Al Jazeera has a great piece on Tibet, including an interview with Tenzin Dorjee of Students for a Free Tibet.

I spent yesterday lobbying Congress on Tibet in my capacity as a Board member of Students for a Free Tibet and as a supporter of Tibetan freedom and rights. With me were about 150 Tibetans and supporters, meeting with House and Senate offices from across the country. It was a powerful statement of the involvement of the Tibetan exile community in American politics and the embrace of American democracy by Tibetan immigrants, while still looking for an end to China’s military occupation of Tibet.

Today – March 10th, 2009 – marks the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan national uprising, which began in Lhasa and provided the opportunity for the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government to escape the Chinese military and relocate to India.  China first invaded Tibet in 1949. By 1959 there was a tense atmosphere, marked by armed resistance in many parts of Tibet. The Chinese military completely occupied Lhasa. Reports broke that the Chinese were going to attack the Dalai Lama, so hundreds of thousands of Tibetans surrounded the Dalai Lama’s summer palace, the Norbulinka. The Chinese military proceeded to bomb and shell it, as well as the Potala Palace, the Dalai Lama’s main residence in Lhasa. In secrecy, the Dalai Lama was able to escape. The Chinese were not aware of his absence for over two weeks.

The following 50 years of Chinese military occupation have resulted in the death of 1.2 million Tibetans, the destruction of nearly all of the religious institutions in Tibet, population transfer of ethnic Han Chinese to the point that Tibetans are a minority in their own country,  and the rape of one of the most important ecosystems in the world. Despite these drastic offenses, the Tibetan spirit and desire for freedom has not been extinguished. In the last year we have witnessed massive, passionate, peaceful protests across Tibet. These have not been limited to the small area defined by the Chinese government as Tibet, but stand out as a clear demarcation of the real borders of Tibet, as they stood more than 60 years ago.

China has turned Tibet, an area that makes up a quarter of their landmass and about the size of Western Europe, into the world’s largest prison. Cell phones are offline between March 10th and April 1st, an effort by the government to shut down Tibetans’ ability to communicate with each other and with the outside world. The internet inside Tibet is blocked. Foreign journalists are not allowed inside any part of Tibet. Foreign tourists have been banned from Tibet for over a month. In short, the only way information can get out of Tibet is by Tibetans who put their lives on the line to communicate with the outside world, often on lines of communication that are being monitored by Chinese security.

With all this going on, it’s not shocking that the Dalai Lama’s March 10th statement is a step forward in terms of his rhetoric and his willingness to not pull punches when describing the current situation.

Having occupied Tibet, the Chinese Communist government carried out a series of repressive and violent campaigns that have included “democratic” reform, class struggle, communes, the Cultural Revolution, the imposition of martial law, and more recently the patriotic re-education and the strike hard campaigns. These thrust Tibetans into such depths of suffering and hardship that they literally experienced hell on earth….

These 50 years have brought untold suffering and destruction to the land and people of Tibet. Even today, Tibetans in Tibet live in constant fear and the Chinese authorities remain constantly suspicious of them. Today, the religion, culture, language and identity, which successive generations of Tibetans have considered more precious than their lives, are nearing extinction; in short, the Tibetan people are regarded like criminals deserving to be put to death….

If Chinese leaders had any objections to our proposals, they could have provided reasons for them and suggested alternatives for our consideration, but they did not. I am disappointed that the Chinese authorities have not responded appropriately to our sincere efforts to implement the principle of meaningful national regional autonomy for all Tibetans, as set forth in the constitution of the People’s Republic of China.

Lhadon Tethong writes about this March 10th on Tibet Will Be Free, providing a much better contextualization of what’s really happening and how Tibetans are responding.

I am constantly moved by the incredible support that Tibetans receive from people of conscience all over the world. If it were up to the people, Tibet would have been freed a long time ago.

And, in times like these, when Tibetans inside Tibet are being so viciously terrorized by the Chinese authorities, global solidarity actions are like a light in the darkness – giving us all the morale boost we need to keep moving forward.

Already today, hundreds of people held an emotional rally at the Chinese embassy in Canberra while monks across Japan held prayer ceremonies and vigils for Tibetans suffering under Chinese rule. And Tibet Initiative Deutschland in Germany reported that 996 mayors will raise the Tibetan flag. They said last year the number was 922. This year, 11 dropped out due to Chinese government pressure but 85 new ones joined.

I’ll have more updates throughout the day.

Tyranny and brutality will not win out. After fifty years of occupation, it’s time for the Chinese government to recognize that no amount of suffering will force Tibetans to cease in the desire for their birth right of a free nation and human rights. The time to end the occupation is now.

