China has worsened its already damaged reputation by sending in troops to ‘deal with’ groups of monks who have been holding peaceful demonstrations in monasteries all over Tibet. The Dragon seems to be somewhat rattled by the fact that such demonstrations have been steadily increasing in Tibet and are now at their highest peak in the last twenty years.
The latest series of atrocities to make it into global news networks consisted of China making a widely criticized decision to send in the armed forces into the Tibetan capital to break up and discourage peaceful demonstrations. The Drepung and Sera monasteries in Lhasa have been surrounded by troops and police this week in an effort to stem the tide of demonstrations across Tibet, which have steadily been increasing over the last few decades and now seem to have reached a peak. China seems to be unnerved enough to send in armed forces at the risk of incurring the wrath of the world. These two monasteries may also pose a threat to China since they are known as firmly rooted strongholds of Tibetan ethnicity. Drepung and Sera were the centers around which the Tibetan forces had gathered almost sixty years ago before the Dalai Lama was forced into exile in India.
Meanwhile, the peaceful protests in Tibet are taking on violent overtones as reports are coming in on monks mutilating themselves to mark their dissatisfaction over the state that their country is in. two monks who slashed themselves this week are in critical condition. Other means of protests taken up by those in the monasteries include hunger strikes and self imposed sleep deprivation. Protests have intensified over the last two days, and China continues to maintain the stand that it will squash what it claims to be the Dalai Lama’s efforts to ‘disrupt peace’ at the roof of the world. Many would beg to differ, stating that there has been no ‘peace’ to speak of in Tibet ever since it was invaded by China.
Despite the fact that neither the United Nations nor any other country in the world has defied China to recognize Tibet as a nation in its own right, activists upholding the Tibetan freedom movement all over the world have been outraged at China’s latest method of dealing with Tibetan dissenters. Nuns and monks all over Tibet have been imprisoned, tortured or made to ‘disappear’ for expressing solidarity with the Tibetan freedom movement and allegiance to the Dalai Lama, a phenomenon that China is finding it increasingly difficult to quell without attracting the world’s attention. Whether they’re doing anything about it or not, Tibetan refugees and exiles the world over as well as their friends and helpers have been keeping a sharp eye on China’s treatment of Tibetans still in their home country.
One wonders why western governments are focusing all their attention on West Asia while the Tibetans could use a hand—but perhaps the answers are more direct and profit-oriented than that. Those sympathetic to the Tibetan plight all over the world can only continue to watch helplessly as the peaceful people are forced to endure political as well as personal submission and authoritarian rule, in what is rapidly becoming the most untalked about, most one sided and most unfair battle in the world.