December 31, 2007 7:00 pm - January 1, 2008 1:00 am
Cedar & Bonita
Berkeley (click to see a map)
Working together in bringing a triumphant year for Tibet
Statement of Congressman Tom Lantos
Tibet Day, December 15, 2007
San Francisco, California
Just last week, the world community joined together to mark International Human Rights Day, an occasion that affirms the universal human rights of every man, woman and child. The goal of this annual event is to commemorate the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General Assembly nearly 60 years ago. Just like the powerful symbol of Amnesty International, which is a candle surrounded by barbed wire, this annual celebration demonstrates that even in the darkest corners of the earth, there are those who are willing to shine a powerful light on human rights abuses.
As we stand here today, we are approaching the 60th anniversary of the Chinese government’s forcible takeover of Tibet. Despite this stain on Chinese history, the government in Beijing is busily preparing for the 2008 Summer Olympics, which the International Olympic Committee has chosen them to host.
One more anniversary is especially important to me, and I believe to us all. 2007 marks twenty years since His Holiness the Dalai Lama first publicly presented his Five Point Peace Plan for Tibet. He made this presentation in Washington, D.C., after graciously accepting my invitation to attend a meeting of the bipartisan Congressional Human Rights Caucus, which I co-founded in 1983 and continue to co-chair.
As we approach these anniversaries, we must ask ourselves serious questions about China’s human rights record, and particularly their actions in Tibet. A review of this record is nothing short of appalling. We find cultural genocide, massive population transfer, and irreparable environmental damage through widespread plundering of natural resources in Tibet. To carry out these policies, while also maximizing economic benefit to its central government, China continues to exercise suffocating bureaucratic control, which prevents Tibetan religious and cultural expression and severely limits Tibetan educational and economic opportunities.
The newly built China-Tibet railroad further backs a pervasive Chinese military presence in Tibet, by which China suppresses each outbreak of non-violent protest with immediate arrest, torture, and prison sentences for those civilians, monks and nuns who have dared to protest.
China’s human rights infractions are not limited to Tibet. The government has made devil’s bargains with states like Burma and Sudan, adding to the suffering of populations already under siege.
Standing in stark contrast to these horrors is the record of peace and justice of my friend the Dalai Lama. His Holiness has tirelessly led efforts to care for tens of thousands of Tibetans who have risked their lives to escape occupied Tibet. He meets every refugee arriving in India, and the Tibet Government in Exile sees to their basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter while they become self-sufficient. Unaccompanied children receive support and academic and Tibetan cultural education in children’s villages or monasteries. Recently, His Holiness has encouraged more of these young people to return eventually to Tibet, to help Tibetans at home preserve their culture and their hope.
The Dalai Lama has devoted great effort to sharing Tibetan culture with a global audience, and has encouraged other Tibetan teachers to do the same. The result is that during the past sixty years, interest and understanding of kindness and compassion as primary principles for human affairs and government, taught in Tibetan culture, have spread throughout the world.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama continues to be exceptionally clear about his position on autonomy. Despite many false claims by the Chinese government to the contrary, he aims only for cultural and religious autonomy, and not full independence. These are basic rights of the Tibetan people, and I urge China to grant such autonomy without delay.
The past few decades have brought tremendous change for those of us dedicated to addressing the crisis in Tibet. The Dalai Lama has gone from an unwelcome guest at the U.S. State Department to a worldwide celebrity and Nobel Peace Prize winner. He is regularly received by heads of state and other dignitaries. Just this year, in one of the high points of my legislative career, I had the privilege of introducing and, in partnership with Senator Diane Feinstein and others, passing a bill to award the Dalai Lama the highest civilian honor Congress can bestow – the Congressional Gold Medal. These great strides would have been impossible without the constant support of the San Francisco Bay Area Tibet human rights community.
It is clear that despite real efforts by the Chinese government to suppress the truth, China is now well known around the world, in kitchens, coffeehouses, and government buildings, for its continuing egregious human rights violations against the Tibetan people and other minority groups. Increasingly, China also is known worldwide for its reprehensible enabling of the juntas in Sudan and Burma in genocidal acts and crimes against humanity toward their own people. Spreading this knowledge is an enormous accomplishment of the world’s Tibetan and wider human rights communities.
While we have much to be proud of, there is still much to be done, and we must look forward together. I do not pretend to have a crystal ball, but I can tell you that there is light at the end of what has been a very long tunnel. China is becoming engaged in the world community, and has played an increasingly constructive role in Six-Party negotiations to prevent North Korea from continuing its development of nuclear weapons.
