Dharamshala: We are gathered here today to observe a momentous solemn occasion marking the 65th anniversary of the 10th of March 1959 when the general masses of the public from across the three provinces of the Snowland of Tibet held a spontaneous, peaceful uprising in capital Lhasa – a historic event which can hardly be forgotten through generations of Tibetan people. It is also an occasion when we commemorate the patriotism of the heroic Tibetan men and women who have sacrificed their all, including their very lives, for the Tibetan national and religious causes. To the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile, this is also an occasion to express empathy and admiration for the Tibetan people who have lost their lives in an untimely manner for the sake of the Tibetan national and religious causes under the oppression and persecution of the Chinese government, as well as for fellow-Tibetans who continue to endure torture under Chinese rule even to this day for their selflessness, courage, and sacrifices. And so, it is also an occasion for us to express our solidarity with them, and to offer our condolences and veneration as a way to memorialise them for their heroic contributions.
Following the founding of the so-called People’s Republic of China on the 1st day of October in 1949, the Communist Party of China began its armed invasion of Tibet in the name of liberating it. His Holiness the Dalai Lama had to assume the temporal and spiritual leadership of Tibet at the age of 16. Following it, for more than nine years, His Holiness prioritised achieving a peaceful settlement with the Chinese government for the sake of ensuring peace in the country and safeguarding the lives of the Tibetan people. This was the circumstance in which the Chinese government, in 1951, exerted duress to compel the government of Tibet to sign a 17-Point Agreement. But the government of China violated each and every term of this “agreement”, even though having dictated all of them by itself. And when the communist Chinese government finally bared its true face by plotting a vicious plan which was patently perceived to pose a threat to the life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the general masses of the Tibetan public could no longer bear the situation. This was the development which led to the peaceful Tibetan uprising in the Tibetan capital Lhasa. The communist Chinese government responded by launching a large-scale violent repression with a massive use of its armed force across the Tibetan nation. The development finally compelled His Holiness the Dalai Lama, along with around eighty thousand Tibetan people, to flee into exile.
It has now been more than 70 years since the communist Chinese government launched an armed invasion of Tibet. During this period, more than a million Tibetan people have died under untimely conditions. Many thousands of places of worship and religious study have been destroyed completely, even as the outer territorial vessel and the inner human and natural riches of Tibet continue to be plundered and destroyed. In addition, the government of China has been unrelenting in its diabolical efforts to obliterate the religious, cultural, linguistic and other aspects of attributes which define the identity of the Tibetan people. Thus, by impoverishing the Tibetans who are the sovereign owners of their motherland, including by depriving them of their fundamental human rights under its brutal policies, the government of China has put the Tibetan people in a situation which continues to this day, as if the limitless suffering of the agony of hell has materialized on the land of living human beings. The truth of the criticalness of this situation can be gauged, by way of an example, from what happened after large-scale peaceful protests erupted mainly in Tibet’s capital Lhasa in 2008 and soon spread throughout the three historical provinces of the country, and which is now referred to as the great Earth-Rat Year Tibetan Protest Campaign. The communist Chinese government responded by deploying its armed forces whose overwhelming use of firearms to attack the peacefully protesting Tibetans led to the massacre of great many of them, both monastic and lay, men as well as women. Likewise, the suffering of the Tibetan people under the brutalness and violence of the communist Chinese government has been of such intensity that many of them could not bear to live under the situation anymore. Despaired by feelings of utter hopelessness, fuelled by such a repressive situation, a total of 157 Tibetans have carried out self-immolation protests since the year 2009 – this being the number known and verified to our knowledge. But despite the enormity of such a tragedy, the leadership of the communist Chinese government has refused to take any interest to try to understand the concerns of the Tibetan people. On the contrary, it has continued to keep strengthening the brutality of its already erroneously repressive policies and control systems. Besides, while addressing international forums, China speaks of achieving socio-economic development as advancement of human rights and has sought to point to this as evidence that Tibet has progressed and that its people are happy. This is a totally false canard spread by the government of China in an attempt to deceive and mislead governments and peoples across the world, with a design to conceal the true picture of the critical situation there.
