America had opened up to China? The puppeteer could make the puppet somersault. On subsequent contacts Vajpayee, Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao needlessly kept repeating that Tibet was part of China. 

Claude Arpi’s book exposes the painful repetitiveness of all contacts between China and Tibet, between China and the rest of the world. Tibet was like a woodpecker trying to penetrate a block of steel. The Chinese refused to countenance the slightest change in Tibet. In 1988 Dalai Lama made the Strasbourg Proposal and adopted the Middle Way, demanding autonomy instead of independence. Beijing kept calling him a ‘splitter’. China continued to lie and deceive the world to keep talks going. Only once in 60 years did a senior Chinese official speak the truth. In 1980 CCP General Secretary Hu Yaobang admitted: “Our party has let the Tibetan people down. We feel very bad!” Very soon he had to eat his words and fall in line. The world kept hoping for China to change. It was a futile hope. 

Citi Admits Map Error!

In a letter addressed to Rohit Singh, Campaigns Coordinator of Friends of Tibet, dated December 04, 2009, Citi admitted the use of an incorrect India map in its website. The letter states that: "The erroneous application of the map in question was entirely inadvertent, and we do not avail of the map in question on our web-site, for Citibank branch-locator purposes or any other purposes. Citi fully respects the sovereignty and integrity of the country, and has immense pride in its long association with India and the people we are privileged to serve here."


Friends of Tibet Demands the Removal of Incorrect India Map from Citibank  Website

In a letter addressed to Citibank India, Rohit Singh, Campaigns Coordinator of Friends of Tibet urged the bank to remove the Google map used by the Citi website to highlight branch locations in india. The map of India which shows two provinces of India separately from India is used from the automatically-generated map by Google Maps for their customers in the United States. The organisation alleged that it is a political manipulation with vested interests and demanded Citibank to immediately remove the map from their site as it is a direct attack on the national integrity of India. Rohit Singh also urged Citi to respect the territorial integrity of India or face the matter with the Central Government.

Earlier Friends of Tibet had protested in front of the Google office in Hyderabad against the  custom-built Google search engine for China and Tibet that blocks access to information sensitive to the Chinese authorities. Most Tibet support group websites including that of Friends of Tibet (www.friendsoftibet.org) is banned inside China blocking millions of Chinese and Tibetan citizens accessing information available in the World Wide Web. The Friends of Tibet had also alledged that Google's decision to block information in China and manipulate political maps is completely against its own corporate statement that "Google's mission is to organise world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."
Register your protest at: indiaservice@citicorp.com, head.customercare@citigroup.com

Dalai Lama to Lead Global Gandhian Movement; Gandhians to Train Youth

(Surajkund, Haryana | November 22, 2009)

His Holiness the Dalai Lama with Prof UR Ananthamoorthy during the Hind Swaraj Centenary Event at Surajkund, Haryana on November 22, 2009.

As if this convergence of one hundred and twenty Gandhians, social activists, academics, thinkers, writers and leaders from around India and 13 different countries were not enough the Dalai Lama himself landed in the middle of the gathering today.

The four-day “Hind Swaraj Centenary Commemoration International Conference” held on November 19-22, 2009 came to a rousing end today with the participation of the Tibetan spiritual and political leader his Holiness the Dalai Lama for the entire day here at Surajkund, Haryana.

Key organiser of the event Rajiv Vora of Swaraj Peeth said: “reviewing our experiences of nonviolence of past decades on the basis of our understanding of Hind Swaraj, creating an action plan to walk on the path of Swaraj”.

Translated into several regional Indian languages and many foreign languages, this path breaking book on making genuine over-all freedom and finding genuine peace Gandhiji’s text Hind Swaraj today celebrates its 100th birthday. Reminding the gathering of such similar events of commemorations happening all over India, Chairperson of the organising committee Dr Niru Vora said “while we celebrate this day, we reflect upon the blessings of the book and the rich legacy Gandhi left behind for us”.

Group sessions in progress during the Conference at SurajKund, Haryana

Earlier the conference presented to His Holiness the Action Plan drawn up to create “Global Gandhian Movement for Swaraj” with the international network of nonviolent activists, thinkers, academics and social activists. One of the main action plans was to “train one hundred youth in the Gandhian practice of nonviolence”. The action plan said: The hundred activists would be invited from conflicts zones.

After listening to brief introductions of all the participants the Dalai Lama said he is deeply touched by the level of commitment and important service the people are providing to humanity. Maintaining his usual childlike humour and simple expressions of deep philosophical meaning he said “India has ‘exported’ nonviolence so much that there is shortage today in India, like how Buddhism has been ‘exported’ to countries like Burma, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Japan, Korea, China and Tibet, today there is hardly any Buddhism left in India.”

Sethu Das (Left) with Tashi Wangdu (Office of HH Dalai Lama, New Delhi) and Rajiv Vora (Chairman, Hind Swaraj Centenary Committee)

While paying tributes to India the Dalai lama said "India is the land of religious harmony, so many different communities live together here practicing such diverse religious traditions. My body is Tibet, but my mind is India" pointing at his shaven bald head. He then added: "Tibetan Buddhist culture is from India. I am a son of India".

Lauding the work of the Gandhians gathered there His Holiness said “India can export nonviolence, but you must continue to create more nonviolence here, otherwise it will get finished soon. That’s why your work is very important.”

And at the end, when the conference made a plea with His Holiness to lead the Global Gandhian Movement, His Holiness the Dalai lama accepted the proposal but quickly said, pointing at senior Gandhians in the audience “but you are the leader, I am only a chela, a student, you are the boss." Accepting the new role he said “I am very much happy, you are doing such good work”.

Ela Bhatt inaugurates Hind Swaraj Summit at Suraj Kund on November 19, 2009.

In a ceremonial book launch His Holiness today launched the second Tibetan translation of Hind Swaraj text. The translator, Tenzin Dhonyoe, a graduate of Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, Varanasi is also the private secretary to Prof Samdhong Rinpoche. The book was presented to His Holiness the Dalai Lama by Choekyong Wangchuk, Director, Tibetan Parliamentary and Policy Research Centre, New Delhi.

Niru Vora, visibly elated at the acceptance of their collective plea to lead the Global Gandhian Movement by His Holiness she said “the standing ovation we gave to him is our expression of happiness in all our humility.”

Tenzin Tsundue (Left) presenting a paper on Tibet

Prof UR Annanthamurty, one of the most eminent Indian authors and Thailand’s Buddhist leader and social activist Ajarn Sulak Sivaraksa who shared the stage with the exiled Tibet leader spoke in high praise of him. Sulak Sivaraksa said “China has been ruled by corrupt leaders, by lies, the Chinese people themselves are suffering today. Buddhism will one day come back in China and save the Chinese world.”

The Word

The Word
(Tehelka Magazine | November 21, 2009)

TENZIN TSUNDUE (Writer & Activist)

A book that means a lot to you?
Gandhiji's Hind Swaraj, a book that guides me through life, seek justice, stand up for truth, not compromise yet remain non-violent; fight the brute force and still maintain my calm and dignity.

Your favourite genre?
I started with Tinkle comics, there was no library in our refugee school. One of the genres I like is travelogues which don't describe but explore and tell the story the of people and culture. I loved Pankaj Mishra's Temptations of the West.

Your favourite character?
Ling Gesar, the famous Himalayan hero in the oral legend who fights the demons and brings peace to people. His adventures are awe inspiring. Hemingway's old man in The Old Man and the Sea. Tess from Tess of the D'Urbervilles

How many books do you own?
I never really had the luxury of physical space to sleep with books, being constantly changing homes as a refugee. I helped set up a few libraries. As of now I have about 20-odd books.

The book you last bought?
An autobiography of Rosa Parks, one of the sparks who strengthened the American Civil Rights Movement.

The last book you read?
James Mann's The China Fantasy, a book that unravels much politicisation of information and imagination and the selling of it for political and financial gains.

A book you wish you'd written?
Yann Martel's Life of Pi. I wish to write my adventures with the police, my politics and personal life someday. I have been to 12 different jails. Still counting.

. . . . .
Friends of Tibet, PO Box: 16674, Bombay 400050, India.
. . . . .
Friends of Tibet is a people's movement to keep alive the issue of Tibet through direct action. Our activities are aimed at ending China's occupation of Tibet and the suffering of the Tibetan people. Friends of Tibet supports the continued struggle of the Tibetan people for independence. Friends of Tibet is also one of the principal organisers of World Tibet Day around the world. To know more, visit: www.friendsoftibet.org
. . . . .

