ROME/VISIT OF BEIJING MAYOR
MAY 28th. The federated organisation of the Radical Party "Let no-one touch Cain" organised an demonstration during the official visit of the mayor of the Chinese capital. A leaflet distributed to passers of the Radical Part mentioned the 6,100 persons sentenced to death and the 4,367 victims of capital punishment in the PRC in 1996.
MOSCOW/ FILM SHOWING
May 29th. Some 450 persons, including numerous MPs, journalists and members of the Radical Party, attended the premiere of the film "Seven Years in Tibet." The soirée, by invitation, was organised by the "Tibet Culture & Information Service, American House of Cinema and Moscow Friends of Tibet Society".
ITALY/VISIT OF PALDEN GYATSO
June 2nd. During his recent visit to Italy, the monk Palden Gyatso granted a long interview to the political broadcasting corporation "Radio Radicale." The interview was conducted with the General Counsellor of the Radical Party, Paolo Pietrosanti. To the question on the proposal to launch a world-wide non-violent action outside Tibet, Palden Gyatso replied: "It is an excellent solution; I would say, that it is the optimal solution at this time."
VIENNA/DALAI LAMA
June 10th. During his recent official visit to Austria, the Dalai Lama expressed his satisfaction with the constructive role of the EU in his dispute with Beijing.
MARSEILLE / TLS CONGRESS
June 12th. The association Tibet- Liberté - Solidarité concluded its congress with the presentation of the "March of the Tiger" : a march from Lyon to Marseilles to re-launch the proposal for Sino-Tibetan negotiations. The march, organised by CFTL (a confederation 13 French-speaking organisations) was concluded on October 24th near the Chinese consulate in Lyon.
EP /CLINTON'S VISIT TO BEIJING
June 24TH. On the initiative of the Radical Euro MPs, Olivier Dupuis e Gianfranco dell'Alba, an open letter to US President Bill Clinton was presented by the Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng, during the hearing of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the EP. The letter, signed by 35 Euro MPs, called on the US President, to stress the support of the Western world to the democratic movement in China, not to suspend the trade sanctions relative to the transfer of sensitive technologies, and to insist on the immediate resumption of the direct dialogue between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government.
PRT/CHINA/DECLARATION OF OLIVIER DUPUIS
June 24th. In the letter to President Clinton, the Secretary of the Radical Party, Olivier Dupuis, declared: "Our friend Wei was right to remind us that the eye of the needle through which the Chinese authorities refuse to pass is democracy. A sin, which found so many accomplices in their obstinacy, beginning with Sir Leon Brittan, who has always stated his opposition to what his British conservative colleague, Tom Spencer, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, declared yesterday, according to whom, Wei Jingsheng, like many of the dissidents long languishing in prisons of former British colonies, deserved to be in the government in China.. Let us hope that the American president will know how to distance himself from this suicidal point of view, not only for China and its citizens, but for the entire world."
TURIN /MOBILISATIO FOR TIBET
June 27th. Concurrently with the visit of an official Chinese delegation, radical militants organised a massive distribution of flyers calling for the freedom of the Panchen Lama.
CHINA/EP DELEGATION DOCUMENT /INTERNET
The radical Euro MP Gianfranco Dell'Alba was not able to present and explain the document he had prepared on the works of the EP delegation on relations with the Chinese People's Assembly. The document can be consulted on-line on the Internet at the following site: www.radicalparty.org.
PAGE TWO
We are pleased to publish the article by Piero Verni which follows, as the letter of the Radical Party to the Tibetan government in exile, in the debate to re-launch as promptly as possible a world-wide campaign for the freedom of Tibet. We would like to remind our readers that we would welcome written contributions and reflections, preferably between 60 and 70 type-written lines, sent to the following fax number: ()39-55.230.24.52 or the following e-mail address : tibet.fax@agora.it
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THAT TIBET MIGHT LIVE
By Piero Verni
The hunger strike by six persons in Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, and the tragic death of Thupten Ngodup who set himself on fire, have revealed and made evident to all the despair, frustration and exasperation of the Tibetan people. I was in Delhi for a good part of another six weeks after this strike, and was able to speak with the six hunger-strikers, with the leaders of the Tibetan Youth Congress which had organised it, and with many of the hundreds of Tibetans who came throughout the strike to pay homage to those six hunger-strikers, as rightly pointed out by Richard Gere in a press conference held at Jantar Mantar, who represented the overwhelming majority of six million Tibetans. For nearly fifty days, the tent in New Delhi was the heart of a strong political mobilisation which succeeded in reaching every circle of Tibetan society in exile, and breathed new enthusiasm and courage into the resistance inside Tibet. The suffering of the Tibetan people, both inside and outside Tibet, found in the initiative o
f the Tibetan Youth Congress a concrete and rational outlet, that could otherwise lead to despair, which is really due to an extremely high reserve to express oneself in a political sphere. I do not think that you have to be a historian to know that when a people is colonised, repressed and deprived of the most elementary human rights, and reduced to thinking that it no longer has any prospects, it tends to take refuge in a psychological rather than a political drift, before a political one, at the end of which await inevitably the extreme choices of despair. My fear, and I obviously hope that it will not materialise, is that the frustration and sense of isolation that I see growing in the Tibetan community may lead to extreme choices of despair. Choices which may be the forerunners of nihilistic and / or terrorist acts.
