Tibet's unglamorous reality

There was a time when a "benefit" for the Tibet movement meant a dozen true
believers gathered in someone's kitchen, sipping supermarket wine out of
paper cups and munching saltines, occasionally with cheese. Nowadays
highpowered publicists are besieged by requests for access to Tibet events.
These have become lavish affairs, complete with champagne in long-stemmed
glasses. Society columnists breathlessly pursue party scoops: Naomi
Campbell spotted at a Studio 54 event in deep huddle with a Tibetan lama;
Brad Pitt, star of one of the three recent Hollywood movies on Tibet, seen
backstage at the recent Tibetan Freedom Concert with performers Pearl Jam,
R.E.M., and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Even the J. Peterman catalog has
blessed the trend, declaring: "It's official. Crystals are out. Tibetan
Buddhism is in."

But, while the media focus on the stars, there's little hard news about
conditions inside Tibet, the Himalayan nation that has endured nearly 50
years of military occupation by the People's Republic of China. Tibet the
movement is almost eclipsing Tibet the country.

China's military annexation of Tibet began in 1951 and reached a brutal
climax in 1959, the second year of Mao's Great Leap Forward. By 1963, 1.2
million Tibetans out of a population of approximately six million had
either been killed by the Chinese military or starved to death in labor
camps and collective farms. Things improved somewhat during the 1980s,
after Mao had been forced to abandon both the Great Leap Forward and the
subsequent Cultural Revolution which was especially brutal in Tibet. But
China's rule over Tibet has grown increasingly repressive ever since
President Clinton delinked trade and human rights from China's Most Favored
Nation trading status in May 1994. In August of 1997, Beijing renewed and
strengthened martial law in Tibet under the "Strike Hard" campaign, a
supposed anti-crime effort that provides a new pretense for arresting
"counterrevolutionary" "splittists" of the "Dalai Clique," i.e., anyone who
challenges Chinese rule. Surveillance, arbitrary arrest, detention,
execution, and torture in Tibet have increased dramatically.

A prominent feature of the Strike Hard campaign is an intensified assault
on the Buddhist religion, the traditional foundation of Tibetan
civilization. Tibetan monasteries are strictly monitored by re-education
teams that inculcate "socialist values." Since 1997, several thousand
Tibetan monks and nuns have been expelled from monasteries, most for
refusing to sign a five-point statement denouncing the Dalai Lama. This is
part of a ferocious new crusade by China's leaders to vilify the exiled
Tibetan leader, whom they call "the head of the serpent" and an
"executioner ... with honey on his lips and murder in his heart." Owning
the Tibetan flag or a photograph of the Dalai Lama is a punishable offense.
The eight-year-old Panchen Lama, Tibet's second-highest Buddhist leader and
doubtless the world's youngest political prisoner, has been held in Beijing
since 1995.

He is hardly the only child to fall victim to the Chinese regime. A new
report by Physicians for Human Rights, based on interviews with recent
Tibetan refugees, reported that one-half of torture survivors are under the
age of 21, and 15 percent are under the age of 16. Tibetan prisoners are
commonly "subject to three or more different forms of torture, including
repeated beatings; electric shocks by a cattle prod on the face, arms, and
genitals; being suspended in painful positions; witnessing others being
tortured; being deprived of food and sleep; [and] having blood drawn
against their will." This kind of torture has been routinely used on
Tibetan prisoners of conscience for decades, as confirmed by interviews
with Tibetan refugees in India and Nepal.

Activists dedicated to improving the situation of these Tibetans have been
able to reap some benefits from Americans' surging interest in all things
Tibetan. Thanks to the Dalai Lama's relatively new status as an
international figure--and to Hollywood films, rock concerts, and
 benefits--a demonstration at Harvard during Jiang Zemin's November 1997
visit was the school's largest student protest since the Vietnam War. One
American diplomat says his Chinese counterpart even told him that China
wanted to settle the Tibet issue because "we don't like people making noise
in front of our embassies."

But so far popular pressure has had little apparent impact on the Clinton
administration. While Clinton agrees to have his picture taken with the
Dalai Lama, the State Department continues to support China's claim that
Tibet is part of China. During the cold war this policy was a result of the
United States' desire to appease China in order to gain its support against
the Soviet Union. Today it is the result of administration efforts to
"constructively engage" with China, hoping to persuade China to stop
helping other nations develop nuclear weapons--and to preserve American
companies' access to the Chinese market. Thus, during Clinton's upcoming
visit to Beijing, "Tibet's going on the back burner," as one State
Department staffer put it.

The United States' indifference toward Tibet represents a serious
misreading of Tibet's geopolitical importance. Occupied Tibet comprises
approximately one-fourth of China's land mass and has given China, for the
first time in its long history, a continuous border with Burma, India,
Bhutan, Nepal, and Kashmir. Once Mao consolidated his control over the
Tibetan plateau, he promptly invaded India, which resulted in the 1962
Sino-India border war--a contest won by China and bitterly remembered by
New Delhi to this day.

If anything, the recent nuclear tests in South Asia that have so
preoccupied the Clinton administration have underscored the destabilizing
effect that China's invasion of Tibet has had on the region. "Since Tibet
was occupied, India and China have the longest disputed border in the
world," notes Warren Smith, an expert on Sino-Tibetan relations. "China
supplies Pakistan with its nuclear arsenal. The real issue here is India
and China, not India and Pakistan."

China's behavior in Tibet also provides a window into the true nature of
China's leaders--a window U.S. policymakers are reluctant to look through.
"The best way to understand China's present leadership is to study Tibet,"
says Steve Marshall, another leading student of Sino-Tibetan relations.
"Everything they don't want you to know is in full bloom in
Tibet--totalitarian rule, nothing approaching a rule of law or an open
press. The Chinese leadership allows some openness where they feel no
threat whatsoever. In Tibet, access to information is severely restricted
because they have a lot to hide."

The excitement surrounding Tibet the movement could at least lead to more
widespread awareness of what's happening in Tibet the country. And one
hopes that the media's celebrity obsession won't give the Clinton
administration an excuse to dismiss the cause. Already I have heard an old
Asia hand scoff: "People without children have pets; people without pets
have causes."

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By Maura Moynihan

Maura Moynihan has worked for many years with Tibetan refugees in India and
Nepal.
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