Originally posted by
[email protected] 5 2005, 06:42 PM
I think that the slaughter of millions of Tibetans is imperialism at best.
The slaughter of "millions" of Tibetans is a lie. There wouldn't be any Tibetans left if it was true; their population in the 1950s was only 1 or 2 million depending on what area you define as "Tibet". Source - none the number of Tibetans has greatly increased under PRC rule. (http://www.faqs.org/faqs/tibet-faq/)
The Dalai Lama's government in exile claims 1.2 million killed. This claim was endorsed by the U.S. government in the Tibet Policy Act of 2001.
Here's a refutation of that claim, from something I once wrote about that act:
The Act asserts that 1.2 million Tibetans have been killed by the Chinese government. I did some looking around to try to determine if this number is accurate. Apparently the original source is the Tibetan government-in-exile, and they offer nothing to support their claims. I looked on various human-rights and anti-genocide websites - they do not mention this number. Neither does the Tibet Information Network, as far as I can tell. Or Tibetan exile and historian Tsering Shakya, in his book The Dragon in the Land of Snows. Maybe they're all a little embarassed at this exaggerated accusation.
The Tbetan government-in-exile sometimes mentions a Chinese secret document allegedly captured by Tibetan guerillas. This document says that 87,000 Tibetans were killed between March 1959 and October 1960.
The CIA was heavily involved in supporting the Tibetan guerillas, and the document passed through their hands. So one has to consider the possibility that they forged or modified it. But let's suppose it to be genuine.
The 1959-1960 uprising was the period of the heaviest fighting in Tibet. There was fighting earlier in Tibetan-inhabited areas east of the Dalai Lama's realm, but little fighting later aside from guerilla raids across the border from Nepal. Not only deaths in combat, but any killings of unarmed supporters of the rebels, would have been highest during this period.
There was some famine in eastern Tibetan areas in the late 1950's due to the sudden collectivization of agriculture and the so-called "Great Leap Forward." It should be kept in mind that famine was far from unknown before the Revolution.
And the Dalai Lama's realm - today's Tibet Autonomous Region - was insulated from these policies at the time. When agriculture was eventually collectivized in the Tibet Autonomous Region, it appears to have caused shortages but not famine - possibly because agriculture was proceeding normally in the rest of China by that time.
So it's kinda hard to get from those 87,000 to 1.2 million.
According to Encarta Encyclopedia: "Experts believe that before Chinese Communists began controlling Tibet in the 1950s, the region’s population was declining due to illness, poor pre- and postnatal care, and a sizeable proportion of men becoming celibate monks. It is estimated, however, that the population has nearly doubled since that time, as a result of better health care, increased availability of food, and relative political stability."
China's population-control policies are applied more loosely for Tibetans and other non-Han Chinese nationalities. Encarta Encyclopedia again: "However, women who belong to one of China's national minorities may not face the same level of pressure. In general, government policies allow non-Han peoples more cultural independence and permit them to have larger families." This is one reason that the non-Han Chinese nationalities are a growing part of China's population, today approaching 10%. Not exactly genocide.
There's two problems with false accusations of genocide:
1. They make it harder for truthful accusations of genocide to be believed (the "boy who cried wolf" effect).
2. The North American and West European governments have been trying to establish a precedent that military intervention into other countries' internal affairs can be justified in the name of stopping genocide.
In practice, I suspect, this would only apply to governments that were in conflict with their economic and strategic interests.
This is just one of many blatant examples of total dishonesty by the "Free Tibet" people and the Tibetan government-in-exile.
"No class struggle in Tibet" is also a pretty dubious assertion. The level might not have been that high - Tibetan peasants were pretty ground down.
But Tibetans weren't wholly incapable of revolt, either. A number of Tibetans joined the Long March when it passed through eastern Tibet, and a Tibetan "Soviet" government was set up in Garze, eastern Tibet, in 1936. It was suppressed by the Kuomintang after the Long March left the area.
(This was a Tibetan-inhabited area outside the Dalai Lama's realm in central Tibet.)