THE CHINESE OCCUPATION :
Timeline of the Occupation:
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In 1949 , the Chinese Communists, led by Mao Tse-tung, overthrew the Chinese nationalist government and took control of China. |
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In 1950 , with the intent of achieving strategic advantage in Asia, China sent its People's Liberation Army on an invasionary expedition into eastern Tibet, occupying the provinces of Kham and Amdo. They begin the propaganda campaign that suggests they were "liberating" the Tibetan people. Tibetans laughed initially at their motives wondering who they could possibly be liberated from since they were not oppressed.
On 7 October 1950, 40,000 Chinese troops under Political Commissar, Wang Qiemi, attacked Eastern Tibet's provincial capital of Chamdo, from eight directions. The small Tibetan force, consisting of 8,000 troops and militia, were defeated. After two days, Chamdo was taken and Kalon (Minister) Ngapo Ngawang Jigme, the Regional Governor, was captured. Over 4,000 Tibetan fighters were killed.
On 17 November 1950 , at the age of fifteen, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama was enthroned as Tibet's absolute ruler. |
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In 1951, the Tibetan delegate, appointed by Dalai Lama, to pacify the invading Chinese army, signed the Seventeen Point Agreement which was ratified by the Dalai Lama a few months later. The agreement stated that:
"The Central Authorities will not alter the existing political system in Tibet. The Central Authorities also will not alter the established status, functions and powers of the Dalai Lama. Officials of various ranks shall hold office as usual, guarantees freedom of religion and that the Central Authorities will not effect any change in the income of the monasteries." Among other points. None of those points have been followed.
Contrary to China's claim in its White Paper, the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government did not act voluntarily in signing the "Agreement". In fact, Mao Zedong himself, in the Directive of Central Committee of CPC on the Policies for our Work in Tibet, issued on 6 April 1952, admitted:
(N)ot only the two Silons (i.e., prime ministers) but also the Dalai and most of his clique were reluctant to accept the Agreement and are unwilling to carry it out. ... As yet we do not have a material base for fully implementing the agreement, nor do we have a base for this purpose in terms of support among the masses or in the upper stratum. [Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, Vol. 5, Foreign Language Press, Peking, 1977, p.75]
On 9 September 1951, around 3,000 Chinese troops marched into Lhasa, soon followed by some 20,000 more, from eastern Tibet and from Eastern Turkestan (Xinjiang) in the north. The PLA occupied the principal cities of Ruthok and Gartok, and then Gyangtse and Shigatse. With the occupation of all the major cities of Tibet, including Lhasa, and large concentration of troops throughout eastern and western Tibet, the military control of Tibet was virtually complete. From this position, China refused to re-open negotiations and the Dalai Lama had effectively lost the ability to either accept or reject any Tibet-China agreement. |
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On March 10th, 1959 , after nine years of fruitless attempts at negotiations between the governments of China and Tibet, People's "Liberation" Army forces already in Lhasa moved to kidnap and assassinate the Dalai Lama. He received a warning that he was to meet with chinese authorities ALONE. Leading the people of Lhasa to rise up in rebellion. They pleaded for the Dalai Lama not to meet with the Chinese authorities and to leave the country, which he had refused to do until that point.
March 10 is celebrated by Tibetans until this day as Tibetan Uprising Day.
Almost 90,000 men, women and children were killed in the three months after the March 10th uprising, and tens of thousands were imprisoned, as all of Tibet was occupied by the PLA.
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On March 17th, 1959 , to put down the uprising, the PLA opened cannon fire on Lhasa, and the Dalai Lama was forced to flee into exile amidst the attacks.
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May 16, 1966 China launched its "Cultural Revolution" which meant the destruction of everything old. All cultural, historical and religious artifacts, buildings, musical and religious traditions were destroyed and/or banned.
Over 6,000 of Tibet's 6,200 monasteries were looted and destroyed during China's “cultural revolution,” and most of their irreplaceable religious texts and artworks have been lost. |
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In March 1989 Tibet was put under Martial Law for the second time in its history. Between 1987 and 1992 alone, there had been over 150 demonstrations in Lhasa and other parts of Tibet, some small but others very large. The Chinese troops suppressed most of these demonstrations with brutal force. |
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In March 2008 a new wave of protests occurs following Tibetan Uprising Day .
On March 16 2008, thousands of Tibetan monks of Amdo Ngaba Kirti Monastery, in Ngaba County into spontaneous protest by raising slogans calling for "Tibet independence", "return of the Dalai Lama", "freedom for Tibet" with carrying the banned Tibetan national flag. In moment's time, the Chinese security police burst into the Monastery campus and lobbed tear gas on the Tibetan protestors. On the streets, the guards started arresting and beating the monks, some of which had managed to walk 5 miles while protesting. In response to the brutality of the guards, after watching the monks being beaten and arrested, the Tibetans began protesting while burning Chinese signs and stores. The police reacted by shooting unarmed people. Over 100 people have been killed.
Their protests were matched by hundreds of Protests all over the world. |
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NOTES:
Since the take over China has been responsible for the death of over 1.2 million Tibetans. In the whole of Tibet, it is estimated that there are over 7.5 million Chinese, thus reducing the six million Tibetans to a minority on their own land. The Tibetans are not only marginalised socially, economically and politically, but the very survival of their identity as Tibetans is severely threatened.
The Chinese Government tries to depict the popular resistance of Tibetans as the work of a who wish to restore the old system of exploitation and oppression of the Tibetan masses. It depicts 95 per cent of the Tibetans as having been serfs, brutally oppressed by a small number of aristocrats and lamas. What China cannot explain is why these allegedly oppressed masses never rose up against their masters, despite the fact that Tibet did not have a national police force and for most of its history had no strong army. Yet, these same Tibetans did rise up, and still do today, against the massive security apparatus and army of China, knowing the tremendous risk they take. If we look at the social composition of the Tibetans involved in the successive uprisings and demonstrations, more than 80 per cent of them are not aristocrats and high lamas. Furthermore, more than 85 per cent of Tibetans in exile belong to what the Chinese would call "serf class". |
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