Welcome to the internet's top destination for the civil discussion of politics. This is a forum for discussion and debate of the issues, and not for personal remarks aimed at other discussants.
This forum has no political affiliation and welcomes your perspective on the issues. Membership is free. If you would like to join the discussions and debates please REGISTER HERE.
All new members should review the forum rules. The "Today's Posts" button automatically adjusts itself to fit your screen on its first use for Firefox and on its second use, for Internet Explorer. Have a pleasant day. (This is a spam free board.)
Well when I posted the reply it was with Yahoo new reporting on the same issue. So I just put in my 2 cents worth. But it didn't seem to make others think. But I saw the same report in another news release. So what is your beef? You guys on th efsar sid eof life need to get past the lies and see for yourselfs the truths in the world today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by libertarian0507
Where do you get all your information Luke? From the state-run media of China?? Do you know that they won't let in CNN to independently report on this? That all CNN broadcasts into China about the Tibet issue are being blacked out? You want to know what makes me want to puke Luke? The fact that you can sit there and honestly say to yourself as a human being that erasing a whole culture is acceptable. That trying to destroy a nation for economic and regional hegemony is fine by you. The Dalai Lama, the true leader of the Tibetan People, urges the Tibetans NOT to resort to Violence, he asks for a dialog with Beijing , but the refuse to even aknowlege him as the traditional figure head of Tibetan Buddhism. I am not religious, but I am a humanist, I believe that human culture must be preserved. And the Chinese are trying to destroy the Tibetan culture,as they destroyed thier own so many years ago. It needs to stop. There is no illegality in destroying what is thiers, and Luke, tell all your Chinese firends that Tibet Does Not Belong TO YOU!!! China should not even be there in the first place, so if you just get the hell out, there won't be a problem, will there? When the Chinese have stolen their very country from them, how can you complain when they fight back? According to your philosophy Lulke, it would be OK for the US to take over China, and pretend that it has always been a possesion of the U.S. Hmm, may not be a bad idea. At least it would take care of the rising Chinese menace to the world. Or maybe, China will see the light, and start acting like a responsible member of the world community.
BEIJING - Soldiers on foot and in armored carriers swarmed Tibet's capital Saturday, enforcing a strict curfew a day after protesters burned shops and cars to vent their anger against Chinese rule. In another western city, police clashed with hundreds of Buddhist monks leading a sympathy demonstration.
The violence erupted just two weeks before China's Summer Olympic celebrations kick off with the start of the torch relay, which passes through Tibet. China is gambling that its crackdown will not draw an international outcry over human rights violations that could lead to boycotts of the Olympics.
The latest unrest began Monday on the anniversary of a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. Tibet was effectively independent for decades before communist troops entered in 1950.
Initially, the protests were led by Buddhist monks demanding the release of other detained monks. Their demands spiraled to include cries for Tibet's independence and turned violent Friday when police tried to stop a group of protesting monks. Pent-up grievances against Chinese rule came to the fore, as Tibetans directed their anger against Chinese and their shops, hotels and other businesses.
It was the fiercest challenge to Beijing's authority in nearly two decades.
China's official Xinhua News Agency reported at least 10 civilians were burned to death on Friday. The Dalai Lama's exiled Tibetan government in India said Chinese authorities killed at least 30 Tibetans and possibly as many as 100. The figures could not be independently verified.
In the Tibetan capital Lhasa on Saturday, police manned checkpoints and armored personnel carriers rattled on mostly empty streets as people stayed indoors under a curfew, witnesses said. The show of force imposed a tense quiet.
Several witnesses reported hearing occasional bursts of gunfire. One Westerner who went to a rooftop in Lhasa's old city said he saw troops with automatic rifles moving through the streets firing, though did not see anyone shot.
Foreign tourists in Lhasa were told to leave, a hotel manager and travel guide said, with the guide adding that some were turned back at the airport.
