[Billed as the Tibetan
People’s Solidarity Campaign, the four-day gathering featured protests,
marches, Buddhist prayer sessions and political speeches in an attempt to push
Tibet back onto a crowded international agenda. If the Arab Spring has
inspired hope among some Tibetans that political change is always possible, it
has also offered a sobering reminder that no two situations are the same, nor
will the international community respond in the same fashion.]
By Jim Yardley
 |
Freetibet.org, via Associated Press
Ninety-nine Tibetans have set themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule, like this farmer last fall. |
NEW DELHI —
A crowd of Tibetans came here to India’s capital last week, bearing flags and
political banners and a bittersweet mixture of hope and despair. A grim
countdown was under way: The number of Tibetans who have set themselves on fire
to protest Chinese rule in Tibet had
reached 99, one short of an anguished milestone.
Yet as that milestone
hung over the estimated 5,000 Tibetans who gathered in a small stadium, so did
an uncertainty about whether the rest of the world was paying attention at all.
In speeches, Tibetan leaders described the self-immolations as the desperate
acts of a people left with no other way to draw global attention to Chinese
policies in Tibet.
“What is forcing these
self-immolations?” Lobsang Sangay, prime minister of the Tibetan government in
exile, asked in an interview. “There is no freedom of speech. There is no form
of political protest allowed in Tibet.”
Billed as the Tibetan
People’s Solidarity Campaign, the four-day gathering featured protests,
marches, Buddhist prayer sessions and political speeches in an attempt to push
Tibet back onto a crowded international agenda. If the Arab Spring has
inspired hope among some Tibetans that political change is always possible, it
has also offered a sobering reminder that no two situations are the same, nor
will the international community respond in the same fashion.
“The world is paying
attention, but not enough,” Mr. Sangay added. “There was a self-immolation in Tunisia which
was labeled the catalyst for the Arab Spring. We’ve been committed to
nonviolence for many decades. And how come we have been given less support than
what we witnessed in the Arab world?”
Yet even as the
self-immolations have become central to the Tibetan protest movement, a quiet
debate has been under way among Tibetans who are anguished over the deaths of
their young men and who question how the acts reconcile with Buddhist
teachings. Again and again, speakers emphasized that the Tibetan movement
remains nonviolent and that the people who have self-immolated harmed only
themselves.
“None of them have tried
to harm anybody else,” said Penpa Tsering, the speaker of the Tibetan
Parliament, which is based in Dharamsala, the Indian city that is host to the
exiled Tibetan government. “None of the 99 people have tried to harm any
Chinese.”
The Tibetan
self-immolations began in 2009 as protests against China’s rule in Tibetan
regions of the country. At least 81 Tibetans have died after their acts, and
nearly all the self-immolations have occurred inside Tibet, with news smuggled
out via e-mail or through networks of advocacy groups.
The Chinese authorities
have responded by taking a harder line. Last week, a Chinese court handed down
stiff sentences to a Tibetan monk and his nephew on charges
that they had urged eight people to set themselves on fire, according to
Chinese state news media. The monk was given a suspended death sentence,
usually equivalent to life in prison, and the authorities have made it clear
that committing or encouraging the act will be treated as intentional homicide.
(Mr. Sangay said that six others in a different area of Tibet were also given
harsh sentences.)
The Chinese government
has blamed the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, for inciting ordinary
Tibetans to carry out self-immolations. Tibetans rebut the claim, saying the
cause is Chinese repression.
“What are you left
with?” Mr. Penpa asked. “The only thing you can do is sacrifice your life.”
With the Dalai Lama
having ceded political control of the Tibetan government — and having
encouraged the elections that elevated Mr. Sangay, a former lecturer at
Harvard, to prime minister — the Tibetan movement is in flux. To some degree,
last week’s events were part of continued efforts to establish Mr. Sangay and
other democratically elected Tibetan members of Parliament as figures capable
of rallying political support for a movement long dependent on the charisma and
stature of the Dalai Lama. (He did not attend the gathering.)