Right now, today, we have a unique window of opportunity to pressure the Chinese government into reforming their reprehensible human rights record: the approach of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. It is of foremost importance to the Chinese to project a modern, enlightened image during its moment on the world stage, and we must demand real steps forward before, during and after this event.
There is real progress to be seen for all of us who have worked hard for twenty years or more to achieve human rights for the people of Tibet, China, and other countries whose crimes against humanity China supports. Yet we can always look for more ways, as the Dalai Lama has suggested, to engage in mutual enlightenment with the good scholars, environmental activists, governmental officials, and business people who can be found among the Chinese people.
We will go forward together in 2008. I can promise you that I will work tirelessly to encourage my colleagues in the United States Congress to focus on our human rights goals, and ensure that they never turn away from the people of Tibet.
Thank you very much.
Saturday, Dec 15, 2007, 11:00 am - midnight
St. Anne Events Center (Moriarty Hall)
850 Judah at Funston, San Francisco
Main Hall
Saturday, Dec 15, 2007, 7:00 pm - midnight
St. Anne Events Center (Moriarty Hall)
850 Judah at Funston, San Francisco
10 December, 2007 is International Human Rights Day celebrated all over the world. Every year, the Malaysia Bar had always held a peaceful Walk for Human Rights to celebrate the event. It had always been peaceful, caused no disruption to traffic and caused no one any harm. This year, the Malaysia Bar Council decided to have a 2.5 kilometre march in Kuala Lumpur (People’s Freedom Walk) on Sunday, 9 December, 2007, but was asked to apply for a police permit. The Bar Council felt it an affront to have to apply for a police permit for a peaceful event as the right to free speech, free expression and free assembly is enshrined in the Constitution. They decided to cancel the Walk instead. However, a group of determined lawyers decided to go ahead anyway and invited the public to join in. A group of lawyers plus supporters gathered in front of the Sogo department store in the normally congested Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman starting from 8am (it was early Sunday, so the road was practically free of traffic) in the presence of many police officers as well as a helicopter flying overhead.
The walk started peacefully at around 8.45am. Before the participants could reach their destination, the Malaysia Bar headquarter, five prominent lawyers and two arrested other demonstrators were arrested, but the march went on. Later, Edmund Bon, the Bar's Human Rights Committee Chairman was also arrested at the Bar's own private premises.
Join the candlelight vigil in protest against the violation of Human Rights in Malaysia, and at the same time also in support for those citizens of other countries where human rights are violated.
Peter Chen is a Chinese born Malaysian resident, who supports the Human Rights movement in Malaysia, and who now supports us in spirit.
Monday, December 10 2007, 6:00pm - 9:00pm
Jewish Community Center
1414 Walnut St. Berkeley
Join us, as TANC celebrates the award of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and Human Rights Day 2007, at the Jewish Community Center in Berkeley.
All are welcome to offer Khatas to His Holiness' throne.
Tibetan Tea and Droma-Dresil will be served.
From Outlook India . Com, December 4, 2007: Olympian Worries
The government of India does not want any wrong signals to China that the supporters and well-wishers of the Dalai Lama in India are acting in tandem with those in the US.
B. Raman
China has been increasingly concerned over what it views as a US-inspired revving up of the Tibetan issue in the months preceding the Beijing Olympics of August, 2008.
This concern, which was there even before, has gone up ever since the recent high-profile visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to the US and Canada and the honours given to him in the US--particularly the award of the Congressional Medal of Honour at a Congressional function, which was attended by President George Bush. Even though the Americans projected it merely as an expression of their respect and admiration for a spiritual and humanitarian leader with no political significance, the Chinese suspected that the honours concealed a desire to needle China on the Tibetan issue.
As the Olympics approach, what the Americans are up to in Tibet has become a more worrisome question for Chinese policy-makers than what the Americans are up to in Taiwan. Beijing has not treated the Congressional Medal of Honour as a one-event issue to be criticised and forgotten. It continues to express its concerns and unhappiness in various subtle ways. The recent Chinese refusal of permission to US naval ships transiting to and from Japan to touch Hong Kong--which was a significant departure from the post-1997 policy of allowing them to halt in Hong Kong-- is believed to be an outcome of the Chinese unhappiness over the Dalai Lama issue.
On November 21,2007, China cancelled a permission given months ago to the US naval aircraft-carrier USS Kitty Hawk and some support ships to dock in Hong Kong to enable the sailors to spend the Thanksgiving holidays on shore, but it reversed its cancellation, when it realised that it had already given permission months ago. By the time the refusal was reversed, the ships were already on their way to Japan and hence did not dock in Hong Kong.
