World Tibet Network News Thursday, March 26, 1998

SIKKIM OBSERVER, The National Hill Weekly

Gantok, Saturday, march 14-20, 1998

Observer News Service

New Delhi: The Tibetan Youth Congress members went on infinite hungers strike here on Tuesday demanding the United Nations to immediately initiate a UN-supervised plebiscite to ascertain the wishes of the Tibetan people.

In a statement last month, which was released to the Press on March 10 this week on the occasion of Tibet's 39th anniversary of the Lhasa Uprising of 1959, the TYC President, Mr. Tseten Norbu, said the December 1997 report of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) on Tibet, "strongly recommended the holding of a UN-supervised plebisite in Tibet to determine the aspiration of the Tibetan people. This is exactly what the TYC has been appealing to the UN since "70".

TYC was forced to go for the indefinite hunger strike to press the demand for early plebiscite in Tibet by the UN. The TYC has also demanded the resumption of the UN debate on the question of Tibet based on its resolutions of 1959, 1961 and 1965 and to appoint Special Rapporteur to investigate the situation of human rights in Chinese-occupied Tibet.

The TYC, said to be the largest non-govermental organization in exile has been consistantly raising the demand for an internationally-supervised plebiscite in Tibet but so far the respond has not been very encouraging. Mr. Norbu, in his statement, said, " Unfortunately, the United Nations seems to take matters into consideration only if violent methods are used. So far the Tibetan Liberation movement has been guided solely by the principal of non-violence and peaceful means which is in line with the UN charter."

Meanwhile in another statement on March 10, the TYC President called upon the Tibetan People to continue fighting for total independence for Tibet and not be satisfied anything less than this.

He said Tibetans in Tibet "sacrificed their lives for Tibetan Independence and only for Independence. The need of the hour is to unite to struggle for complete Independence".

The TYC statement on Independence for Tibet further stated: "When we look at the Tibetan Independence movement, the one and only goal of the Tibetan people is Rangzen or complete Independence". It added, " infact every Tibetan is encouraged to put his best for the cause of Rangzen. But that has been diluted through a continuous process of negativism and today nobody is quite sure what we are fighting for".

In an obvious reference to the demand for "genuine self-rule" in Tibet voiced by the exiled Tibetan Government in Dharamsala, Mr. Norbu goes onto say, "People stands to strive for different meanings (if their is any meaning) and are driving at different directions. There actually is more confusion than agreement today within the Tibetan diaspora. The same people who taught us to be a soldier of Rangzen themselves avoids Rangzen as an issue. And most surprisingly they are still there, teaching us something else. What is the guarantee that they will stick to their new-found love."

"When they can discard Rangzen as an old cloth, they can arguably throw the new found love to the waste basket too. It is not the time for dividing opinions amongst the Tibetans but to build one united opinion for Rangzen. In the long history of freedom fighters of this world, never a nation has put their independence struggle to vote. Every nation that gained Independence did pay for it".

Gangtok:

The Sikkim unit of the TYC has also put the issue of total independence for Tibet as the main objective for the Tibetan freedom struggle.

A statement issued by the Sikkim TYC said, " As the Tibetan s all over the globe commemorate the 39th Tibetan National Uprising Day, the Tibetans living in this peaceful State of Sikkim are no less eager to mark the day in a spirit of unity reaffirming the call for Tibet and its people".

The Sikkim Tibetans also participated in a token hunger strike for 24 hours on March 10 in support of the TYC demand for UN-supervised plebiscite in Tibet. As in the past, a rally was also organized here to mark the day.