The Times of London’s Jane Macartney reports:

About a quarter of China’s territory, an area the size of Western Europe, has been closed off to foreigners. Thousands of troops and paramilitary police have been deployed in Tibetan-populated regions amid fears of a renewed outburst of the anti-Chinese violence that rocked the region a year ago. Winding mountain roads have been clogged for days with convoys of armoured military trucks and coaches bringing in reinforcements.

Two counties of western Sichuan province, where some of the biggest demonstrations erupted last year, have been virtually cut off already from the outside world. Their internet and mobile phone systems have been blocked. From tomorrow, mobile phone users in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, will find that they are virtually unable to communicate.

A message sent out by the mobile telephone company in the city late last week notified subscribers that the system would be undergoing maintenance from March 10 to April 1. “Please forgive any inconvenience caused,” it said.

The authorities are fearful of a repeat of the unrest last year when Tibetans used text messages to communicate details of new demonstrations against Chinese rule in the vast and sparsely populated Himalayan region. Protests spread swiftly among distant Tibetan communities on a scale unseen since the 1959 uprising.

A Chinese-language website catering for Tibetans closed for repairs on Friday. The popular website featured news from China’s state-run media and Government, as well as cultural and Buddhist content.

This massive censorship and silencing of Tibetans is the lastest extreme measure in China’s crackdown on Tibet.

Oh and the title of Macartney’s article? “MONKS TAKEN FOR ‘RE-EDUCATION’ BEFORE TIBET UPRISING ANNIVERSARY”.

The rounding up of 109 monks from Lutsang monastery in Qinghai province, western China, is one of a series of extraordinary security measures being implemented to prevent restive Tibetans from commemorating the anniversary with protests against Chinese rule.

The other extreme measures being the shut down of the cell networks and internet, along with shutting off all of Tibet from tourists and the media, and putting tens of thousands of more troops inside Tibet.

The Sydney Morning Herald has an amazing profile of three Tibetans who fought during the 1959 national uprising against Chinese occupiers and as a result spent a combined 53 years in jail. With all the focus on what’s going on inside Tibet today, it’s a good reminder of what happened during the first ten years of China’s occupation of Tibet that lead to the massive and violent resistance that escalated in 1959, as well as the brutality of the Chinese military’s response.

Lhadon Tethong provides new updates about continued protest and defiance by Tibetans inside Tibet.

The New York Times Edward Wong again has a long, featured front page article on Tibet. It seems Wong was detained by Chinese paramilitary for trying to get into Tibet, albeit in areas outside the T.A.R. and in areas that do not have bans on foreign visitors. Along his way, Wong was able to find strong evidence of the impact of China’s harsh crackdown on Tibetans and vast militarization of Tibet:

There are no signs of protests now, residents say, because the town is completely locked down. Recent photographs taken in Xiahe show riot police officers marching in the streets.

“The security forces are everywhere, on every corner, day and night,” said a Tibetan woman reached by telephone. “Don’t come here.”

She paused when asked her opinion about the current situation. “We Tibetans who do business, we’re under a lot of pressure,” she said. “We have to keep quiet. I can’t say I disagree with the policies of the Chinese. It’s their country, and we’re only a minority.”

Like others interviewed for this article, she declined to give her name for fear of government reprisal.

It’s good to see the Times continuing to focus on Tibet and Wong’s reporting has been some of the best in recent weeks. Clearly, though, this article and others like it are about March 10th and what may happen inside Tibet on the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan national uprising.

China’s ban on foreigners to Tibet (the T.A.R. and Tibetan regions annexed to Chinese provinces), as well as the long standing media ban into Tibet, means it will be very difficult for the world to know what happens next week. Last year, the national uprising came as a surprise. There were journalists and many tourists inside Tibet to document the peaceful Tibetan protests which lead to violent Chinese response and subsequent rioting and greater protests. If such events happen this year, news of them will only come out by Tibetans risking their lives to tell the world. This is a deeply troubling fact and one that the Chinese government has worked hard to create through their draconian lock down of Tibet.

Lhadon Tething-only episode of SFT’s Our Nation (Her Nation?) with updates on Tapey, the rock band Oasis being banned in China for performing at a Free Tibet concert in 1997, and the Chinese government white paper on Tibet that I posted on yesterday.

It’s official, the Chinese government wants you to laugh at them:

But a government policy document and the People’s Daily, the paper of the China’s ruling Communist Party, both said contention over the remote mountain region was stoked by Western governments and groups seeking to contain the country’s rise.