Subsequently, Pentagon officials were quoted by the media as alleging that Beijing also turned away two minesweepers seeking refuge from a storm and a US military flight to resupply the US consulate in Hong Kong. They were quoted as claiming that the Chinese government has formally notified the Pentagon that it is refusing a request for a port call in Hong Kong over the New Year's holiday by the guided missile frigate USS Reuben James.
While neither US nor Chinese officials have connected these refusals to the Dalai Lama issue, non-governmental analysts have. The Washington Post of November 25,2007, has quoted Prof Shi Yinhong of the People's University in Beijing, as saying as follows: "The U.S. selling weapons to Taiwan is an old issue, and China expresses its dissatisfaction constantly on that. By blocking the warship (USS Kitty Hawk) and its support vessels, China just hoped to use its reluctance, changing its attitude, to tell the United States that China is unhappy with Bush over his decision to personally present the Congressional Gold Medal to the Dalai Lama."
The Chinese concerns have further increased following the pronouncements of the Dalai Lama over the selection of his successor. Just as the Chinese Communist Party has imposed a Panchen Lama of its choice on the Tibetan people, it is determined that when the Dalai Lama dies, his successor would be chosen by a religious process controlled by the party in which the Tibetan exiles would have no role.
To pre-empt the Chinese imposing a Party-selected Dalai Lama on the Tibetan people, the Dalai Lama has started discussing in public the various options available to him and the Tibetan people. During a visit to Japan in November, 2007, the Dalai Lama was reported to have told the Sankei Shimbun newspaper that the Tibetan people would not support a successor who was selected by China.He added: "If the Tibetan people wish to uphold the Dalai Lama system, one possibility would be to select the next Dalai Lama while I am still living. Among options being considered are a democratic selection by the high monks of Tibetan Buddhism, or the appointment of a successor by myself."
Subsequently, the Dalai Lama was reported to have told journalists in the margins of an inter-faith conference at Amritsar on November 27, 2007, as follows: "If my death comes when we are still in a refugee status then logically my reincarnation will come outside Tibet." He added that in view of the difficulties that could be faced in following the Buddhist tradition of choosing his re-incarnation, his successor could be selected by election, like the pope; by seniority, or could take over in the traditional way (reincarnation), but outside Tibet.
In a strong criticism of the Dalai Lama's views, a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry said: "The reincarnation of the living Buddha is a unique way of succession of Tibetan Buddhism and follows relatively complete religious rituals and historical conventions.The Dalai's remarks obviously violated the religious rituals and historical conventions."
Beijing has strong reasons to be concerned over the fact that the Dalai Lama has started talking of other options after his recent visit to the US. It strongly suspects that the idea of a pre-emptive strike at Beijing on the succession issue must have been suggested to him by his followers and advisers in the US. Beijing seems to be worried that his US advisers might persuade the Dalai Lama to announce who would be his successor on the eve of the Olympics just to draw international attention away from the games.
The attempts of the critics of China and supporters of the Dalai Lama in the US to organise a boycott of the Olympics in protest against the continuing violations of the human rights of the Tibetans has not picked up momentum. They are now focussing on preventing the Olympic Torch being allowed to touch the US.The Olympics Organisers have reportedly chosen San Francisco as the US City where the torch will be taken in April,2008. The supporters of the Dalai Lama have started a campaign to pressurise the local municipal authorities not to agree to this. "The torch should not be permitted to be used as a propaganda vehicle for the communist dictatorship in China," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., who in August,2007, co-sponsored resolutions calling for the US to boycott the Olympics over China's role in Darfur and its human-rights violations at home. In a letter to Mr.Gavin Newsom, the Mayor of San Francisco, an organisation called the San Francisco Tibet Coalition has said : "Your welcoming of the Olympic torch would suggest ... that you are ready to turn your back on a unique opportunity to promote legitimate international concerns and ... take a stand for justice in Tibet and China."
Aware of the Chinese unhappiness over the award of the Congressional Medal of Honour to the Dalai Lama, the government of India was recently reported to have advised ministers of the government and senior government officials not to attend a function in New Delhi in honour of the Dalai Lama after his return from the US. The organisers of the function had reportedly notified that one of the objectives of the function would be to congratulate His Holiness on the US honour. The government of India does not want any wrong impression that the supporters and well-wishers of His Holiness in India are acting in tandem with those in the US.
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