In my humble opinion, the situation has not yet degenerated, owing to, among other reasons, the exceptional human qualities (individual and collective) of the men and women of Tibet, as well as because the Tibetan Youth Congress is capable of channelling and redirecting the despair and frustration of the Tibetans. On the other hand, I believe that the Tibetan government in exile found itself somewhat outflanked by this action of the TYC, and was more inclined to convince the hunger-strikers to interrupt their action after the initial partial successes, than to amplify and sustain the political pressure. From this point of view, I find appropriate the frank and cordial letter sent recently by the Radical Party to the Tibetan government in exile, inviting them to a common reflection on the state of the struggle for the freedom of Tibet, and to assume with resolve the leadership of the movement launched by the hunger strike of the six in Janatar Mantar and the sacrifice of Thupten Ngodup. Unfortunately, I find
that the reply of Kalon Tethong was rather evasive and did not go into the merit of the questions raised by the letter from the Radical Party. Indeed, and I say this with the deep bonds of friendship that have tied me for over a decade with the Tibetan government in exile, the latter opted to insist on the fact that hunger-strikes to death and the tragic death of Thupten Ngodup are violent actions. But how can we ask of the people of Tibet, who for more than forty years has supported, without a gesture of violence, one of the most cruel and most terrible repression, to renounce even their self-sacrifice? How can we fail to understand that when even a noble gesture like a hunger strike to the bitter end is considered violent, some (many?) young Tibetans may get the idea of doing something really violent? How can we believe that it is possible to liberate Tibet without paying the price, even a very high price. I repeat, the Tibetan people are justifiably not doing their utmost to refrain from the use of viol
ence against the Chinese and so much the less from terrorism against third parties. Yet, the Tibetans should at least be allowed the freedom to sacrifice themselves. A small personal example. I cannot forget that thirty years ago, I decided to go into politics when I saw a Vietnamese monk in flames. These images made me think and made me understand that if there were persons ready to make such a sacrifice, they must have had their reason. I thank that the same can be said today for the Tibetan question, and certainly not for a desire for martyrdom and / or martyrs which is alien to my culture and psychology as far as that of the Tibetans are concerned (that this true is evidenced by the fact that they have avoided such gestures for more than 40 years).
It is difficult for me to quantify the anguish and torment that I felt during the twenty days that I spent in Delhi in close contact with the hunger-strikers. Because, on the one hand, I would have done anything to get these six persons, so gentle and correct, to abandon their hunger strike and not to die. On the other hand, however, I knew that they were right when they told me that one way to remind the world of its responsibility was through their sacrifice and that of other courageous militants like themselves. With anguish in my heart, I new that Dawa Gyalpo was (and is) right, when with a very faint voice, on the 39th day of the hunger strike, reassured me that when hundreds of Tibetans were left to die, on such a day it would perhaps be a little more difficult for the international community to ignore the Tibetan case. I wish that this could be avoided, and indeed do hope with all my strength, but I am afraid that Dawa Gyalpo was right, and that the struggle of the Tibetan people will have to go throu
gh the bottleneck of such sacrifices.
One could easily raise objections because "His Holiness," the Dalai Lama, has repeatedly spoken out against such methods of waging the struggle, especially against the tragic death of Thupten Ngodup (and the days before that of Gilbert Blanchard). However, as the president of the Tibetan Youth Congress rightly pointed out in an interview published in the June issue of the "Tibetan Review", the Dalai Lama is a Buddhist monk, he is a bodhisattva, hence the very incarnation of all compassion for all sentient beings. But the Tibetan people is fighting for its political rights and this is not a religious, but a political act. And this is the point of view that should be adopted by the Tibetan government, to whom I take the liberty of respectfully addressing these thoughts at a time such as this, when the People's Republic of China seems to be stronger than it has been in the last ten years, and when it is becoming increasingly more difficult for the friends of the Tibetan people to take on the powerful pro-Beij
ing lobbies. In my humble opinion, today, more than ever before, we must all, Tibetans and non-Tibetans, co-ordinate our forces and intensify the mobilisation with quantitatively and qualitatively more efficient and decisive actions. Because it is not true that it is easier to have a dialogue with the Beijing government (which just today, has for the umpteenth time accused the Dalai Lama of wishing to establish a feudal dictatorship in Tibet, and has denied that it has every repressed religious freedom in Tibet), thanks to ever greater renunciations and concessions. Indeed, the very opposite is true, as Wei Jinsheng recently explained to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament: China only cedes to strong pressure, and if there is no such pressure, it grows more arrogant.
To conclude. Bearing in mind the immense work from 1959 to the present, and the great achievements of the Tibetan government in exile these past forty years, I should like, in all modesty, to ask them to respond with energy, strength and determination to the mobilisation launched by the hunger strike of the six of Jantar Mantar and the sacrifice of Thupten Ngodup and to resume, with greater efficiency than in the past, the struggle for the freedom, democracy and the right of self determination of the Tibetan people.
That Tibet might live.
(Published by DEMOCRACY IN CHINA/FREEDOM FOR TIBET ! - Number 73 - 2 July, 1998)