“It is thus clear that the so-called ‘Tibet issue’ is by no means an ethnic, religious and human rights issue; rather, it is the Western anti-China forces attempt to restrain, split and demonize China,” said a policy “white paper” issued by the State Council Information Office, a publicity arm of the government.

Such white papers are used to sum up official thinking on issues.

This is just rich. Official Chinese government policy is to blame their massive internal problems on Westerners. It’s hard to believe that this is really meant for anything other than ginning up internal nationalistic xenophobia to bolster the ruling Communist Party. Either they’re promoting this sort of vitriolic hate out of self-interest or out of delusion. Neither prospect is encouraging for the ability for China to be a respected peer in the global community.

Lhadon Tethong, executive director of Students for a Free Tibet, has a must-read post up on Tibet Will Be Free about the similarities between this year’s protests inside Tibet and last year’s national uprising.

News from Tibet says that there are protests here and there. All of us on the outside are scrambling to find out the details. We call Dharamsala, New York, London, Beijing, trying to work out what exactly happened. Once we piece together the story we take it to the world.

Again there are so few images. And so far, no moving images. No video. Nothing to show on TV.

But it is happening and everyone knows. We know. 6 million Tibetans and hundreds of thousands of Chinese police, soldiers and officials know.

Just like last year, and the year before that, and fifty years before that, there is a heroic battle raging at the highest point of the earth. It is a test of wills between a people with nothing but faith and a State without a soul.

I know the people will win. They always do when they have this kind of feeling.

As if to prove her point, today we find out that monks in Sey monastery have held a mass demonstration calling for greater rights and freedom.

There is an imperative in the search for freedom. On a long enough time scale, the life expectancy of every dictatorship, every unjust occupation, drops to zero. The Chinese Communist Party has ruled Tibet with an iron fist for what is about the outside edge of most modern dictatorial occupations – over half a century. In this time, they have not come close to extinguishing the Tibetan fire for freedom.

I spent a good amount of time while I was growing up going to school in Ireland. As a result, I also spent a good amount of time learning about the history of England’s occupation of Ireland and the eventual creation of a free republic in twenty-six of Ireland’s thirty-two counties. One of the most important events in the march towards independence for Ireland was the 1916 Easter Uprising, a failed attempt by Irish Republicans to cast off English rule through a poorly executed national violent uprising. Though poor communications, informants, and not enough popular support doomed the Easter Uprising to failure, it played a critical role nonetheless. The English government enacted a harsh crackdown on the Irish Republican Brotherhood, sending over 3,500 people to jail. They executed fifteen of the rebellions leaders, though some had little to nothing to do with it. These harsh actions did more to galvanize public support for Republicanism than the uprising itself.  England created martyrs for Ireland and their response hastened the end of their occupation in Ireland.

Last year’s national uprising was undoubtedly an expression of Tibetan’s unwavering desire to be free, a desire shared by all people. The sentiment was felt across Tibet, in all areas and amongst all sorts of people – monks and nuns, nomads and herders, city dwellers and business owners. Last year’s uprising happened because Tibetans want to be free.

But this year there is an added factor, something we see in many of the quotes coming out to the press. China killed thousands of Tibetans in last year’s crackdown on uprising, according to Tibetans inside Tibet. Thousands more have been disappeared and even more languish in jail. Tim Johnson of McClatchy News quoted one Tibetan herder saying: ““After I die, my sons and grandsons will remember. They will hate the government.” This is what China has wrought with their iron-fisted rule.

China’s crackdown on Tibetans, their use of massive shows of military and police force, surveillance cameras, travel restrictions, harsh prison sentences for thought crimes, and violence in response to peaceful protest had added fuel to the fire inside Tibet. Tibetans still know they deserve rights and freedom and they are speaking out for it. But China’s actions have only created a greater imperative for freedom in the minds of Tibetans inside Tibet. They are saying so in their few interviews with western reporters or contacts in the outside world. But more importantly, they are doing so with their continued acts of fearless protest, for they know the consequences for the words they say, the songs and prayers they chant, the pictures they hold, and the banned flag they wave.

Like Lhadon, I agree that the people will win. I hope that Tibetan’s inside Tibet know this too. And as we saw with the tight lockdown of the latest media junket to Tibet, China seems to know it as well and are reacting in the only way that most assures Tibetans will continue their drive towards freedom. It is happening and everyone knows.

Lhadon and Tendor talk about the self-immolation and shooting of a young Tibetan monk, Tape.

I’m also now hearing reports that when Tape was shot, he was shouting “Long live the Dalai Lama!” He was carrying a homemade Tibet flag with an image of the Dalai Lama on it — both of those symbols are banned by China.