Follow us on twitter: www.twitter.com/friendsoftibet

Centre Curbs Dalai Lama, Tells Media to Leave Tawang

(Keshav Pradhan & Prabin Kalita, Times of India, November 12, 2009)

Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh: Although the government maintained that it would not interfere with the high-profile Dalai Lama visit to Arunachal Pradesh, state officials on Wednesday asked the Tibetan leader to amend his programme and ordered reporters covering his trip to leave Tawang. 

On the eve of the Dalai Lama's departure for Dirang and Bomdi La in West Kameng, state officials asked him to convert a public address, which was scheduled to take place in Tawang, into a religious discourse. "Keeping the sensitivity of the area, we've advised His Holiness to amend his programme," said a senior official. The direction came a day after Beijing reiterated its objection to Dalai's visit to the area that China claims as its own. 

Around the same time on Wednesday, Arunachal officials flatly rejected extension requests of inner line permits (ILPs) for reporters, including TOI's, who had travelled to the border area to cover the two-day trip to West Kameng district. "We've got instructions not to extend ILPs beyond the Dalai's Lama's stay in Tawang," said one official. 

ILPs are mandatory for non-state residents who want to visit Arunachal. "Our officers reprimanded us for allowing the media to get close to the Dalai Lama. They said journalists were asking all sorts of questions about China," said a paramilitary officer as he stopped TOI correspondents at the Yid-Gha-Choezin Monastery in Tawang from covering the Dalai's visit. 

On Tuesday, it was later learnt, the government had cancelled the Dalai Lama's visit to a monastery in the heart of Tawang. Organisers of his visit also withdrew volunteers of the India-Tibet Friendship Society. On Sunday, the first day of the visit, these volunteers had miniature Indian and Tibetan flags on their T-shirts. 

Despite the restrictions imposed in Arunachal Pradesh, the Dalai Lama continued to draw thousands of followers. For the fourth consecutive day, Tawang remained closed for about six hours as almost all its residents went to attend the Tibetan leader's discourse at the Yid-Gha-Choezin Monastery. He was also scheduled to visit the Urgelling Monastery on the outskirts of Tawang, where the sixth Dalai Lama was born in the 17th century. The present Dalai Lama is 14th in the lineage that began over 650 years ago. 

Despite the chilly weather, unprecedented enthusiasm and joy was seen along the 186-km stretch from Tawang to Bomdi La, the route the Dalai Lama had taken during his sensational flight from Tibet in 1959. All shops, including eating houses, were closed. Local Buddhists draped the road with thousands of five-colour religious flags and erected welcome arches with sacred motifs at numerous places. Till evening, the Dalai Lama's followers were seen going to Dirang and Bomdi La to listen to his discourses over the next two days. "We are all thrilled to find god's reincarnation among us," said Pema Thondup, a former Assam Rifles jawan from Themang, as he walked to the venue of the Dalai Lama's discourse at Dirang. 

The Moral Defence Rests

Can India Secure Arunachal Without Recognising free Tibet?

(By Tenzin Tsundue | Times of India | November 11, 2009)

When Manmohan Singh clearly and courageously said last month that there was no question of his government cancelling the Dalai Lama’s Arunachal Pradesh visit, i was proud. As refugees in India, it is painful for us Tibetans to witness Beijing bureaucrats laying down the law to our host government in arrogant, bullying terms. This visit’s historic importance is that it swings back focus on the McMahon Line – and therefore Tibet. That’s why China was so impatient to shoot it down. The result of this pivotal visit will be a realisation that, without reinstating Tibet as a buffer zone, India will forever be subjected to pressures: militarily, politically, environmentally and, now, over water. 

Many Indians do not realise the pressure that Beijing is exerting on New Delhi. They portray the visit as yet another China-Dalai Lama showdown. The fundamental problem China has is with Indian borders. It did not need a Dalai Lama to add to its rants. Dealing with China is tricky; a capitalist nation, ruled by a Communist-style party in the name of socialism, is aggressive and hugely defensive. One cannot lose a point; concede one point and you become subordinate. That is why Barack Obama has armed himself for his first Beijing visit as US president with Dalai Lama power, prepared to punch home points with Chinese President Hu Jintao. After facing Hu, he will still get to meet the Dalai Lama. 

A unique bond with the Monpas of Buddhist Tawang has led to the 14^th Dalai Lama’s fifth visit to India’s ‘‘Land of Dawn-lit mountains’’. The programme at Tawang monastery is solely to impart Buddhist teachings. It is at a most appropriate time, when the Indian government needs to assert its territorial rights in Arunachal Pradesh. In the face of China’s strident claims over Arunachal, the Tibetan leader’s spiritual visit to his followers legitimises India’s stance in the most significant – yet entirely non-verbal – manner. Historically, Tawang was Tibetan territory until early last century. Even today many families in the region retain ancestral tax papers for making payments to the government of Tibet. During the Chinese invasion of Tibet, India unilaterally declared the McMahon Line as the border and swiftly evicted the remaining Tibetan officials from the local administration in 1950. Arunachal Pradesh as a state was formed in 1987; till then it was part of the North East Frontier Agency. 

    The 6th Dalai Lama – by virtue of his birth in Tawang in 1683 – made sacred this 2,000 sq km region. The Great 13th Dalai Lama ceded the region to British India in 1914 by signing the bilateral McMahon Treaty in Delhi. The 14^th incarnation is today symbolically and silently gifting it again to India. The Dalai Lama and his government-in-exile in Dharamsala have repeatedly confirmed that they honour the 13th Dalai Lama’s decision. For the Tibetan populace, within and outside Tibet, Arunachal Pradesh is a part of India. In 2004, Sun Yuxi, then Chinese ambassador to India, made that ill-phrased claim over Arunachal – not just Tawang, he said, but ‘‘the whole of it’’. Former Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee rescued Sikkim from China’s ambitions by surrendering India’s remaining authority to speak on Tibet and, recently, a Chinese map portrayed Kashmir as an independent country. 

China is not going to stop there since Beijing refuses to recognise the 1914 McMahon Line and the Simla Agreement also. It is most likely to question the territorial integrity of the remainder of the 890 km McMahon Line, the Demchok region in eastern Ladakh and the Sumdho area of the eastern Himachal Pradesh border. Having one of its vital military installations at Sumdho (Tibet: trisection) between Tibet and Himachal’s Lahaul-Spiti, India is expected to counter any attempts on Sumdho with armed might. As schoolboys in a Tibetan refugee camp, we used to be marched out once in a while for Free Tibet protest rallies. We shouted slogans in Tibetan and English but never understood this phrase in Hindi: ‘‘Tibbat ki azadi, Bharat ki suraksha’’ (Tibet’s independence is India’s security). It never made sense to me until later, when i realised how India had accepted Tibetan refugees fleeing Chinese persecution, nurtured us and reinforced us – not with guns but with education. 

The Tibetan armed resistance, based in Mustang, western Nepal, and disbanded in 1974, was later reconstituted into a Tibetan battalion in the Indian army known as Establishment No 22, a classified paramilitary force deployed in important operations like the Kargil war. Today, 7,000 Tibetan soldiers – under the ministry of home affairs – man the most difficult and dangerous borders in India’s mountainous terrain. 

For India to keep Arunachal, based on the McMahon Line, the only choice is to recognise Tibet’s independence. It cannot legitimise the McMahon Line border otherwise. Faced with this political reality, India may not be able to summon the courage to support the movement for Tibetan independence overtly, but it is important that it stands firm on its own position. 

 

Uighurs Seek A Passage to India

 (By Fatima Najm | Times of India | November 7, 2009)

 

When Ibrahim was investing in new computers to upgrade his web business, he could not have imagined being bankrupted by a government-imposed internet blackout after deadly riots between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese in July.

 

On July 4th, Ibrahim was buoyant with the hope of tapping into China’s burgeoning online business market, encouraged by the influx of the companies to the oil-rich region. But by the end of that same week Ibrahim knew he had to shut shop. As Hu Jintao hurried back from the G8 summit in the wake of the most violent riots in decades, Beijing cut Xinjiang’s 20 million residents off from internet in an effort to insulate the province and ease ethnic tension.

 

"Hundreds of internet businesses are bankrupt, so where is the economic development they talk about? I want to move to India, I don’t want to invest any money here. My friends and I started to research routes (through Leh) to India, but it is policed well in China," he said. "Thousands are disappearing (into prisons) — they weren’t rioting, but they were young and Muslim." he said. Ibrahim holed himself up in his home after a brutal crackdown on Uighurs paralysed Urumqi following protests on July 5th.

 

According to the state media, 197 people were killed and 1,721 injured, most of them Han, assaulted by Uighurs. In response, vigilante Han Chinese mobs armed with butcher knives and axes taped to sticks stormed Uighur neighbourhoods seeking vengeance.

