Here’s another great Al Jazeera clip from yesterday. In the video are SFT’s deputy director Tenzin Dorjee and SFT Board member Yangchen Lhamo, who deals with some especially tough questions. Yangchen also delivers one of the clearest explanations of how the contemporary Tibetan independence movement has used non-violence in the response to Chinese brutality, as well as an explanation for what advocates for independence like Students for a Free Tibet see as Tibet’s future post-independence.

In Canada, the Globe & Mail has a forceful editorial criticizing China’s anti-Tibetan rhetoric around March 10th. It’s one of the hardest hits I’ve seen the Western press make against the Chinese propaganda machine on behalf of Tibet:

China’s Xinhua news agency responded to the statements with a story saying that, after the rebellion five decades ago failed, China carried out the “long-delayed emancipation of millions of serfs and slaves in Tibet.” The report also describes China’s efforts to modernize Tibet by citing road-building statistics. But if everything is so rosy for Tibet, then how come Chinese authorities have the country under lockdown, with independent journalists and human-rights observers barred from travelling there? Amnesty International this week condemned continuing human rights violations carried out against the general Tibetan population, including arbitrary arrests and prolonged detentions of peaceful protesters and other prisoners of conscience, as well as torture.

Chinese officials have prepared a white paper that pretends that all protest in Tibet is stirred up by Western anti-China forces. This is comical in light of the flaccid response by Western governments to China’s misrule in Tibet and their failure to support Tibetans’ fight for autonomous status for their nation – a status that even China pretends to observe.

Despite all of this, including his strong statements of yesterday, the Dalai Lama said he and the government-in-exile remain committed to what he termed the “path of truth and non-violence” in dealing with the Chinese government. If only China’s masters were so enlightened.

The New York Times also has an editorial which encourages the Chinese government to hold meaningful negotiations with the Dalai Lama.

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.