Why Are Tibetans Talking to the Chinese?
(by Shobhan Saxena | Tehelka | October 2004)
There was a time when Tibet had a rich flora and fauna. Birds and animals of all kinds flew over and roamed the thick jungles and green pastures and lush meadows of the plateau. Now you find dead birds and dry, broken skeletons of animals scattered in the green areas which are slowly turning arid. Not only this, birds and animals born with birth-deformed bodies and genetic defects are now seen in the remote areas of Tibet. These are evidence that China is dumping nuclear waste in Tibet. This was said by none other than the Dalai Lama in Mexico City during the last leg of his Latin American tour on Sunday.
"China is so densely populated that the only suitable area where this nuclear waste could go is Tibet," the Tibetan leader said. Now, there is nothing new about this charge. Tibetan activists and supporters have been saying this for quite some time that China is damaging Tibet's environment by dumping nuclear waste and carelessly exploiting oil, water and timber resources. The activists have also said that China stores nuclear missiles underground in Tibet.
Now what is really important here is the timing of the Dalai Lama's statement. His Mexico statement came just a couple of days after the People's Republic of China celebrated its 55th anniversary and the Dalai Lama's envoys returned to Dharamsala on Sunday after spending several weeks in China to improve relations between the exiled Tibetan leader and the Beijing government. Though it was not reported widely in the Indian and international media, Lodi Gyari, the special envoy of the Dalai Lama Kelsang Gyalsten, his envoy to the EU, and their assistants, were on a visit to Beijing and some Tibetan areas.
No one is sure if there is anything official about these talks, but this was the third visit of the envoys since September 2002 when the contact between Dharamsala and Beijing resumed after almost a decade-long standoff.
Though Thupten Samphal, an official of the Tibetan government-in-exile, said the "details will only be made public once the envoys have briefed the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan parliament-in-exile", it is very clear from the Dalai Lama's statement that no progress was made during the envoys trip to China. If the delegation had succeeded in making a headway with the Chinese, the Dalai Lama would not have made such a serious charge against China on the same day when the envoys came back to India.
But the real point here is that a lot of people in Tibetan community in India and other countries are not really happy about the on-going talks. They feel that there is no need to carry on such secretive talks with China. In a column in the Tibetan Review, Tenzin Tsundue, a well-known poet and activist, writes: "The third delegation has been able to get themselves invited by China after a long wait. We are still in the process of confidence-building and negotiations are a far horizon; if at all they're coming. China has again refused to give official recognition to our delegation, calling them 'overseas Tibetan compatriots'."
Demanding a new political thinking among the Tibetan leadership, Tsundue writes: "The Gandhian idea of swaraj is what both His Holiness and our Kalon Tripa have in mind for a future Tibet. Democracy by polity, self-sufficient economy, and self-reliant in education, skills and resources: a Tibetan Swaraj."
The way the talks with China have been going, it's clear that the negotiations are not actually helping to make any headway in this direction. The Tibetan leadership has been trying to break ice with the Chinese for more than 50 years now, but in vain. Isn't it time to do a rethinking on this strategy?
Friends of Tibet (INDIA),
PO Box 16674, Bombay 400050
www.friendsoftibet.org