 

Mass arrests of Muslim men followed. Uighur women took to the streets to protest the arrests of "grandfathers and 11-, 12-year-old boys." A Human Rights Watch report published in October confirms that 43 Uighurs are still missing. Before Ibrahim saw his savings go out with the light on his modem, he could not imagine living anywhere but Kashgar, and encouraged his family to learn Mandarin and become a part of the fabric of greater China.

 

"When I saw signs that you cannot go to mosque if you are a government employee or a working person, I thought okay, better to focus on business than pray. I thought only (political) troublemakers are punished but I know the innocent people who disappeared . I saw some who came back tortured. I am ashamed to say I am afraid to even help those families."

 

One such victim was Turghan. When Turghan was finally freed from prison last month, after 12 years of torture, his wife didn’t recognize him. Instead of the husband she remembered, a handicapped, hunchbacked man stood before the family.

 

His sister-in-law Rahima remembers Turghan as a handsome, popular trader in Gulja’s main market. "His crime was that he was Muslim right after the Gulja uprising of 1997, when Chinese authorities put pressure on local police to find ringleaders," she said.

 

In February 1997 riots erupted on the streets of Gulja to protest mass arrests of Muslims. Troops stormed Gulja after two days of protests, using teargas and ammunition to disperse the crowds, and arresting so many young men that they had to be detained at the local sports stadium, according to Amnesty International. As the temperature dropped, detainees were hosed with water and several lost fingers and toes to frostbite before they could even be questioned.

 

Today, the Chinese state media is full of warnings that Xinjiang remains a turbulent, untamed area because of its 5,600-km border with Russia to the north, India to the south, Mongolia to the east and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to the west.

 

Months after the Urumqi riots, the border city of Kashgar still has troops on alert. Tajik and Khyrgyz traders have gone back to selling silks, blankets and beauty creams in the main Sunday Bazaar but the slow pace of business is punctuated by a column of soldiers marching through at regular intervals.

 

Michael, a foreigner working in Kashgar is "disgusted" by what he calls counter-productive security measures. "The government says it has no problem with Muslims and then sends 500 soldiers to point guns at Uighurs coming out of Kashgar’s main mosque the day after riots in Urumqi. How can tensions die down?" As he finishes speaking, three trucks full of soldiers in riot gear roll by. Troops point their weapons at passers by as loudspeakers announce: "Don’t do anything (illegal ) to hurt national unity.

 

Driving along the remnants of the fabled silk route from Kashgar to Yarkand to Hotan, as the road cuts effortlessly through majestic mountain passes that dissolve into the sand dunes of the Taklamakan dessert, it is easy to forget the region’s recent upheaval. But the 50,000 soldiers that have flooded towns across Xinjiang serve to remind you that you are being watched and tracked, your identity card and passport numbers duly noted.

 

According to T P Sreenivasan, former Indian ambassador, "What China is doing in Xinjiang is identical to what they did in Tibet — repressing the minority, giving Han Chinese economic incentives to move there and creating tensions. The point is to destroy the Uighur culture and control the region. India should take note because China has been increasingly aggressive over Arunachal Pradesh. If they can colonize their own minorities to break down the Muslim community, imagine the aggression they are willing to use on outsiders."

 

David Goodman explains Beijing’s ominous agenda in his article, ‘China’s campaign to open up the West’. "The 1990s (saw) comprehensive measures spurring Han settler colonization, exploitation in the oil-rich Tarim basin; and the building of key transport infrastructure in Southern Xinjiang," under the guise of economic development , and resulting in friction with the indigenous Uighurs. Beijing has relocated entire communities of impoverished Han Chinese in a wave of mass migration that took Xinjiang’s Han population from four per cent in 1949 to 40.6 per cent in 2000 (according to census data). Ibrahim cannot help feeling frustrated about Hu Jintao’s recent comments about a return to normalcy in the region.

 

"We want dignity, what is normalcy?" he asks as his friends lapse into Uighur, talking excitedly about reports of Tibetans living in India, free from the fear of persecution, free to speak against the oppression of their people "back home."

 

"We can do more from India. We thought of Pakistan, but they have returned Uighur refugees to China. India has welcomed Tibetans and we are similar," he reasons before turning back to the heap of coffeestained notes and maps with highlighted routes into India strewn over his keyboard and table.

Legitimising Dow Chemicals

The Hindu Group of Newspapers has sought out Dow Chemicals as sponsor for Chennai's signature event -- the November Music Festival that runs from 17 November to 22 November.

Check out: http://www.hinduonnet.com/novemberfest/who.htm for program and other details. Take Action Against this sponsorship. The Hindu and the Frontline magazine have been consistent and sensitive in covering Bhopal over the last two decades. It is unfortunate that these publications have succumbed to the financial offer from Dow in this 25th anniversary of the 1984 Bhopal disaster.

TAKE ACTION: Regardless of where you are from, please call, write, sms the organisers. Tell them you're a music lover and that you're distressed that a corporate criminal that is sheltering Union Carbide is sponsoring this wonderful event. Tell them not to let Dow Chemical gain legitimacy by associating with this event, and to not let Dow Chemical tarnish this event. Those of you who can do so, please write, email, call the musicians and urge them to not attend the event unless Dow's sponsorship is rejected. This is a small something we can all do to let Dow Chemical know that we Remember Bhopal, and that we'll not let Dow escape its liabilities by doling out money.

CONTACT DETAILS OF THE HINDU EVENT ORGANISERS Tel: +91 44 28575809. Mobile (For sms): +91 9841962820 Email: events@thehindu.co.in

http://beta.thehindu.com/arts/article40750.ece

Abida Parveen Pandit Channulal Mishra Sanjeev Abhyankar O.S. Arun James Ryan Quartet Korean band Gong Myoung Osibisa

BACKGROUND: You may recall that Dow Chemical, the owner of Union Carbide, is on a desperate campaign to gain legitimacy by associating with reputed Indian institutions. In 2007-2008, students and faculty of IITs around the country rejected Dow's overtures and attempts at sponsoring events due to Dow's intransigence in resolving the long-festering human rights and environmental issues in Bhopal. IIT students opted against allowing Dow Chemical to recruit students on campus. IIT Delhi's mechanical department returned sponsorship money given by Dow after students, alumni and faculty caused a major uproar against taking money from a company known to have a callous disregard for Indian law and lives.

On December 2-3, 1984, a massive gas leak from Union Carbide's ill-designed pesticide factory killed more than 8000 Bhopalis within days. At least 150,000 of the more than 500,000 people exposed to the gases are still suffering from chronic illnesses. The company has left behind several thousand tonnes of toxic wastes in and around the now-closed factory site. These wastes are leaching their toxins into the groundwater, and more than 25000 indigent people are consuming this poisoned water. In 1992, Union Carbide was proclaimed an absconder by the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Bhopal for failing to honour summons issued to appear in court to face charges of culpable homicide, among other offences. The company has shown its disregard for Indian law. In 2001, Dow Chemical took over Union Carbide. But it says that it only acquired Carbide's assets and not its liabilities. Dow claims to be a law-abiding and ethical company. But its behaviour in India and abroad says otherwise.

1. It has refused to produce its subsidiary Union Carbide in the Bhopal court to face trial. 2. Despite the fact that it is Union Carbide's wastes that lie in Bhopal, Dow Chemical has said it will do nothing to clean it up, or to provide people with clean water. It has said the taxpayers must assume the responsibility of clean up, and is strongarming the Indian Government to drop proceedings against it or face a slowdown of investments from America. 3. Union Carbide is a fugitive from Indian courts, and is barred from selling its products and services in India. Dow Chemical attempted to profit from illegally selling Union Carbide's technology to Indian Oil Company by lying to the company that the technology was Dow's own. In 2005, Indian Oil cancelled the deal with Dow Chemical after being alerted of this by Bhopal campaigners. 4. In 2007, Dow Chemical was fined $325,000 by the US financial regulator Securities Exchange Commission after it was caught for bribing Indian agriculture ministry officials to the tune of $200,000 (Rs. 80 lakhs). The bribe was paid to expedite the registration of a toxic pesticide called Dursban that was banned for domestic use in the US in 2000, after evidence surfaced linking exposure to this chemical with brain damage among children.

For more information on Bhopal, visit: www.bhopal.org, www.bhopal.net, www.studentsforbhopal.org

\\

US Fly in China’s India Ointment

(By Brahma Chellaney)

The India-China relationship has entered choppy waters because of a perceptible hardening in the Chinese stance. Anti-India rhetoric in the state-run Chinese media has intensified, even as China has stepped up military pressure along the disputed Himalayan frontier through frequent cross-border incursions. Beijing also has resurrected its long-dormant claim to Arunachal Pradesh, nearly three times as large as Taiwan.

