Advance Statement Concerning the Sino-Tibetan Conference, Geneva August 6 to 8, 2009
Contact: tibettruth@ymail.com
Distributed to the Tibetan Government in Exile, Tibetan organisations and across the media
The International Sino-Tibetan Conference, August 6 to 8, has been promoted as a forum at which Tibetan and Chinese academics, former communist party officials, advocates and writers will explore options for a peaceful solution of the Tibetan issue. Such gatherings, on face value, have an alluring credibility, strengthened by the participation of a number of respected and experienced authorities, climaxed by an address from the Dalai Lama. However, those hoping to witness a genuinely democratic crucible from which creative exchange and dissent is drawn, may find themselves somewhat disappointed.
This event is not dedicated to establishing consensus through intellectual critique and discourse, rather it will serve as a conveyor for an already established agenda, in this case the determination of the Tibetan Administration to convince communist China that it is willing to accept so-called autonomy under Chinese rule. It is interesting how often Tibetan officials, when promoting this surrender of Tibetan nationhood, talk as if they possess a unified and agreed mandate from the people of Tibet. Which they do not, as evidenced by on-going protests for independence across Tibet, and the results of their unofficial survey conducted last year inside Tibet, which revealed a majority support for Rangzen (independence).
Yet this common political aspiration will not be represented at the Conference, except perhaps as a marginalised and cosmetic indulgence, which will be pre-occupied with finding a commonality between Tibetan and Chinese peoples. Perversely it is such capitulation, barely concealed behind the conference slogan of ‘Finding Common Ground’, which will be presented in Geneva as a hopeful solution for the issue of Tibet.
Absent too will be any meaningful accommodation of Tibetan public-opinion, or examination of Tibet’s right-to-statehood (such issues are seen as de-stabilizing influences which must be either ignored or suppressed for fear of unsettling already fragile negotiations with the communist Chinese regime). However, surely, those participating in this event must accept that if any eventual settlement was to have integrity or political gravity it would require the authorization and participation of the Tibetan people, a fact long recognized by the Dalai Lama:
“I have always stated that the central issue is that the Tibetan people must ultimately choose their own destiny. It is not for the Dalai Lama, and certainly not for the Chinese to make that decision. It should ultimately be the wishes of the Tibetan people that should prevail” (The Dalai Lama, Yale University, 9th October 1991)
Yet this just affirmation seems to have been consigned to history by an Administration which no longer seeks to accommodate and respect the political hopes of its people, and actively denies Tibetans any genuine decision or engagement. It has autocratically decided what solution will meet the political demands of Tibetans by imposing, upon an increasingly frustrated and disillusioned population, a strategy of appeasement and compromise.
Tibet’s future status will no longer require the assent of the Tibetan nation, but will be determined by an élite who have surrendered any prospect of either self-determination or independence. These individuals favour so-called meaningful autonomy, which concedes that Tibetans are not a distinct people, with all the political, territorial and cultural rights which flow from that definition, but a Chinese ‘nationality’, a so-called ethnic-minority with only the dubious assurances of communist China’s laws on regional autonomy for protection.
This conference raises a question of considerable dimension for Tibetans who have witnessed years of futile negotiations and troubling concessions, all to the advantage of communist China, Where is the common ground between the Tibetan Administration and its own people? Who are struggling, not for so called ‘meaningful autonomy’ but for Tibet’s independence. Tibetans, during the Uprisings in 2008 Tibetans, though obviously loyal to the Dalai Lama, share a profound and longstanding desire for a free and independent nation. This has been recognized by the Dalai Lama:
“I also know that every Tibetan hopes and prays for the full restoration of our nation’s independence” (HH The Dalai Lama March 10-1994)
If the Tibetan leader does not know the political hopes of his own people who does? Others have recognized the nature of the political struggle inside Tibet and reached similar outcomes, the prestigious and authoritative Conference of International Lawyers on Issues Relating to Self-Determination and Independence For Tibet (London January 6 to 10 1993) concluded that the Tibetan people possessed an “abiding desire” for:
“The establishment of an independent Tibetan state” Paragraph 4.10
That appetite has not abated, if anything as the suppression and exploitation of Tibet’s culture has increased, so has the demand for Tibet’s independence, along with widespread protests supporting that objective. Such facts however do not seem to have informed the inane policy of the Tibetan Administration, as evidenced by the appeasing conclusions of its so-called Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People.
“Whereas, we are committed, therefore, to fully respect the territorial integrity of the PRC, we expect the Central Government to recognise and fully respect the integrity of the Tibetan nationality and its right to exercise genuine autonomy within the PRC. We believe that this is the basis for resolving the differences between us and promoting unity, stability and harmony among nationalities.” (emphasis added)
That same document concludes by asserting that:
“The objective of the Tibetan Government in Exile is to represent the interests of the Tibetan people and to speak on their behalf.”
In what sense of the word ‘interests’ are the people of Tibet in any way served by an administration that exhibits such indifference towards the political aspirations of its own people, and ordains a policy of appeasement which would commit Tibetans to a parlous and uncertain future? Would the suppressed people of Palestine be required by their leadership to abandon hopes for an independent Palestinian state in exchange for autonomy and Israeli citizenship? Were the people of East Timor fed by their authorities a diet-of-despair that insisted the military and economic might of Indonesia was to powerful to hope for independence?
Yet Tibetans, despite nearly a hundred nations regaining their independence since World War Two, are being asked to endorse the abandonment of their nation’s legitimate rights to political and territorial sovereignty. Why should the people of Tibet remain a colony of communist China and accept anything less than self-determination and independence?
We therefore call upon the Tibetan Administration to respect and honour the political will of the Tibetan people, by abandoning what has proved a vacuous and failed strategy of appeasing China in the hope of securing, from a draconian and totalitarian regime, a form of so-called autonomy. We remind your office that under international law Tibetans meet all the requirements of what defines and constitutes a distinct people, with all the political, cultural, civil and religious rights associated with that definition. The Conference of International Lawyers on Issues Relating to Self-Determination and Independence For Tibet ( London January 6 to 10 1993) noted that:
“..three resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly (Nos 1353, 1723 and 2079) have recognised the status of Tibetans as a “people”. Resolution No. 1723 expressly refers to the right of the Tibetan people to self-determination” (Paragraph 4.6)
Do not surrender the birth-right and hopes of your people.
Issued: August 1, 2009