"There are military blockades blocking off whole portions of the city, and the entire city is basically closed down," said a 23-year-old Canadian student who arrived in Lhasa on Saturday and who was making plans to leave. "All the restaurants are closed, all the hotels are closed."
Even as Chinese forces appeared to reassert control in Lhasa, a second day of sympathy protests erupted in an important Tibetan town 750 miles away.
Police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of Buddhist monks and other Tibetans after they marched from the historic Labrang monastery and smashed windows in the county police headquarters in Xiahe, witnesses said.
Also Saturday, fresh demonstrations by Tibetan exiles and their supporters sprouted up in New York, neighboring Nepal, Switzerland and Australia.
The Chinese government is hoping a successful Olympics will boost its popularity at home as well as its image abroad. But Beijing's hosting of the Olympics has already attracted scrutiny of China's human rights record and its pollution problems.
So far, international criticism of the crackdown in Tibet has been mild. The U.S. and European Union called for Chinese restraint without any threats of an Olympic boycott or other sanctions.
"What is happening in Tibet and Beijing's responses to it will not affect the games very much unless the issue really gets out of control," said Xu Guoqi, a China-born historian at Kalamazoo College in Michigan.
International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said Saturday he opposed an Olympic boycott over Tibet.
"We believe that the boycott doesn't solve anything," Rogge told reporters on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts. "On the contrary, it is penalizing innocent athletes and it is stopping the organization from something that definitely is worthwhile organizing."
China restricts access to Tibet for foreign media, making it difficult to independently verify the casualties and the scale of protests and suppression.
Yet the details emerging from witness accounts and government statements suggested Beijing was preparing a methodical campaign — one that if carefully modulated would minimize bloodshed and avoid wrecking Beijing's grand plans for the Aug. 8-24 Olympics.
The China-installed governor of Tibet vowed to deal harshly with the protesters in Lhasa, but said no shots had been fired and promised that "calm will be restored very soon."
"Beating, smashing, looting and burning — we absolutely condemn this sort of behavior," Champa Phuntsok, an ethnic Tibetan, told reporters in Beijing.
In Lhasa, law-enforcement agencies issued a notice offering leniency for demonstrators who surrender before the end of Monday and threatening severe punishment for those who do not.
Neighborhood committees went door-to-door handing out the notices, telling locals defiance would be treated as a criminal act and hinting of rewards if they turned protesters in, said Robbie Barnett, a Tibet specialist at Columbia University, who talked with Lhasa residents by phone.
The calculated mix of threats and inducements underscored the difficulties the communist leadership faces in trying to quell a serious challenge to its 57-year rule in Tibet while saving the Olympics.
Preparing the public for tough measures, state-run television on the evening newscast showed footage of red-robed monks battering bus signs and Tibetans in street clothes hurling rocks and smashing shop windows as smoke billowed across Lhasa.
"The plot by an extremely small number of people to damage Tibet's stability and harmony is unpopular and doomed to failure," a narrator said as the footage played.
Chinese newspapers and Internet sites, all state-controlled, ran no reports on the violence except a brief Xinhua statement vowing to reassert order.
BEIJING (AP) -- Soldiers on foot and in armored carriers swarmed Tibet's capital Saturday, enforcing a strict curfew a day after protesters burned shops and cars to vent their anger against Chinese rule. In another western city, police clashed with hundreds of Buddhist monks leading a sympathy demonstration.
The violence erupted just two weeks before China's Summer Olympic celebrations kick off with the start of the torch relay, which passes through Tibet. China is gambling that its crackdown will not draw an international outcry over human rights violations that could lead to boycotts of the Olympics.
The latest unrest began Monday on the anniversary of a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. Tibet was effectively independent for decades before communist troops entered in 1950.
Initially, the protests were led by Buddhist monks demanding the release of other detained monks. Their demands spiraled to include cries for Tibet's independence and turned violent Friday when police tried to stop a group of protesting monks. Pent-up grievances against Chinese rule came to the fore, as Tibetans directed their anger against Chinese and their shops, hotels and other businesses.