The more-muscular Chinese stance clearly is tied to the new US-India strategic partnership, symbolised by the nuclear deal and deepening military cooperation. As President George W Bush declared in his valedictory speech, "We opened a new historic and strategic partnership with India."

The Obama Administration, although committed to promoting that strategic partnership, has been reluctant to take New Delhi's side in any of its disputes with Beijing. This has emboldened China to up the ante against India, with the Chinese Foreign Ministry employing language like "we demand" in a recent statement that labelled the Indian Prime Minister's visit to Arunachal Pradesh a "disturbance." The Communist Party's official newspaper, the People's Daily, after asking India to consider the costs of "a potential confrontation with China", ran another denunciatory editorial recently on New Delhi's "recklessness and arrogance".

New Delhi has hit back by permitting the Dalai Lama to tour Arunachal Pradesh and announcing an end to the practice of Chinese companies bringing thousands of workers from China to work on projects in India. And in a public riposte to Beijing's raising of objections to multilateral funding of any project in Arunachal Pradesh, India has asked China to cease its infrastructure and military projects in another disputed region — Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The present pattern of border provocations, new force deployments and mutual recriminations is redolent of the situation that prevailed 47 years ago, when China — taking advantage of the advent of the Cuban missile crisis, which brought the world to the brink of a nuclear Armageddon — routed the unprepared Indian military in a surprise two-front aggression. Today, amid rising tensions, the danger of border skirmishes, if not a limited war, looks real.

Such tensions have been rising since 2006. Until 2005, China was eschewing anti-India rhetoric and pursuing a policy of active engagement with India even as it continued to expand its strategic space in southern Asia, to New Delhi's detriment. In fact, when Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited India in April 2005, the two countries unveiled six broad principles to help settle their festering border dispute. But after the India-US defence-framework accord and nuclear deal were unveiled in quick succession in subsequent months, the mood in Beijing changed perceptibly. That gave rise to a pattern that now has become commonplace: Chinese newspapers, individual bloggers, security think tanks and even officially blessed websites ratcheted up an "India threat" scenario.

A US-India military alliance has always been a strategic nightmare for the Chinese, and the ballyhooed Indo-US global strategic partnership triggered alarm bells in Beijing. The partnership, though, falls short of a formal military alliance. Still, the high-pitched Indian and American rhetoric that the new partnership represented a tectonic shift in geopolitical alignments apparently made Chinese policy-makers believe India was being groomed as a new Japan or Australia to America — a perception reinforced by subsequent arrangements and Indian orders for US arms worth $ 3.5 billion in just the past year.

Clearly, New Delhi failed to foresee that its rush to forge close strategic bonds with Washington could provoke greater Chinese pressure and that in such a situation, the United States actually would offer little comfort. Consequently, India finds itself in a spot.

For one thing, Beijing calculatedly has sought to pressure India on multiple fronts — military, diplomatic and multilateral. For another, the United States —far from coming to India's support — has shied away from even cautioning Beijing against any attempt to forcibly change the territorial status quo. Indeed, on a host of issues — from the Dalai Lama to the Arunachal Pradesh dispute — Washington has chosen not to antagonise Beijing. That, in effect, has left India on its own.

The spectacle of the President of the most powerful country in the world seeking to curry favour with a rights-abusing China by shunning the Dalai Lama during the Tibetan leader's Washington visit cannot but embolden the Chinese leadership to step up pressure on India, the seat of the Tibetan Government-in-exile. Mr Obama also has signalled that America's strategic relationship with India will not be at the expense of the fast-growing US ties with China.

The Obama team, after reviewing the Bush-era arrangements, intends to abjure elements in its ties with New Delhi that could rile Beijing, including any joint military drill in Arunachal Pradesh or a 2007-style naval exercise involving the United States, India, Australia, Japan and Singapore. Even trilateral US naval manoeuvres with India and Japan are being abandoned so as not to raise China's hackles. As his Secretary of State did in February, Mr Obama is undertaking an Asia tour that begins in Japan and ends in China — the high spot — while skipping India. In fact, Washington is quietly charting a course of tacit neutrality on the Arunachal dispute.

Yet Beijing remains suspicious of the likely trajectory of US-India strategic ties, including pre-1962-style CIA meddling in Tibet. This distrust found expression in the People's Daily editorial that accused New Delhi of pursuing a foreign policy of "befriending the far and attacking the near".

Left to fend for itself, New Delhi has decided to steer clear of any confrontation with Beijing. As the Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government-in-exile, Samdhong Rinpoche, has put it: "For the past few months, China has adopted an aggressive attitude and is indulging in many provocative activities, which are being tolerated by Indian Government in a very passive manner."

Still, even as it seeks to tamp down tensions with Beijing, New Delhi cannot rule out the use of force by China at a time when hard-liners there seem to believe that a swift, 1962-style military victory can help fashion a Beijing-oriented Asia.

Having declared that America's "most important bilateral relationship in the world" is with Beijing, the Obama team must caution China against crossing well-defined red lines or going against its self-touted gospel of China's "peaceful rise".

-- The writer is professor of strategic studies at Centre for Policy Research.

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Tibetans and Tamils Join Hands Against The Hindu

(Chennai | November 01, 2009)

“The Tamilians and the Tibetans have been forced to stand together today as N.Ram’s The Hindu media brigade continues to charge both communities as ‘separatists’ completely ignoring the genocide and suffering two communities are undergoing” said Thirumurugan, key organiser of the Tamil-Tibetan gathering in Chennai, Tamil Nadu yesterday.

The young consultant for an advertising agency, Thiruja gathered a huge number of Tamilians and Tibetans yesterday to protest the continued barrage of biased and prejudiced reports by the Hindu. Thiruja managed to bring into this alliance the famous Tibetan poet and activist Tenzin Tsundue from Dharamshala who is known for surprise protest antics when Chinese leaders come visiting India.

“This is a unique gathering here” said Tsundue, who spoke in a spattering Tamil and then later went into English. “When our Tibetan students marched to the Hindu office, our youth were alone, today the Tamils have realised how manipulative and maligned the reports made by N Ram”. The Tibetan writer said: “The Hindu politics is only a symptom. The larger issue is the coming of Chinese influence in the Indian space, and the creation of the Chinese hegemonic cordon around the Indian subcontinent like the growing Chinese influence in Burma, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and of course Pakistan.” Tsundue took the opportunity and explained how deeply the cause of Tibetan independence is directly related to India’s security in the face growing Chinese influence in the world and threat on India.

Former navy commandant Mr Subramanium said: China is a failed “union” of occupied countries and contradictions. There is no future in this state. The state is already rotting and it will soon come crumbling down.”

The gathering passed a resolution where they said “since the Hindu is biased and prejudiced towards freedom struggles, we declare the Hindu anti-Tamil, anti-India and anti-freedom.”

Besides the fiery speeches there were many books and literature to buy or take for free. The Tibetan students put up an impressive photo exhibition on the suffering of Tibetans under Chinese control. Friends of Tibet’s Indian supporters like Mr. Hubert and Anto V were there, so was Aasha Reddy, who is known as the local guardian for the 200-odd local Tibetan students studying and working in this south Indian coastal city.

Friends of Tibet has carried for a long time a campaign called ‘Save the Hindu’ to save The Hindu, one of the oldest national newspapers from the prejudiced reports forced on its readers. The Indian Tibet support group says that the Hindu carries reports from Chinese news agency Xinhua and the People’s Daily, but refuses to include any Tibetan voice in their reports. Tenzin Tsundue represented the Bylakuppe chapter of TYC and TWA and also Friends of Tibet.

China Executes Four Tibetans in Lhasa Over 2008 Unrest

(By Phurbu Thinley, October 22, 2009)

Dharamshala: According to latest information received by Dharamsala-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD), as many as four Tibetans were executed on Tuesday for their alleged involvement in the 2008 anti-China unrest in the Tibetan capital Lhasa.

TCHRD, which monitors human rights situation in Tibet, said Thursday it received confirmed information from reliable sources that at least four Tibetans were executed under the supervision of the Lhasa Municipality Intermediate People's Court on Tuesday.

The centre said Lobsang Gyaltsen, Loyak, Penkyi and an unnamed Tibetan were executed.
Tibetan Government-in-exile has also confirmed the execution report. A report on its official website said Lobsang Gyaltsen, aged 27, born in Lhasa; Loyak, aged 25, of Tashi Khang, Shol Township, Lhasa and Penkyi, aged 21, born in Sakya County were executed in Lhasa on Tuesday. It said the identity of the fourth person is not known.