All across Tibet, spanning all its three historical provinces, China has, under calls to safeguard national security and ensure social stability, carried out arrests and imprisonments of great many Tibetans. These have especially targeted lamas, tulkus, and geshes, as well as other monks and nuns; authors and artists; environmental activists; teachers and others. A section of these victims has remained disappeared, with their parents, siblings and other relatives having been kept in the dark on their whereabouts for many months and even years. Apart from that, Special Rapporteurs of the United Nations Human rights Council have recently established that China had isolated more than one million Tibetan children from their parents and placed them in separate boarding schools where they are prevented from studying and practicing their language and cultural traditions. In this way, the United Nations human rights experts have exposed China’s ongoing implementation on the Tibetan people of a nakedly coercive “one nation, one culture, one religion, one language” policy. Besides, it has also been established that China has been carrying out a discriminatory policy with large-scale coercive collection of DNA samples of Tibetan people, which included even primary school children.
During the Universal Periodic Review of China’s human rights record carried out recently by the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, a section of government delegates felt constrained to make recommendations calling on Beijing to put an immediate end to its implementation of a policy of assimilation that threatened the survival of the identity of the Tibetan people. Likewise, on the 29th of February this year, the United States-based international human rights organization Freedom House released its 2024 survey report, showing an overall score of zero out of hundred for freedom in Tibet under Chinese rule, measured in terms of the state of political rights and civil liberties there.
From the 14th of February this year, one of the ongoing critical situations in Tibet has been concerned with the Chinese government’s plan to build a major hydroelectric power dam complex in Dege area of Kham on the Drichu river. The project is sited on an area which includes ancestrally inhabited Tibetan villages as well as Tibetan Buddhist monasteries built many centuries ago. For the purpose of implementing this project, the Chinese government is coercing thousands of residents of some 12 Tibetan villages on the east bank of Drichu river as well as of many Tibetan villages on the west bank of the river to relocate. Also, for the same purpose, the Chinese government has announced the planned destruction of temples with long histories and which contain numerous sacred relics and priceless ancient murals. These include the Wontoe Gonpa, Yena Gon, Khardho Gon, Rabten Gon, Gonsar Gon, Tashi Gon, Lhadang Gon, and Githo Gon. The Tibetan residents of the affected sites held a peaceful assembly and sought to submit a petition. However, they were suddenly swooped on by a large body of Chinese police who carried out indiscriminate arrest and beating of the Tibetan people. Many of them had to be rushed to hospital as a result of the severity of the beating they had received. And the violent crackdown ended with a mass arrest of some one thousand Tibetans from both monastic and lay communities. The Chinese government also imposed severe restrictions on the movement of the local Tibetan people. News reports and evidences of the developments in this serious situation in Tibet have appeared and continue to feature on the global online media and other outlets. These have become basis for officials of the Chinese government both at the centre and at the local levels to feel a sense of shame. Besides, the global publicity on these developments have made clear to the international community the destruction the government of China has wrought on the outer territorial vessel and the inner human and natural riches of Tibet, as well as the endlessness of the campaign of repression it has been carrying out on the Tibetan people. It is only to be expected that we demand that all the innocent and peaceful Dege Tibetans who had been arrested be released immediately, and to demand in clear terms to the government of China that the hopes and aspirations of the Tibetan people be respected.
Just recently, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, based at Dharamshala, India, published a report titled “Chinese Transnational Repression of Tibetan Diaspora Communities, 2024”. The report said that the state security agencies of the Chinese government have been actively seeking to further sever connections between Tibetans in exile and their relatives living in Tibet by making communication technically impossible; that they have been spying on exiled Tibetans to collect personal information with a view to use them to infiltrate and sabotage diaspora networks, including through disinformation campaigns; and that they use threats to prevent Tibetans from attending gatherings being addressed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, including His religious teachings. The report also speaks about the immense mental torture being inflicted on the Tibetan people by the Chinese government. Likewise, on the 6th of September in 2023, the monitoring and research group Tibet Watch based in England published a report titled “Weaponising big data; Decoding Chinese Digital Surveillance in Tibet”. This report said that China was forcing the Tibetan people to compulsorily install in their mobile handsets its “National Anti-Fraud Centre” app so as to be able to control all aspects of their behaviour – their movement, stay, and activities. The report said that the app spies on the personal information and activities of the Tibetan people, thus threatening their privacy and security. This makes it clear that it is not just Tibetans living under China’s repressive rule in Tibet but also those living in free countries in exile that the leaders of the communist Chinese government have targeted for intimidation and oppression. Now that this has been established and has obviously become an open knowledge, we appeal to the international community to make efforts to put an end to this nefarious practice of the Chinese government.