It was the fiercest challenge to Beijing's authority in nearly two decades.
China's official Xinhua News Agency reported at least 10 civilians were burned to death on Friday. The Dalai Lama's exiled Tibetan government in India said Chinese authorities killed at least 30 Tibetans and possibly as many as 100. The figures could not be independently verified.
In the Tibetan capital Lhasa on Saturday, police manned checkpoints and armored personnel carriers rattled on mostly empty streets as people stayed indoors under a curfew, witnesses said. The show of force imposed a tense quiet.
Several witnesses reported hearing occasional bursts of gunfire. One Westerner who went to a rooftop in Lhasa's old city said he saw troops with automatic rifles moving through the streets firing, though did not see anyone shot.
Foreign tourists in Lhasa were told to leave, a hotel manager and travel guide said, with the guide adding that some were turned back at the airport.
"There are military blockades blocking off whole portions of the city, and the entire city is basically closed down," said a 23-year-old Canadian student who arrived in Lhasa on Saturday and who was making plans to leave. "All the restaurants are closed, all the hotels are closed."
Even as Chinese forces appeared to reassert control in Lhasa, a second day of sympathy protests erupted in an important Tibetan town 750 miles away.
Police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of Buddhist monks and other Tibetans after they marched from the historic Labrang monastery and smashed windows in the county police headquarters in Xiahe, witnesses said.
Also Saturday, fresh demonstrations by Tibetan exiles and their supporters sprouted up in New York, neighboring Nepal, Switzerland and Australia.
The Chinese government is hoping a successful Olympics will boost its popularity at home as well as its image abroad. But Beijing's hosting of the Olympics has already attracted scrutiny of China's human rights record and its pollution problems.
So far, international criticism of the crackdown in Tibet has been mild. The U.S. and European Union called for Chinese restraint without any threats of an Olympic boycott or other sanctions.
"What is happening in Tibet and Beijing's responses to it will not affect the games very much unless the issue really gets out of control," said Xu Guoqi, a China-born historian at Kalamazoo College in Michigan.
International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said Saturday he opposed an Olympic boycott over Tibet.
"We believe that the boycott doesn't solve anything," Rogge told reporters on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts. "On the contrary, it is penalizing innocent athletes and it is stopping the organization from something that definitely is worthwhile organizing."
China restricts access to Tibet for foreign media, making it difficult to independently verify the casualties and the scale of protests and suppression.
Yet the details emerging from witness accounts and government statements suggested Beijing was preparing a methodical campaign - one that if carefully modulated would minimize bloodshed and avoid wrecking Beijing's grand plans for the Aug. 8-24 Olympics.
The China-installed governor of Tibet vowed to deal harshly with the protesters in Lhasa, but said no shots had been fired and promised that "calm will be restored very soon."
"Beating, smashing, looting and burning - we absolutely condemn this sort of behavior," Champa Phuntsok, an ethnic Tibetan, told reporters in Beijing.
In Lhasa, law-enforcement agencies issued a notice offering leniency for demonstrators who surrender before the end of Monday and threatening severe punishment for those who do not.
Neighborhood committees went door-to-door handing out the notices, telling locals defiance would be treated as a criminal act and hinting of rewards if they turned protesters in, said Robbie Barnett, a Tibet specialist at Columbia University, who talked with Lhasa residents by phone.
The calculated mix of threats and inducements underscored the difficulties the communist leadership faces in trying to quell a serious challenge to its 57-year rule in Tibet while saving the Olympics.
Preparing the public for tough measures, state-run television on the evening newscast showed footage of red-robed monks battering bus signs and Tibetans in street clothes hurling rocks and smashing shop windows as smoke billowed across Lhasa.
"The plot by an extremely small number of people to damage Tibet's stability and harmony is unpopular and doomed to failure," a narrator said as the footage played.
Chinese newspapers and Internet sites, all state-controlled, ran no reports on the violence except a brief Xinhua statement vowing to reassert order.
Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. The victims were in the street of Lhasa or in their offices. Secretaries, business men and women, military and republic workers. Moms and dads. Friends and neighbors.
Thousands of lives were suddenly disturbed by evil, despicable acts of terror.
The pictures of flames on buildings, fires burning, shops' collapsing, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness and a quiet, unyielding anger.
These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed. Our country is strong. A great people has been moved to defend a great nation.
Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of People's Republic of China. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of Chinese people resolve.
Today, our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature, and we responded with the best of China, with the daring of our rescue workers, with the caring for strangers and neighbors who came to give blood and help in any way they could.
Immediately following the first attack, I implemented our government's emergency response plans. Our military is powerful, and it's prepared. Our emergency teams are working in Lhasa, to help with local rescue efforts.
Our first priority is to get help to those who have been injured and to take every precaution to protect our citizens at home and around the world from further attacks.
The functions of our government continue without interruption. Government agencies in Lhasa, which had NOT to be evacuated today, are opening for essential personnel tonight and will be open for business tomorrow.
Our financial institutions remain strong, and the China's economy will be open for business as well.
The search is under way for those who are behind these evil acts. I've directed the full resources for our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.
I appreciate so very much the members of the People's Congress who have joined me in strongly condemning these attacks.
China and our friends and allies join with all those who want peace and security in the world and we stand together to win the war against terrorism.
Tonight I ask for your sympathy for all those who grieve, for the children whose worlds have been shattered, for all whose sense of safety and security has been threatened. And I wish they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us spoken through: 'Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for you are with me.'
This is a day when all Chinese people from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. People's Republic of China has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time.
None of us will ever forget this day, yet we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world.
Thank you. Good night and Long live the People's Republic of China!
THE Chinese authorities had been fearing trouble, but nothing on this scale. An orgy of anti-Chinese rioting convulsed the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, on Friday March 14th, leaving security forces uncertain how to respond. For many hours mobs controlled the streets, burning and looting as they pleased.
The approach of Beijing’s Olympic games in August is seen by many of Lhasa’s residents as an opportunity to put their contempt for Chinese rule on display to the outside world. China’s desire to ensure the games are not marred by calls for boycotts is tying its hands as it considers how to respond.
Your correspondent, the only foreign journalist with official permission to be in Lhasa when the violence erupted, saw crowds hurling chunks of concrete at the numerous small shops run by ethnic Chinese lining the streets of the city’s old Tibetan quarter. They threw them too at those Chinese caught on the streets—a boy on a bicycle, taxis (whose drivers are often Chinese) and even a bus. Most Chinese fled the area as quickly as they could, leaving their shops shuttered.
The mobs, ranging from small groups of youths (some armed with traditional Tibetan swords) to crowds of many dozens, including women and children, rampaged through the narrow alleys of the Tibetan quarter. They battered the shutters of shops, broke in and seized whatever they could, from hunks of meat to gas canisters and clothing. Some goods they carried away—little children could be seen looting a toyshop—but most they heaped in the streets and set alight.
Within a couple of hours, fires were blazing in the streets across much of the city. Some buildings caught fire too. A pall of smoke blanketed Lhasa, obscuring the ancient Potala—the city’s most famous monument, which covers a hillside overlooking the city. It is the traditional winter palace of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, who fled into exile in India after an abortive uprising in 1959. Some of the demonstrators shouted slogans like “long live Tibet” and “long live the Dalai Lama”. One group trampled on a Chinese flag in the middle of a main road.
.................................................. .....................................
A handful of riot police with shields and helmets (but no guns visible) patrolled in front of the Jokhang as the riots continued around them, while others stoodvehicles did not attempt to deploy on the streets. The occasional bang was heard, but it was difficult to tell whether it was shooting or explosions in the fires.
During the evening, Lhasa television broadcast over and over again, alternately in Tibetan and Chinese, a government statement accusing the “Dalai Lama clique” of being behind the violence by a “small number” of rioters. It called on city residents to support the authorities’ efforts to restore control.