Sources told TCHRD that the dead body of Lobsang Gyaltsen from Lubug, located on the outskirt of Lhasa city, was handed over to his family and his dead body was later known to have been immersed in Kyichu River.

The centre said it was not clear whether the victims were allowed to appeal their cases to the Supreme People's Court.
Penkyi, a 21-year old girl from Norbu village, Dogra Township in Sakya County was given suspended death sentence by Chinese court in Lhasa in April 2009.

On April 8, 2009, Lhasa Municipal Intermediate People's Court handed down death sentences to Lobsang Gyaltsen and Loyak, and two others, Tenzin Phuntsok and Kangtsuk, to suspended death penalties and another Dawa Sangpo to life imprisonment.
The five were convicted of torching five shops in Lhasa that allegedly left seven people dead during the March 14 unrest.

On April 21, 2009, Chinese state media reported that the same court sentenced a Tibetan girl to death with a two-year reprieve and two others to long jail terms for setting fires that allegedly killed six people in the Lhasa protest last year.

While Penkyi, a 20-year old of Norbu village, Dogra Township in Sakya County, received suspended death sentence, the other two girls, one of them named also Penkyi, aged 23, of Thantoe village, Margkyang township in Nyemo County, was sentenced to life imprisonment and the other 20-year-old Chime Lhamo, of Sholtoe village, Namling township in Shigatse Namling County, was sentenced to jail for 10 years.

TCHRD says it is highly concerned about the fate of remaining Tibetans facing suspended death sentences.

Condemning the execution of four Tibetans, the centre has urged the Chinese government to show restraint and ensure fair trials to others facing death sentences and other charges.

Centre has also called on UN Special Rapporteur on Extra Judicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Execution and the international community to pay urgent attention to situation inside Tibet.

TCHRD said said no information on the execution of four Tibetans was reported anywhere in the Chinese state media and added that it was waiting for further information.

Meanwhile, five major Tibetan NGOs have called for a massive peaceful candle light vigil here this evening to pray for the four Tibetans and to highlight the situation inside Tibet.

Disheartened by the world

(By Fatima Naim | Arab News)

Man stands at his stall of typical Uighur fabric.   When Turghan was finally freed from prison last month, after 12 years of torture, his wife didn’t recognize him. Instead of the husband she remembered, a hunch-backed, handicapped man stood before the family. His sister-in-law Rahima remembers Turghan as a handsome, popular young trader in Gulja’s main market. “His crime was that he was Muslim after the Gulja uprising of 1997, when Chinese authorities put pressure on local police to find ring leaders,” she said, at a protest against China’s policies in Xinjiang. “Muslims are being arrested and tortured for their role in Urumqi riots, but the trials will be quick, with no evidence, and more lives will be wasted like Turghan’s.” In February 1997 riots erupted on the streets of Gulja, in the Northwestern province of Xinjiang, in protest at the mass arrests of Muslims. They were as spontaneous as riots in Urumqi on July 5 this year. Troops stormed the city of Gulja after two days of protests, using tear gas and ammunition to disperse the crowds, arresting so many young men that they had to be detained at the local sports stadium, according to Amnesty International. As the temperature dropped, the detainees were hosed with water and several lost fingers and toes to frostbite before they could be questioned about their roles in the uprising. Experts who draw comparisons between the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Gulja uprising and the recent Urumqi riots say that it is easier for China to obscure information coming out of Xinjiang because Gulja and Urumqi are closer to Kabul and Kashmir than they are to Beijing. But that geographical detail is precisely what makes the Chinese government nervous about the region. Today, the Chinese state media is full of warnings that Xinjiang remains a turbulent, untamed area because of its 5,600 kilometers of border area with Russia to the north, India to the south, Mongolia to the east and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to the west. In the 1990s, the Chinese government launched their “Open Up the West” policy and relocated entire communities of impoverished Han Chinese in a wave of mass migration that took Xinjiang’s Han population from four percent in 1949 to 40.6 percent in 2000 (according to census data). According to regional expert and former Indian ambassador T.P. Sreenivasan, “What China is doing in Xinjiang is identical to what they did in Tibet, repression of the minority, giving Han Chinese economic incentives to move there, creating tensions. The point is to destroy the Uighur culture and to control the region.” This is not news to Rahima; she has experienced China’s policies in Xinjiang first hand. Standing in front of the unresponsive façade of the Chinese embassy, Rahima pulls the veil that normally covers only her hair across her face to hide her identity. Her throat is hoarse from yelling “China Lie: People die.” Rahima explains that although she is terrified, she will be photographed here, and her family in Xinjiang persecuted as a result, “I have to speak out against the atrocity; my fellow Uighurs in Urumqi are in jail for speaking out in Urumqi but here I am free.” Rahima remembers how Turghan was moved from one high security prison to another for twelve years. He was tortured, starved and beaten until he lost the use of a leg. “For 12 years his family tried to get medicine and food to him and for 12 years the authorities ridiculed them and now, as if nothing had happened, they dropped him off at his home, a handicapped man to take care of,” Rahima pauses to join the chorus of Uighurs shouting, “China! China! China! Out! Out! Out!” At the same time as Turghan was taken into custody, Rahima’s neighbor was told that her son had confessed to his part in the Gulja uprising. “She was told she would be given a bill for his execution,” said Rahima. “Why not take an independent commission and talk to the families in Gulja? Every household was affected, but everyone is afraid to talk.” Dilshod Jalil, 46, remembers the outrage he felt when he first saw a bill for the execution of a loved one: “About two pounds 80 pence for a bullet and five pounds for paying a man to lift a gun and kill the man you knew all your life as a good man, and then they give you this bill. Can you imagine a mother’s feelings? We must speak out because no one spoke out in Gulja.” In 1997, the government crushed the uprising in Gulja with very little international interference. Hong Kong was being handed over to the Chinese, and the media spotlight was fixed firmly further east. The military mobilized two 200,000 troops when Uighurs took to the streets in protest at the repression of their religious rights. They were sick of signs forbidding working persons, women, children below 16 or government employees from entering the mosque, and “warnings that we can be arrested, beaten and tortured for holding congregational prayer meetings and discussions of how to apply Islam to community matters in our homes.” Uighurs say the state media demonizes them, reporting them as “troublemakers and terrorists,” making it impossible for Uighurs to get jobs or move around in China. Uighurs say they are disheartened by the weak response of the international community given the scale of China’s brutal measures in Xinjiang. According to T.P. Sreenivasan the situation in Xinjiang should be ringing alarm bells in nerve centers in the first world: “At the time of Tiananmen Square, the world was shocked and outraged by the human rights abuse and there was political will to speak out against China, but now, even America is careful with China. India should take note as China has been aggressive recently about asserting itself in Arunachal Pradesh. All democracies must note the brutal tactics in Xinjiang, as a sign of China’s aggression.”

 

Why the Chinese Are So Upset About Tawang?

(By Claude Arpi in Rediff.com | October 21, 2009)

Why has China suddenly ratcheted up tension with India over Arunachal
Pradesh? Claude Arpi, who has written extensively on Tibet, offers an
insight.
Repeated Chinese intrusions into Indian territory, veiled threats to
'split' India, and a constantly aggressive stance on Arunachal Pradesh
have recently got a great deal of coverage in the Indian media.

The worst was perhaps the threatening tone of the Chinese press. The
Global Times objected to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh's visit to
Arunachal: 'Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made another
provocative and dangerous move. India will make a fatal error if it
mistakes China's approach for weakness. The Chinese government and
public regard territorial integrity as a core national interest, one
that must be defended with every means.'

Why has the Chinese leadership suddenly become so aggressive about
Tawang and Arunachal Pradesh?

In a recent interview, Professor Wang Dehua, director, Centre for
South Asia Studies at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, stated
that India would 'just' have to surrender the Aksai Chin plateau in
Ladakh and Tawang and the border issue could be solved.

Why this obsession with Tawang and the Land of Dawn-lit Mountains?

The Guilty Conscience about Tibet: The core issue is the fact that
Tibet was an independent country when the misnamed People's Liberation
Army marched into Tibet in October 1950. This can be proved without
ambiguity by digging into the British Archives in London (or the
almirahs of our ministry of external affairs).

One example: Noel-Baker, the British foreign secretary, addressed the
House of Commons on December 14, 1949, to inform the MPs about the
British official stand on Tibet. London stood by a memo given by Prime
Minister Antony Eden to Dr T V Soong, the Chinese foreign minister, in
1943.

It stated: 'Since the Chinese Revolution of 1911, when Chinese forces
[which had occupied Tibet for a short time] were withdrawn from Tibet,
Tibet has enjoyed de facto independence. She has ever since regarded
herself as in practice completely autonomous and has opposed Chinese
attempts to reassert control.'
Interestingly, when the British high commissioner in India showed this
to K P S Menon, the first Indian foreign secretary, he said: "Such
publicity is good". India agreed and wanted the world to know about
Tibet 'de facto' independence.

