Published by: World Tibet Network News, Thursday, Mar 14, 1996

From: rthibaul@phoenixint.com (Rich Thibault)

Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 08:00:57 -0500

On March 10, 1996, people across the globe recognized National Uprising Day with protests, marches, and demonstrations. National Uprising Day commemorates the date in 1959 when the Tibetan people rose up against their oppressors from China, only to be beaten down and subjected to increased torture, murder, rape, and the destruction of Tibet's cultural and religious institutions. It was this date that prompted the Dalai Lama's flight to India, along with thousands of other Tibetans.

Here in Florida, it was an unseasonably cold and rainy day, but 12 representatives of Citizens Against Communist Chinese Propaganda (CACCP) did their part to commemorate National Uprising Day by staging a protest in front of Florida's Splendid China, a China-owned and -operated theme park in Kissimmee. The park portrays a China that is content and peaceful, living in harmony with its various minority cultures, even displaying a miniature version of Tibet's Potala Palace as a show of "unity."

In reality, the park's peaceful image glosses over a legacy of torture and abuse that is still going on today. CACCP protests the fact that school children are brought to the park on field trips and taught that China is a big, happy brotherhood embracing Tibetans and other cultures, when even today Buddhist monasteries are being destroyed, supporters of the Dalai Lama are imprisoned and tortured without having committed any crimes, and the 11-year-old Panchen Lama, Tibet's second highest Buddhist leader, hand-picked by the Dalai Lama himself, is held political prisoner while China's official government-sanctioned selection is forced to sit in his place.

The CACCP held signs urging people to find out the truth about China's human rights abuses and to remember Tibet. Two large Tibetan flags were flown, and literature was distributed to motorists approaching the park.

All in all, it was a successful protest, though much of its success can be attributed to Splendid China's failure as a theme park. The park, which unconfirmed reports indicate may be bankrupt, had few visitors on this day -- in fact, there may have been more protesters than park attendees! Most of the cars that went by belonged to employees of the park, rather than tourists.

Even the park's security personnel, dispatched in golf carts to keep an eye on the proceedings, were sympathetic to the cause and accepted literature and "Boycott Splendid China" bumper stickers.

If Citizens Against Chinese Communist Propaganda and the local Buddhist groups in Central Florida have their way, the Splendid China grounds will be converted into a Buddhist monastery before long!