But ensuring stability in Lhasa in the coming months will be an enormous challenge for China as it prepares for the Olympics. Many residents expect a massive deployment of security forces over the weekend and possibly a reintroduction of martial-law type restrictions, as in 1989 during the last serious outbreak of unrest in the city (some say the latest protests have been the biggest since 1959). But officials in Lhasa had been preparing to host growing numbers of foreign tourists and Olympic visitors this year. A long-term visible deployment of troops would be, to say the least, a big embarrassment for the Communist Party. in lines at the perimeter of the riot-torn area. But for many hours they made no attempt to intervene. After nightfall, fire engines supported by two armoured personnel carriers, moved down the streets putting out the blazes. But the police carrying automatic rifles atop the armoured
A eyewitness from a westerner who is biased for Tibetans by western media. But it reveals a small portion of despicable terrorist act by the mobs in Lhasa, and it accidentally shows indirectly how Dalai Clique masterminded and provoked the whole situation.
so all western media is wrong? what exactly makes you assume chinese media is right?
I never said Chinese media is purely objective. Both of them are very biased. If you take an average between Chinese media and western media, you might be closer to truth.
Location: Sasebo Japan (originally from Seattle,Wa)
Country:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Luke
Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. The victims were in the street of Lhasa or in their offices. Secretaries, business men and women, military and republic workers. Moms and dads. Friends and neighbors.
Thousands of lives were suddenly disturbed by evil, despicable acts of terror.
The pictures of flames on buildings, fires burning, shops' collapsing, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness and a quiet, unyielding anger.
These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed. Our country is strong. A great people has been moved to defend a great nation.
Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of People's Republic of China. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of Chinese people resolve.
Today, our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature, and we responded with the best of China, with the daring of our rescue workers, with the caring for strangers and neighbors who came to give blood and help in any way they could.
Immediately following the first attack, I implemented our government's emergency response plans. Our military is powerful, and it's prepared. Our emergency teams are working in Lhasa, to help with local rescue efforts.
Our first priority is to get help to those who have been injured and to take every precaution to protect our citizens at home and around the world from further attacks.
The functions of our government continue without interruption. Government agencies in Lhasa, which had NOT to be evacuated today, are opening for essential personnel tonight and will be open for business tomorrow.
Our financial institutions remain strong, and the China's economy will be open for business as well.
The search is under way for those who are behind these evil acts. I've directed the full resources for our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.
I appreciate so very much the members of the People's Congress who have joined me in strongly condemning these attacks.
China and our friends and allies join with all those who want peace and security in the world and we stand together to win the war against terrorism.
Tonight I ask for your sympathy for all those who grieve, for the children whose worlds have been shattered, for all whose sense of safety and security has been threatened. And I wish they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us spoken through: 'Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for you are with me.'
This is a day when all Chinese people from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. People's Republic of China has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time.
None of us will ever forget this day, yet we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world.
Thank you. Good night and Long live the People's Republic of China!
Secretaries, Business men, Han Chinese who should not be there in the first place. What about the Tibetan's freedom, is that nothing compared to the Chinese desire for tyranny and rape of the Tibetan people? The PRC represents a lot of things, but freedom is not one of them my friend. When you could not have learned this from Chinese news sources, such as Xinhua, because they are distorting ther news, and not repoting what is really going on in Tibet. The Tibetan people are sick and tired of the Han Chinese trying to subjugate them. They are tired of Beijing's tyranny.Until China apologizes for the horrendous, inhumane treatment of the Tibetans, and the complete disregard that the Chinese have shown for Tibet, I don't think China has the moral right to complain about anything. It is not a fight for religion, or anything less than freedom from tyranny and the gross injustice of Communist China's oppression. So long live China, but DOWN WITH THE PRC. The PRC is not China, it is the death of China. The Tibetans have a right to self determination.
Last edited by libertarian0507 : 03-15-2008 at 10:20 PM.
Linear Mode