Unfortunately, less than a year later, Chinese troops entered Tibet
and began to occupy the entire plateau. Over the last nearly six
decades, Beijing has done its utmost to make the world forget that
before 1950 Tibet was an independent state with not only a separate
language, literature, religion and culture, but also its own foreign
office, currency, coins, stamps and even hand-made paper passport.

Beijing has practically succeeded in erasing all these factors from
the world's collective memory, but for one thing: a thick red line.
This last symbol, the McMahon Line, proving that Tibet could sign
treaties on its own, delineated the Indo-Tibet border. Beijing
believes that if by a magic trick (or a bit of bullying), it can
manage to annul the red line, nobody could ever challenge China's
colonisation of Tibet anymore; the last proof that the powerless
religious nation was invaded by its neighbour would disappear.
This is the crux of the matter and explains Beijing's present anger
and belligerence.

How did this line come about?
In 1903, British Viceroy Lord Curzon cabled London that 'the Chinese
suzerainty over Tibet was a constitutional fiction'. He proved his
point a year later by sending to Tibet a military expedition under
Francis Younghusband.

The young colonel discovered what Curzon knew, that there was no
Chinese presence in Lhasa. While the Chinese were unhappy that the
truth had emerged, the British, as usual, wanted to remain fair. The
solution found by the British was to convey a Tripartite Conference in
Simla in 1913 to get an agreement between China, Tibet and themselves
on the 'constitutional fiction'. The main bone of contention at that
time was the border between Tibet and China. While discussions were
going on about the Tibet-China differences, Sir Henry McMahon and his
Tibetan counterpart, Lochen Shatra, sat separately to delineate the
Indo-Tibetan border.

On March 24, through an exchange of notes between the British and
Tibetan plenipotentiaries, the Indo-Tibet frontier was fixed. McMahon
wrote to Shatra: 'The final settlement of this India-Tibet frontier
will help to prevent causes of future dispute and thus cannot fail to
be of great advantage to both governments.'The next day, the Tibetan
plenipotentiary replied: 'As it was feared that there might be
friction in future unless the boundary between India and Tibet is
clearly defined, I submitted the map, which you sent to me in February
last, to the Tibetan government at Lhasa for orders. I have now
received orders from Lhasa, and I accordingly agree to the boundary as
marked in red in the two copies of the maps signed by you.'

The British and the Tibetan delegates signed and sealed the map. Thus
the McMahon Line was born as a red line demarcating the Indo-Tibetan
boundary in the eastern sector.
Today, Beijing is not ready to accept the McMahon Line as it would be
a de facto recognition that an accord signed by an independent Tibetan
government has legal validity.

Did the Chinese always claim Tawang? The answer is, 'No'.
During the 1950s, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai was ready to accept the
McMahon Line as the border between 'China's Tibet' and India.
A letter from the then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to U Nu,
his Burmese counterpart, is revealing. On April 22, 1957, Nehru wrote:
'I am writing to you immediately so as to inform you of one particular
development which took place here when Chou En-lai [Zhou Enlai] came
to India.

'In your letter you say that while Premier Chou En-lai was prepared to
accept the McMahon Line in the north [of Burma], he objected to the
use of the name 'McMahon Line', as this may produce 'complications
vis- -vis India', and therefore, he preferred to use the term
'traditional line'.' Nehru continued: '[Zhou] said that while he was
not convinced of the justice of our claim to the present Indian
frontier with China (in Tibet), he was prepared to accept it. That is,
he made it clear that he accepted the McMahon Line between India and
China, chiefly because of his desire to settle outstanding matters
with a friendly country like India and also because of usage etc. I
think, he added he did not like the name 'McMahon Line'.'

Nehru had some doubts that he had heard properly what the Chinese
Premier had said: 'I wanted to remove all doubts about it. I asked him
again therefore and he repeated it quite clearly. I expressed my
satisfaction at what he said. I added that there were two or three
minor frontier matters pending between India and China on the Tibet
border and the sooner these were settled, the better. He agreed.'

Zhou however told his Indian counterpart that after the signature of
the Panchsheel Agreement on Tibet in 1954, the Tibetans objected to
the demarcation of the line: 'The Tibetans wanted us to reject this
Line; but we told them that the question should be temporarily put
aside. I believe immediately after India's independence, the Tibetan
government had also written to the Government of India about this
matter. But now we think that we should try to persuade and convince
the Tibetans to accept it.'
The forthcoming visit of the Dalai Lama to Tawang is another occasion
for the Tibetan leader to reiterate that he has always stood by the
McMahon Line and Zhou's argument (which the Tibetans objected to) does
not stand.

Tsangyang Gyatso: The Sixth Dalai Lama
Another misconception created by the Chinese is that because Tsangyang
Gyatso, the Sixth Dalai Lama, great poet and lover, was born near
Tawang in 1683. For Beijing, it is proof that Tawang belongs to Tibet
(and therefore part of China). Elementary, Mr Hu!
This is another lame argument. Is France part of Kashmir because Dr
Karan Singh was born in Cannes on the French Riviera? What about
Liaquat Ali Khan, born in Karnal, Haryana; Zia-ul-Haq was born in
Jalandhar; or Pervez Musharraf in Daryaganj in Delhi? Does it make
Haryana, Punjab or Delhi a part of Pakistan?
The Sixth Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyaltso (the Precious Ocean of Pure
Melody), who loved freedom above all, would have probably written a
beautiful poem on Chinese pretentions.

Chinese names
The Chinese say that all the names south of the McMahon are Chinese.
Unless Tibetan language (gompa, dzong, la, chu, etc) has become
Chinese, it is wrong. In fact both languages are etymologically and
grammatically totally different. However, if the Chinese start
claiming as theirs all the areas using 'Bothia' (Tibetan) language and
scripts, Kinnaur, Lahaul, Spiti, Ladakh or Sikkim will soon be claimed
by them. And why not the Buriat and Kalmyk republics of the Russian
Federation? What about Darjeeling (from Tibetan Dorjee Ling, meaning
the place of the Vajra)? Does it make sense?

The current campaign is primarily caused by the forthcoming visit of
the Dalai Lama to Arunachal Pradesh which in itself is a reiteration
that the Tibetan leader stands by the McMahon Line as the Indo-Tibet
border, a historical fact which can't be erased retrospectively.

No Chinese Dam Over Brahmaputra

(IANS | October 20, 2009)

Guwahati: China has formally clarified to India that it is not building a dam over the Brahmaputra river on its side, Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu said Tuesday.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met a group of legislators and MPs from the northeastern state led by Dorjee Khandu in New Delhi Monday. "The prime minister assured us that there was no dam being constructed over the Brahmaputra by China. In fact, Beijing had formally communicated this to the Indian government," Khandu told IANS on telephone from New Delhi.

The controversy follows media reports that Beijing was constructing a $167 million hydropower plant in Zangmu, 140 km southeast of Tibet's capital Lhasa, besides diverting water to its parched northwest and northeast territories, which includes the Gobi desert. The 2,906-km

long Brahmaputra is one of Asia's largest rivers that traverses its first stretch of 1,625 km in Tibet, the next 918 km in India and the remaining 363 km through Bangladesh before converging into the Bay of Bengal.

"We are happy with the prime minister's assurance," the chief minister said. There were fears expressed by both the Assam and Arunachal Pradesh governments that diversion of water from the Brahmaputra would lead to a natural disaster in the region. Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi is meeting Manmohan Singh Tuesday night to express fears about the reported dam construction. Media reports of Chinese incursions into India and Beijing's opposition to the Indian prime minister's visit to Arunachal Pradesh - a region Beijing claims - also figured

in Monday's meeting.

"Chinese claims are simply unfounded and baseless. Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India and the prime minister said categorically that this is New Delhi's stand," Khandu said. Beijing in 2003 gave up its territorial claim over Sikkim but still says that nearly all of Arunachal Pradesh belongs to it. The mountainous state of Arunachal Pradesh shares a 1,030-km unfenced border with China.

China has raked up a controversy by asking India not to allow Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to visit Arunachal Pradesh in November. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu said: "We firmly oppose Dalai visiting the so-called 'Arunachal Pradesh'." The Dalai Lama is scheduled to visit the Tawang monastery in Arunachal Pradesh, bordering China, besides capital Itanagar.

"China should not interfere with the Dalai Lama's proposed visit to Arunachal Pradesh. We welcome the Dalai Lama's visit," the Arunachal chief minister said. It is through Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh that the Dalai Lama escaped the Chinese to enter India in 1959.