Tibet was a historically fully independent country. And it has remained under illegal occupation of the communist Chinese government over the past more than 60 years. The communist Chinese government has been claiming that Tibet has been part of China since ancient times. And it has been employing deceit to compel the international community to subscribe to this position by endorsing its “One China” policy. However, the leaders of the communist Chinese government must realize that it is not possible to deceive the people of the twenty-first century with this sort of false claim. The Central Tibetan Administration has, over the past several decades, adhered to the mutually beneficial Middle Way Policy for reaching a solution on the Sino-Tibetan dispute. In keeping with it, though the Tibetan side has also presented to the Chinese government a “Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People”. Yet the government of China has failed to address it with responsibility. “You can’t clap with one hand,” as the old saying goes. The ball is still in the Chinese government’s court.
It is thanks solely to the enormous efforts made by His Holiness the Great 14th Dalai Lama over many years that governments and peoples in the international community have continued to extend high level of support for the issue of Tibet and the Tibetan people. It was in this milieu that on the 15th of February this year, a legislative Bill titled “Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act (HR 533)” was adopted with a high level of bipartisan majority support in the United States House of Representatives, for which the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile wishes to express its warm acknowledgement. On behalf of the Tibetan people living in Tibet as well as those living in exile, we wish to express immense heartfelt gratitude to Representative Jim McGovern and Representative Michael McCaul who both introduced the Bill, and all the other House members who voted for it.
Over the past several years, there has been a continuing decline in respect for the communist Chinese government in the international community. Sharp internal divisions and disputes are clearly visible across the Chinese nation. There has been a continuing decline in the country’s economic growth. The trouble in the real estate sector has been such that there has been a sharp decline in the market value of many of them, including even cases of bankruptcies, resulting in large-scale losses of jobs and incomes. People in China continue to face growing struggle in their day-to-day living. And the number of people finding themselves in desperate economic situation and protesting against the government has been increasing. Besides, in a country where freedom of speech and expression is non-existent, the phenomenon of people writing and putting up posters on open walls, criticizing the government and top leaders of China, has become all too evident. Given such and other worsening developments, it has become hard for anyone to predict how long the present Communist Party of China-led government will endure. In a situation like this, it is eminent for the Tibetan people living in exile to consolidate their strength and capability.
The Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile has continued to be active in making efforts to advance the Tibetan cause both internationally and within India, with its members having been divided into delegations to undertake travels for this purpose. The delegations have visited most of the states in India, to raise awareness and advocate the issue of Tibet and lobby support, achieving appreciable results. We will continue our efforts to garner more supporters from across the world by carrying out more awareness raising and lobbying activities for Tibet.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama has devolved all his political power to the elected leadership, as His ardent desire to not depend on one single person for the running of Tibetan administration. In line with it, a resolution to constitute a Rules and Regulations Review Committee was passed by the fifth session of the current Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile and its report was delivered to the parliament’s secretariat on the 28th of February this year. This report will be presented in the soon to be held, upcoming 7th session of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile. In order that the recommendation in this report could be incorporated in the relevant legislations, I earnestly express hope that all those in the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile upon whom this responsibility lies will be able to overcome difficulties with application of mind and intelligence to make a success of it.
Over the last more than 60 years of our living in exile, host India and its people, the United States of America, and Europe, as well as governments and peoples in other parts of the world, besides various groups and organizations as well as private individuals, have extended support and provided help and relief for Tibet and the Tibetan people. To all of them, I take the opportunity provided by this solemn occasion to express our heartfelt gratitude.
Finally, I pray that His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the great protector and refuge of the sacred teachings and sentient beings, may live for a hundred aeons, that all his great wishes may be seen fulfilled with utmost spontaneity, that the just cause of Tibet may be definitely seen to prevail, so that that the auspicious sunrise of happiness in which Tibetans in Tibet and those living in exile shall be reunited may dawn in all speediness.
The Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile
10 March 2024
* In case of any discrepancy between this English translation and its Tibetan original, the latter should be considered as authoritative and final for all purposes.
