World Tibet Network News Sunday, April 19, 1998

by Tashi Rabgey

Harvard Asia Quarterly

15 April 1998

Amidst the high-traffic bustle of New Delhi's Jantor Mantor Park, six Tibetans lie dying. Representing the six million people of the Tibetan nation, these freedom activists have vowed to starve themselves to death unless the United Nations takes up their cause. They intend to alter the fate of the Tibetan people or perish in the attempt.

As I write, the hunger strikers are on the thirty-seventh day of their protest. Eyes and cheeks dangerously sunken, they no longer look like the faces that smile out from their earlier photos. Two artists, a craftsman, a shopkeeper and two elderly Tibetans--these six represent the frustrations of an exiled community whose nonviolent struggle to reclaim its homeland has long evoked sympathy but has garnered no serious political support.

In fact, it has been well over three decades since the UN took any significant action on the question of Tibetan self-determination. In the immediate aftermath of the violent suppression of the 1959 uprising, the General Assembly passed several resolutions deploring Chinese actions in the region. Since that time, the face of Tibet has changed irrevocably. With the influx of millions of Chinese settlers, Tibetans have become marginalized in their own land. Forced out of the new economy and alienated from the new rulers who speak a foreign language, Tibetans have had to watch silently as their world has been taken apart piece by piece and rebuilt in someone else's vision. Their future bleak, many Tibetans turn to alcohol. Others resort to political protest--which may mean simply possessing a photo of the Dalai Lama. As well, thousands each year risk the treacherous flight into exile on foot over the Himalayas.

Sixty-eight year old Palzom herself made that dangerous trip not so long ago. So too did Kunsang (70), Dawa Tsering (53) and Dawa Gyalpo (50). The other two hunger strikers, Yungdung Tsering (28) and Karma Sichoe (25), were both born and raised in the refugee community in India. In their desperate attempt to stem the tide of history, the hunger strikers are demanding that the UN resume its debate on the Tibet question. They are also calling for the appointment of a Special Rapporteur to investigate human rights abuses and a Special Envoy to supervise a plebiscite on the question of Tibetan self-rule.

As days turn into weeks, the urgency of their demands increases, providing a mirror that sadly reflects the larger Tibet liberation movement itself. Comprising no more than a drop in a surrounding sea of humanity, Tibetans are engaged in a struggle not only against an intransigent political adversary, but against time itself. As each day passes, the death of these six individuals, just as that of the Tibetans as a people, seems ever more imminent.

Ironically, it is because of their frustration with this very race against time that these Tibetans have undertaken such extreme measures. In the words of Dawa Gyalpo, "The Chinese are wasting time - they have not negotiated with the Dalai Lama on his middle path request. They are waiting for His Holiness to die. For this cause, I donate my life." With this simple statement and dramatic gesture of protest, the former shopkeeper exposes the chicanery of the political pundits who currently dominate the discourse on Sino-Tibetan affairs.

Dawa Gyalpo's declaration undermines two pervasive myths in particular. The first is the oft-repeated contention--most recently made by a distinguished Harvard China scholar speaking on a panel at the Kennedy School--that the current stalemate on the Tibet question is due to the Dalai Lama's obstinacy in pursuing the goal of independence. In fact, fully a decade ago (and much to the dismay of many Tibetans), the Dalai Lama formally accepted the Chinese precondition that he abandon the demand for Tibetan independence. With his proposal at the European Parliament in Strasbourg in 1988, the Dalai Lama sought to reopen negotiations with the Chinese leadership by conceding to the reality of Chinese sovereignty over Tibet in exchange for a constitutional framework that would ensure "genuine autonomy" for Tibetans.

According to the Strasbourg proposal, the Chinese authorities would maintain effective control in the spheres of foreign policy and defense, while the Tibetan government would exercise autonomy in all other areas. Since then, he has repeated his commitment to this dramatic concession in countless forums and venues--most recently, during his visit to the hunger strikers on 2 April: "I am always ready for dialogue, as soon as some positive things come from China side, I'm ready. I am not seeking independence."

This points to the second, perhaps less egregious but ultimately more damaging, myth--one perpetuated by anthropologist Melvyn Goldstein in his recent lecture at the Fairbank Center. This is the fanciful idea that as regards the current impasse in negotiations, "the ball is clearly in the Dalai Lama's court". Goldstein contends that if only the Dalai Lama would settle for less, if only he would act reasonably and send some "clear and dramatic signal" to Beijing to demonstrate his goodwill and trustworthiness, then perhaps there might be some possibility for progress. The resolution of the Tibet question is all in the hands of the Dalai Lama and if he weren't so busy pursuing his international "anti-China" campaign, then we might see an end to the Sino-Tibetan hostilities. The subtext of this strongly argued position is that the moderates in the Chinese leadership are simply waiting for the Dalai Lama to take a more conciliatory line so that they will have some leverage in overstepping the hard-liners. In Go

ldstein's conception of the game, the problem is not the intransigent Chinese government but the opportunistic Dalai Lama.

The truth of the matter, however, is that these spin-doctors keep changing the rules of the game. Prior to Strasbourg, the wisdom was that the abandonment of independence as a goal would facilitate negotiations. Once this major concession had been achieved, however, the bottom line was then raised to require the rejection of any formulation of self-rule, even within the confines of the legal sovereignty of the PRC. Thus, in his analysis of the Dalai Lama's recent March 10th statement, Goldstein conveniently ignored the Tibetan leader's clear and unequivocal declaration that he was not seeking independence, and instead publicly rebuked him at some length for his "hard-line" approach in speaking of "genuine self-rule".

Unfortunately for Tibetans, it seems that what counts as "hard-line" will always keep shifting. This of course is because the Chinese leadership is at present not interested in negotiating at all. They are not, as Goldstein would have us believe, waiting for a "clear and dramatic signal" of compromise from the Dalai Lama. Rather, they are simply waiting for his death.

The six Tibetan hunger strikers have sought to disrupt this deathwatch by replacing it with their own. What this should teach the Chinese leadership is that the Tibetan liberation struggle will not end with the demise of any single institution -- even that which is most sacred and beloved.