The India-China border along Arunachal Pradesh is separated by the McMahon Line, an imaginary border now known as the Line of Actual Control. India and China fought a border war in 1962, with Chinese troops advancing deep into Arunachal Pradesh and inflicting heavy casualties on Indian troops. The border dispute with China was inherited by India from British colonial rulers, who hosted a 1914 conference with the Tibetan and Chinese governments that set the border in what is now Arunachal Pradesh.

China has never recognised the 1914 McMahon Line and claims 90,000 sq km - nearly all of Arunachal Pradesh. India also accuses China of occupying 8,000 sq km in Kashmir. After 1962, tensions flared again in 1986 with Indian and Chinese forces clashing in Sumdorong Chu valley of Arunachal. Chinese troops reportedly built a helipad in the valley leading to fresh skirmishes.

Tibet Cartoon from Cartoonist Kaak

www.kaakdrishti.com / www.kaaktoons.com

Cartoon on Tibet and China

India Reaffirms Dalai Lama's Right to Visit Arunachal Pradesh
(Dharamshala | October 17, 2009)

India has reaffirmed the exiled Tibetan leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama's right to visit its disputed border region with China in the face of objections from Beijing, a media report said Saturday.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama is slated to visit the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh next month, amidst a growing tension over border dispute between the giants neighbours. The proposed November trip will be the Dalai Lama's fifth visit to the state, the last one was in 2003.

In an interview to All India Radio, India's Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao reportedly made it clear that the Tibetan leader is free to visit any part of the country. "We regard and we have always said this clearly and also to China that His Holiness Dalai Lama is a spiritual figure, he is a religious figure, and he does not indulge in political activities on Indian soil," Rao said Friday, according to a report by The Indian Express newspaper.

"He is our guest in India and he is free to visit any part of our country," she added.

Rao said China's objections to the Dalai Lama's visit had been taken "seriously" but maintained that India has been "very clear and unambivalent" in expressing its own position to the Chinese. India says China occupies 38,000 square kilometres (14,700 square miles) of its Himalayan territory, while Beijing claims all of Arunachal Pradesh, which covers 90,000 square kilometres.

"Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India, it is an inalienable part of India," Rao said. Rao's remarks came after India and China traded diplomatic jabs earlier this month over a visit in early October by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the state.

India Objects to Chinese Activities in PoK

(Times of India | October 14, 2009)

 

New Delhi: Hitting back at China, India took objection to its engagement in projects in Pakistan occupied Kashmir and asked it to cease such activities taking "long-term view" of India-China relations. In a response to a question on Pakistan- China projects in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), external affairs ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash said in a statement, "We have seen the Xinhua report quoting the President of China Hu Jintao as stating that China will continue to engage in projects with Pakistan inside Pakistan occupied Kashmir."

 

"Pakistan has been in illegal occupation of parts of the Indian State of Jammu & Kashmir since 1947. The Chinese side is fully aware of India's position and our concerns about Chinese activities in Pakistan occupied Kashmir."

 

"We hope that the Chinese side will take a long term view of the India-China relations, and cease such activities in areas illegally occupied by Pakistan."

 

The Chinese president, during a meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani on Tuesday, outlined a major project to upgrade the Karakoram highway connecting the two countries overland and Chinese help in the Neelam-Jhelum hydroelectric project in PoK.  "Howsoever, the international situation may change. The people of China and Pakistan are always joined in hearts and hands," Hu had said.

 

On Tuesday, The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) reiterated that the State of Arunachal Pradesh is an integral and inalienable part of India. The statement was issued by a spokesman of the ministry shortly after China expressed "strong" dissatisfaction over Prime Minister Manmohan Singh''s recent visit to Arunachal Pradesh for electioneering.

 

"The state of Arunachal Pradesh is an integral and inalienable part of India. The people of Arunachal Pradesh are citizens of India. They are proud participants in the mainstream of India''s vibrant democracy. The Chinese side is well aware of this position of the Government of India," said the official spokesperson.

 

"It is well established practice in our democratic system that our leaders visit States where elections to Parliament and to the State Assemblies are taking place. The Government of India is deeply committed to ensuring the welfare of its own citizens across the length and breadth of our country," the official spokesperson added.

 

Expressing disappointment over the statement made by the official spokesman of the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs, the government spokesperson said: "India and China have jointly agreed that the outstanding boundary question will be discussed by the special representatives appointed by the two governments. We, therefore, express our disappointment and concern over the statement made by the official spokesman of the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs, since this does not help the process of ongoing negotiations between the two governments on the boundary question."

 

"India is committed to resolving outstanding differences with China in a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable manner, while ensuring that such differences are not allowed to affect the positive development of bilateral relations. We hope that the Chinese side will similarly abide by this understanding," the official spokesperson added. On the same day, China's Ambassador to India Zhang Yang met officials of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) shortly after his government expressed "strong" dissatisfaction over Prime Minister Manmohan Singh''s visit to Arunachal Pradesh earlier this month.

 

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu had said: "We demand the Indian side address China''s serious concerns and not trigger disturbance in the disputed region so as to facilitate the healthy development of China-India relations."

 

"China is strongly dissatisfied with the visit to the disputed region by the Indian leader disregarding China''s serious concerns," Mas added in a statement posted on the ministry''s website. He noted that China and India had "never officially settled" demarcation of their border, and China';s stance on the eastern section of the China-India border was "consistent and clear-cut".

 

The Indian government has all along indicated that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India and that the people of that state have a democratic right to elect a government of their choice. Singh had toured and addressed an election rally in Arunachal Pradesh on October 3.

 

Recently, China had blocked a part of a loan to India from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for developmental projects in Arunachal Pradesh. China also protested a visit to the state last month by exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama. India says China is illegally occupying 43,180 sq kms of Jammu and Kashmir. On the other hand, China accuses India of possessing some 90,000 sq km of Chinese territory, mostly in Arunachal Pradesh.

 

Singh had earlier visited Arunachal Pradesh on January 31 and February 1 and had then referred to it as "Our land of the rising sun" at a public rally, which was objected to by China. China apparently saw it as India''s assertion of its claim on Arunachal, which it claims is a "disputed territory".

Tenzin Tsundue Presents 'Angry Monk'

Tenzin Tsundue, Tibetan poet and General Secretary of Friends of Tibet presented the film 'Angry Monk' (Luc Schaedler; Documentary; 90min) and initiated a dialogue on Tibet issue for a gathering at the Alternative Law Forum office in Bangalore. The film which documents the life of one of the most controversial monks from Tibet – Gendun Choephel was screened at the Alternative Law Forum, Infantry Road, Bangalore on October 05, 2009.

'Angry Monk' Synopsis: Tibet - the mystical roof of the world, peopled with enlightened monks? Only one of them would not toe the line - Gendun Choephel, the errant monk who left the monastic life in 1934 in search of a new challenge. A free spirit and multifaceted individual, he was far ahead of his time and has since become a seminal figure, a symbol of hope for a free Tibet. A rebel and voluble critic of the establishment, Gendun Choephel kindled the anger of the Tibetan authorities. The cinematic journey through time portrays the life of this unorthodox monk, revealing a face of old Tibet that goes against popular clichés. The film offers a fascinating insight into a country whose eventful past is refracted in the multiplicity and contradictions of everyday life. An outsider who was always open to new things, he eventually became a stranger in his homeland and homeless in foreign lands - a wanderer between worlds.

Chinese See India As Enemy, But Army Lacks Devotion

(IANS | September 27, 2009)

London: India is the country that is spoken of most often as an enemy in China, a British newspaper reported Sunday, but quoted a retired Chinese officer as saying the men serving the People's Liberation Army (PLA) have no 'devotion'.

'Compared with our last war against India in 1962, our equipment is much better but the devotion to country and people, of our officers and men is much worse,' the Sunday Times quoted an unnamed retired officer as saying. In an article on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic, the paper said the occasion is setto be marked by the 'grandest martial parade in the history of modern China', with displays of a new generation of fighters, ballistic missiles, battle tanks and rifles.

'Thursday's parade is certain to provoke an outpouring of virulent nationalism. Curiously, the enemy most often spoken of is India,' the paper said.

Censors, otherwise draconian in their grip over Chinese netizens, permit 'alarmingly frank discussion' on the internet on going to war against India over Tibet. However, the paper said veterans who know the PLA from the inside say that despite all its shiny new kit, such grandiose ideas mask the reality of 'a force that has no recent battle experience and is riddled with corruption'.

It said insiders speak of a system of bribes ranging from 10,000 yuan ($1,400, Rs.70,000) for a good post for a private soldier to 30,000 yuan for a place at military college. The Sunday Times quoted General Zhang Shutian, a political commissar, saying in a recent address: 'If corruption in the army continues, ideology will decay and open the way for religion, while the promotion system risks causing a mutiny.'