For more than a half
century, India has been the primary host of exiled Tibetans, and many of the
people who flocked to New Delhi came from special Tibetan villages elsewhere in
the country. Lobsang Thai, 28, who came from Mundgod, a Tibetan village in the
Indian state of Karnataka, said the self-immolations reflected the desperate
situation in Tibet. “I don’t think it is about right or wrong,” he said. “That
is the only thing we can do without hurting other people. That’s the best way
to get the world’s attention.”
Tenzin Losec, 42, who is
from Mainpat, a Tibetan village in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, agreed.
“This is very sad for us,” he said. “But people inside Tibet, they have no
other way. They have no rights. Outside Tibet, we are trying to raise awareness
around the world.”
Tibetan leaders were
determined to portray the week’s events as evidence that the global community,
especially India, supported their aspirations. Lawmakers and other political
figures from India’s leading political parties appeared at different events,
though the government’s top leaders stayed away.
Mr. Sangay and others
want the United Nations to push China to improve conditions in Tibet and also
to allow inspectors to tour the region. “The Chinese government should feel
pressure to do something,” he said. “This is leading to a vicious cycle:
hard-line policies, protests, repression, more hard-line policies, more
protests, more repression.”
@ The New York Times
TALIBAN MILITANTS ATTACK PAKISTANI BASE
By Salman Masood And Ismail
Khan
Salman Masood reported from Islamabad, and
Ismail Khan from Peshawar, Pakistan. Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud contributed
reporting from Islamabad.
@ The new York Times
TALIBAN MILITANTS ATTACK PAKISTANI BASE
[The
ferocity of the attack, which appeared to have been well planned and
coordinated, took security officials by surprise, and they speculated that the
attackers came from the neighboring lawless semiautonomous tribal regions,
where the government has traditionally had little sway.]
By Salman Masood And Ismail
Khan
The brazen assault took place in the restive
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province just a day after a
suicide bombing near a mosque in
another northwestern town, Hangu, killed at least 26 people.
A spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, commonly known
as the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility and said the attack was to
avenge the death of two Taliban commanders killed in American drone strikes.
According to initial details, Taliban militants, armed with
heavy machine guns, fired rockets in the predawn assault at the base in Serai
Norang in the Lakki Marwat district, setting off a heavy gun battle that lasted
for several hours.
A Pakistani Army official, speaking on the condition of
anonymity, said that 12 militants were killed in the assault.
“Bodies of four terrorists, out of which two were wearing
suicide jackets, are in custody of security forces,” the official said.
Eighteen members of the security forces were wounded in the
attack and were sent for treatment to a military hospital in Peshawar, the
provincial capital.
During the attack, one of the suicide bombers entered a
house near the camp and detonated his explosives, killing the women and
children, the official said.
Pakistani officials described the base as “an isolated
camp” and one of the three bases set up two years ago to wrest Lakki Marwat
from the control of Taliban militants.
The ferocity of the attack, which appeared to have been
well planned and coordinated, took security officials by surprise, and they
speculated that the attackers came from the neighboring lawless semiautonomous
tribal regions, where the government has traditionally had little sway.
“We are trying to piece together evidence,” a security
official said.
Lakki Marwat borders the tribal region of South Waziristan,
a rugged frontier that is a redoubt of Taliban militants.
Large-scale Taliban assaults, involving several dozen
fighters, are not unprecedented and indicate the extent of the challenge posed
to the embattled security forces.
In the most recent such attack in December, several dozen
Taliban militants kidnapped 22 tribal police officers after attacking security
checkpoints on the outskirts of Peshawar. One police officer escaped but the
rest were killed.
The Pakistani Army provided few details about the assault
on Saturday and the subsequent operation to clear out the area.
But army officials maintained that the assault was
successfully repulsed. The exact number of attackers remained unclear.
The Taliban spokesman, Ihsanullah Ihsan, who said in a
telephone interview the attack was in retaliation for the killings of two
Taliban commanders, identified one of the commanders as Wali Muhammad, also
known as Toofani Mehsud. He was killed in an American drone strike on Jan. 6 in
the tribal region of South Waziristan and was known as a trainer of suicide
bombers.
The country’s lawless tribal regions have been a haven for
local and foreign militants and as a result have been a frequent target of
American drone strikes. Pakistan’s Parliament has repeatedly demanded an end to
drone strikes, but Pakistani officials privately acknowledge the effectiveness
of such attacks.
