The Tibetan Genocide

In this essay, the author

• Explains that the chinese have repeatedly tortured, imprisoned and murdered tibetans for what they claim is national unity. the oppression of the tibetan people began in the 1950’s with the invasion of china.
• Explains that a precise definition of genocide was instituted by the general assembly of the united nations in 1948.
• Explains china's policy of political imprisonment is a clear act of genocide. it is used to incite bodily and mental harm and inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the tibetan people.

• Explains that the chinese have repeatedly tortured, imprisoned and murdered tibetans for what they claim is national unity. the oppression of the tibetan people began in the 1950’s with the invasion of china.
• Explains that a precise definition of genocide was instituted by the general assembly of the united nations in 1948.
• Explains china's policy of political imprisonment is a clear act of genocide. it is used to incite bodily and mental harm and inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the tibetan people.
• Opines that torture and ill-treatment remain widespread and systemic in china, and that many acts which constitute torture are not offenses under the law.
• Explains that tibetans are arrested and put through such treatment with little to no evidence supporting them as criminals. in 1992, chinese raided tibetan homes in lhasa arresting more than 200 people.
• Argues that china justifies its human rights violations by committing acts of genocide within the prison system.
• Analyzes how the tibet information network's study of 879 cases showed that the largest counterrevolutionary offenses were demonstrating and distributing leaflets.
• Explains that once arrested for crimes of counterrevolution prisoners are either placed in police lock-up or in one of the many detention centers found throughout tibet. prisoners may be held without charge for three months or longer while their cases are under investigation.
• Explains that torture is the most common form of interrogating prisoners in the detention centers. the 1996 white paper on human rights noted that in 1994 there were 409 cases of extorting confessions
• Explains that the un convention against torture act requires china to prevent, forbid, and criminalize all acts of torture. however, torture is limited to "torture to coerce a statement or corporal punishment or abuse by judicial officers."
• Explains that the laojiao system is a heinous form of detaining prisoners through forced labor and living conditions. on the fortieth anniversary of the system, it had taken in over 2.5 million people throughout china.
• Explains jampel tsering's account of the detention center of gutsa and the re-education through labor center in drapchi are prime examples of genocide the chinese commit daily.
• Narrates how they were physically searched and then taken to their cells. the chinese deliberately made an assortment of all the bits of food that were just thrown on the floor or left over.
• Analyzes jampel's experience in a chinese prison system. he was beaten with an electric baton for possessing prayer beads and shocked on the mouth for fifteen minutes.
• Explains that prisoners are detained and tortured without being brought before a court of law. lack of due process in the chinese legal system allows for such conditions.
• Explains that the structure of the chinese legal system ensures that most arrested tibetans are found guilty of a crime, whether they committed it or not.
• Explains that serious bodily and mental harm, as well as the conditions of life inflicted on the tibetans, are not the only acts of genocide the chinese commit.
• Explains that sterilization is the chief form of birth control in tibet, similar to the coercion that is used to extort confessions from prisoners.
• Argues that china's policies regarding births in tibet are the same for all chinese people, but there is no legitimate reason for population control. the population density of tibet is one-hundredth that of china.
• Analyzes the unsettling aspects of china's birth control policy in tibet, such as infanticide. the patriotic desire of some tibetan women is overrun by the buddhist sentiment of seeing killing as the highest crime.
• Argues that chinese policies that deny reproductive rights to tibetan women are in place as another attempt to rid the world of the tibetan society.
• Opines that the influx of chinese into tibet is another means of effectively destroying tibetans as a class of people.
• Explains that the chinese government is doing everything in its power to ensure that chinese citizens move to tibet and start families there.
• Explains that tibet's ethnic composition and culture are in danger. the dalai lama sees the transference of chinese into tibet as seriously endangering the culture, religion, and language of these people.
• Analyzes how an eleven-year-old elementary school student articulates the loss of identity among the tibetan people due to chinese laws.
• Analyzes how the chinese epitomize genocide by targeting the tibetan people as a specific ethnic group and destroying their culture through criminal and non-criminal means.
• Explains that while chinese citizens receive many economic benefits to live in tibet, the tibetans themselves reap nothing and are often forced into labor.
• Explains that a project using compulsory labor was the building of an irrigation canal from risure to nedong and then to lhoka. while chinese citizens doing similar work were paid wages, the tibetans were forced to work without pay to benefit "their" land.
• Explains that prisoners are forced to mine borax and the lhasa ngachen hydro-electric plant was built with prison labor. while this labor kills and tortures the tibetan people, it is extremely beneficial to the chinese.
• Explains the chinese government's approach to eradicating tibetan peoples and their traditional ways of life through stifling religious beliefs.
• Explains that monks and nuns are imprisoned for following their beliefs. traditional buddhist rituals, and political indoctrination by chinese officials in places of worship are also outlaws.
• Explains that the lack of religious freedom in tibet destroys the culture of a people and leads to the brutalization and terrorization of some of the highest-ranking monastic officials. rinzen kunsang and the shungseb nunnery are examples.
• Recounts how they were handcuffed, stripped, and beaten with bamboo sticks and electric batons. they fainted during the beatings, telling them that due to their age, they had not suffered in the old days.
• Analyzes how a nun at the gari nunnery was tortured for demonstrating. she described the guards using electric batons on her body.
• Analyzes the chinese government's use of political and social ideologies to rationalize their laws and regulations.
• Analyzes how the chinese government's laws single out the tibetan people as a specific ethnicity which does not have the right to exist.
• Explains that the transfer of chinese citizens into tibet through government sponsored incentives is similar to previous genocidal policies which "forcibly transferred children of one group to another".
• Opines that cultural genocide is part of china's larger genocidal committing against tibet. laws which deny tibetans religious freedom, school tibetan children in chinese customs, and monitor any form of tibetan culture destroy the tibetan people.
• Analyzes how the united states secretary of state, colin powell, has stated many of these offenses in his reports, but fails to categorize them as genocide.
• Opines that it is time for the world to stop listening to china's ideological claims and see their treatment of tibetans as genocide.