China's People's Daily newspaper declared Friday: 'We must abide by (former Chinese leader) Deng Xiaoping's instructions that China must be under the leadership of the Communist Party. 'If this fundamental principle is altered, China will go backwards, split and fall into chaos,' it warned.

Uighurs Want Dignity, Not ‘Normalcy’

(By Fatima Najm | Arab News)  

Ibrahim had just invested in brand new computers and high speed Internet to upgrade his web business when deadly riots between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese in Urumqi destroyed any hopes he may have had for tapping into the online business market.

As he traces patterns into the dusty surface of his "useless machines," he explains how the Internet blackout that cut Xinjiang's 20 million residents off from the rest of China and the modern world, has also destroyed his website-making business.
Ibrahim is fuming over President Hu Jintao's statements hailing a return to normalcy for the tense region.

"Hundreds of Internet businesses are finished, bankrupt, this is the effect of the government security measures. Where is the economic development? There are hundreds who have been abused or gone missing — they weren't rioting, but they were young and Muslim so where is peace?" On July 5, mobs of enraged Uighurs took to the streets of Urumqi, to protest the killing of two Uighur factory workers at the hands of a Han Chinese mob in Guangdong.
The Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking ethnic group who account for nearly half of Xinjiang's population of 20 million, protested in the streets demanding justice after clashes between Uighur protesters and riot police officers.

The initial protest was held to address the killing of two Uighurs at a factory in southeastern China. Uighurs wanted the culprits that incited a Han Chinese mob to kill Uighur factory workers brought to justice.

In the violence in Urumqi, at least 197 people were killed and 1,721 injured. According to state officials, it was the deadliest ethnic riot in China in decades. In the days that followed, Han mobs armed with butcher knives and axes taped to sticks went into Uighur neighborhoods to seek vengeance. Uighur residents say soldiers headed them off, but not before they had terrorized the neighborhood and destroyed storefronts.

According to a Han businessman: "The protests were organized online, and rumors were spreading online, so government blocked Internet. No texts, no foreign calls, only national calls and I can confirm you that the police is listening. You have to understand Kashgar is spiritually and politically the center for Muslims in China. Uighurs can be influenced by outside elements, their language even looks like Arabic.

"On the dusty streets of Kashgar, life has resumed a normal flow since troops flooded the city after riots paralyzed Urumqi, interrupted only by the mechanical maneuvers of the military as it postures in the streets to deter potential troublemakers.

Tajiks, Kazakh , Pakistani and Afghan traders in their national garb trawl the Sunday bazaar, bargaining for silks and blankets to sell in their own home bazaars.
Women measure out yards of colorful fabric, bargaining down exorbitantly priced beauty creams.

They roam the markets wearing head scarves that cover their hair but leave their neck open, the fabric knotted around the back of their necks: A version of the veil acceptable to the Chinese administration. "You are not allowed to wear the Arabic-style head covering that covers the neck and chest as a government employee or university teacher, you are fired," confides a Uighur youth.

A massive contingent of soldiers stands guard at the Eid Gah mosque in Kashgar in case hostilities erupt between the Turkic-speaking Uighur community and the Han Chinese living in the city.

"The government says it has no problem with Muslims in China and then it sends 500 soldiers to point guns at Uighurs coming out of Kashgar's main mosque the day after riots in Urumqi, of course there will be problems," said Michael, a foreigner working in Kashgar, commenting on a rising tide of resentment against government security measures in Xinjiang.

As he finishes speaking, three military trucks full of soldiers in full riot gear roll by the crowded Uighur roadside café we are sitting at. The soldiers were holding up massive shields and pointing their weapons outwards at an invisible enemy while loudspeakers on top of a truck boomed out a message that translates roughly as: "Don't do anything illegal, to hurt the national unity of the country. There are foreign elements among you, trying to make trouble, report them. National unity must be protected."

About 50,000 soldiers, police and a heavily armed militia called People's Armed Police have flooded cities and towns across Xinjiang in the aftermath of the riots, positioning themselves at entrances to markets, national monuments, and roads that feed into major industrial towns and cities. They stand with their guns pointed outward at the passing crowd.

Driving along the remnants of the ancient silk route from Kashgar to Yarkand to Hotan, as the road winds between majestic mountain passes that dissolve into the sand dunes of the vast Taklamakan dessert, it is easy to forget the region's recent upheaval. But the several road blacks and checkpoints that control the flow of traders and travelers in the region will not allow you to forget.
A thousand kilometers away from the slow-paced frontier towns, Andrew, a foreigner who lives in Urumqi, was shocked to see a photo exhibit detailing the reasons for the riots (The text is in Chinese and it lays the blame on Rebiya Kadeer, a Uighur leader in exile).

"They want everyone to believe that the riot is not a result of an internal history of resentment festering over years, the government says it is caused by outside elements, by what they call 'splitists.' This exhibition will only create more hatred. The real issue is the government has brought masses of Han Chinese from Eastern China to resettle in Xinjiang, given them government jobs and economic incentives and created divisions."

Andrew is watching a Chinese man on the next table, who looks over casually from time to time. He shifts uncomfortably in his seat, but continues: "I had to tell journalist no shots were fired in the riots, but there was shooting all night. Two were shot under my balcony. The people rioting had only knives and sticks, but there was shooting all night, the government used a lot of force," said Andrew.

A merchant selling used books explains: "There are strict checks on Uighurs. Signs outside mosques say government employees, children, and women and working people are all banned from entering or praying. And the government fines those who break the ban heavily. The government allows Uighurs to have two children, but if Allah wills you have five children, then the other three don't get passports or the right to go to school, unless you pay expensive tax." In a warren of passages typical of Uighur neighborhoods, on mud wall that opens into a courtyard, someone has scrawled the word "dignity" in a cursive script that could well be Arabic, Persian or Urdu. What Chinese authorities may not understand is that what Uighurs want is a return to a life with dignity rather than the touted "return to normalcy."

Indian Troops Move to China Border

(By Syed Zarir Hussain, IANS, September 20, 2009)

Tawang (Arunachal Pradesh): India has moved hundreds of troops to the Chinese border along the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, but an army officer said Sunday that this was a routine winter exercise.

A visiting IANS correspondent saw 60 to 70 trucks carrying soldiers proceeding towards the Chinese border in Tawang and nearby posts, snaking through a rough mountainous terrain at an altitude of over 14,000 feet. Army officials denied they were deploying extra soldiers in the forward posts.

According to army commanders, the troop movement was part of 'Operation Alert', a winter exercise that sees soldiers move into inhospitable border areas of Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast ahead of the bitter weather conditions that make the roads impassable due to heavy snowfall. 'There is no threat or no extra forces being sent to the border,' an army commander told IANS requesting not to be named. 'Reports of troop build up are rumours. Don't read too much into army convoys moving to the border.'

Local residents, however, said they had not seen such military activity in recent years. 'The movement of troops has surely increased,' said Moni Lama, a Buddhist monk. The border deployment comes amid persistent reports of Chinese incursions and Beijing's opposition to the visit of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh.

China has denied any incursions by its army into India. And Indian officials say the number of border breaches has shown no dramatic increase to warrant undue worries. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu said: 'We firmly oppose the Dalai (Lama) visiting the so-called 'Arunachal Pradesh'.' China disputes the ownership of Arunachal Pradesh.

India has said that the Dalai Lama is free to travel to any part of the country. The Tibetan spiritual leader has lived in India since fleeing his homeland in 1959 after a failed revolt against Communist rule.

Takam Sanjay, a ruling Congress MP from Arunachal Pradesh, told IANS: 'We welcome the Dalai Lama's visit to Arunachal Pradesh. China has no reason to interfere in India's internal matters.' It is through Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh that the Dalai Lama entered India.

The India-China border along Arunachal Pradesh is separated by the McMahon Line, an imaginary border now known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

India and China fought a border war in 1962, with Chinese troops advancing deep into Arunachal Pradesh and inflicting heavy casualties on poorly armed Indian troops.

The border dispute with China was inherited by India from British rulers, who hosted a 1914 conference with the Tibetan and Chinese governments that set the border in what is now Arunachal Pradesh. China has never recognised the 1914 McMahon Line and claims 90,000 sq km, including nearly all of Arunachal Pradesh. India accuses China of occupying 8,000 sq km in Jammu and Kashmir.

After 1962, tensions flared again in 1986 with Indian and Chinese forces clashing in Sumdorong Chu valley of Arunachal Pradesh. Chinese troops reportedly built a helipad in the valley leading to the fresh skirmishes.