With unrest continuing in Tibetan areas of the PRC, and recent cases reported in Tashi Lhunpo monastery in Shigatse, Drango county in Kardze TAP, Sichuan, and Holkha township in Tsolho TAP, Qinghai, the deployment of Chinese state security apparatus to suppress the protests is becoming more manifest. Following the appearance of clear evidence, the Chinese authorities have finally acknowledged that there have been casualties amongst protestors. They have assembled what appears to be the most massive force on the Tibetan plateau since the 1950s. However, still sketchy information suggests that the primary function of this force is not to cause further casualties but rather to intimidate the Tibetan population and to persuade it that any resistance is futile. Once the situation is stabilised, incentives are provided for denunciations, and heavy pressure, including the deprivation of life-sustaining supplies, is exerted in order to make the most active protesters surrender. This course of action will undoubtedly produce the “small group of instigators” required to match the official version of the protests. Meanwhile, the authorities have continued to make individuals and communities demonstratively denounce the Dalai Lama, repeating one of the prime causes of the unrest in the first place. By blocking information about the suppression of the disturbances from the media, Beijing has once again backtracked from its pledges to give free rein to foreign media(1). At the same time, the authorities have made symbolic gestures, like the sudden accessibility on Chinese computers of BBC News’ English-language website since 25 March (the Chinese language section remained inaccessible), and a guided tour of Lhasa on 26 March for a few selected journalists. Nevertheless, the latter endeavour backfired when, during an unplanned encounter, monks braved the group’s minders and delivered emotional statements saying: “Tibet is not free”, and that the rioting on 14 March “had nothing to do with the Dalai Lama”. This demonstrates how Beijing’s aim of engineering a controlled flow of information coming out of and going into Tibet, is once again overtaken by the reality on the ground.
Suppression of the protests in Machu
Conveying information about dissent in Tibetan regions to the international press already risked severe consequences months before the March 2008 wave of protests, as shown by the case of Rongye Adak(2). Despite the far more precarious nature of the current crisis, sources have continued to send TibetInfoNet detailed descriptions of the events in areas under military control. Following the pro-Dalai Lama demonstration on 16 March, Machu town was and continues to be overrun with soldiers, armed police and other security personnel. Tibetan residents report that over a thousand soldiers encircled the town and the electricity was temporarily switched off on March 17. Local government cadres, both Tibetan and Chinese, have been made to assist security forces in manning crossroads, guarding government buildings and maintaining round-the-clock vigils. Some cadres were forced to put on security guard uniforms, complete with truncheons, and were warned that if they neglected their duty to be vigilant against “lawbreakers” it would have serious consequences for their state-allocated jobs.
The initial deployment of soldiers and other paramilitary forces was augmented by about thirty truckloads of troops on 19 and 20 March respectively. This was further increased by the arrival of a long convoy of unmarked army trucks on the morning of 21 March. According to an eyewitness, there were over a hundred military trucks that snaked through the town for about a kilometre and half. Another witness confirmed this new reinforcement and added: “It is an absolutely terrifying sight. All the trucks are covered with canvas but you can still see the armed soldiers peep out every now and then. The military vehicles are unmarked with number plates taken off. The whole town is full of army or security vehicles and sirens going off with ear-splitting shrieks all the time”. CNN journalists, who witnessed military convoys in Sichuan heading towards Tibetan regions, had already reported that the troop transporters’ number plates had been removed. Military experts consulted by TibetInfoNet stated that the removal or blackening of number plates probably has the double purpose of playing down the role of regular People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops (rather than just paramilitary anti-riots units) in the containment of the Tibetan protests, while disguising the identities of the units involved in the operations.
Another source reported that all schools in Machu town, including nurseries, were closed as of March 18 and there were soldiers armed with machine guns with silencers patrolling the streets. He also said that the Chinese authorities were using senior Tibetan officials as proxies to encourage protesters to hand themselves in. For instance, Solpa from the local People’s Congress, Karko from the People’s Political Consultative Conference and Alak (Lama) Dungtsang from the county Religious Affairs Department were echoing the authorities’ warnings and urging people to surrender.
Similar announcements were made via the local Chinese TV station and over loudspeakers in the streets. Audio recordings obtained from Machu document how protesters were summoned to surrender by 12pm on 25 March 2008 and warned that failure to do so would incur severe punishment. In these announcements, the Chinese authorities promised leniency to those who voluntarily turned themselves in and offered incentives of up to ten thousand Yuan as well as anonymity to people who reported “lawbreakers” who engaged in “beating, smashing and looting”.
Copies of the original recordings are available here(3):
There had already been dozens of arrests by 21 March in Machu town alone. As the arrests have been handled very secretively by the authorities so far, and the nomadic population is dispersed over a vast landscape, it is difficult to ascertain the exact identity and total number of the arrested in the vicinity. Sources on the ground have reported a convoy of army trucks heading towards Ngora township and the surrounding pastoral areas as this particular community has been singled out for starting anti-China protests in Amdo Machu and harbouring ringleaders. Truckloads of armed soldiers were said to have also been dispatched to the other seven remaining townships within Machu county. However, due to the jamming of phones and with an internet blockade in place, it is proving extremely difficult to ascertain the current situation since the deadline for surrender.
Wringing out the “ringleaders”
Carrying out aggressive raids and making arrests in the dead of night appear to be the preferred modus operandi of the Chinese military and security personnel. On March 26 sources in Labrang reported that armed police carried out raids at a local monastery every night and arrested and interrogated monks. Dozens of monks have already been detained by the authorities and they include: Thamkey from Dukon College, Golok Jigme, Gangya Sangye and Jigme Gori. Twenty-eight monks were reportedly detained from Tsayi monastery, a branch of Labrang monastery. Most of the men from Dokar Gomang village near Labrang have also been detained whilst many men from Gyamogon village have reportedly fled to the hills. The Chinese paramilitary turned up at the village and ransacked houses and destroyed family altars with rifle butts. It was also reported that a convoy of military vehicles was moving towards the vast pasturelands of Sangkhok on the evening of 26 March in order to carry out night raids.
In Ngaba, Amdo, Tibetan sources report that Kirti monastery has been closed following the bloody suppression of the protest on March 16. Monks are barred from leaving their monastery and locals are prevented from providing them with food. There are concerns over food shortages within the monastery. One source informed TibetInfoNet that two military helicopters hover daily over the monastery and surrounding Tibetan settlements and locals find this terrifying, as few people in this remote area would have ever seen a helicopter before. Raids and arrests are carried out during the night and it is reported that authorities are placing great emphasis on identifying who was responsible for providing photographs of the dead protesters to the outside world.
The strategy of encircling settlements or monasteries and cutting them off from vital supplies in order to coerce protest leaders into surrender, or their peers to hand them over, has been reported several times, for instance at Sera, Drepung and Ganden monasteries, and at Darthang/Tarthang (Ch: Datang) monastery, Chigdril (Jigdril) county (Chin: Juizhi Xian), Golog TAP, Qinghai.
During a phone call from the area, another local source revealed that twenty-three Tibetans were arrested from a nomadic community known as Jaro following a protest on 17 March in Jaro township in Ngaba county. About four hundred Tibetan nomads set the local Chinese government headquarters on fire whilst chanting pro-independence slogans and raising the banned Tibetan flag. Currently, most of the men are in hiding in the forest and mountains and have so far managed to evade capture by the Chinese security forces searching the countryside. The same source reports that these security forces have carried out raids in the night and have indiscriminately subjected Tibetans to beatings and interrogation. As nomadic families are scattered over a vast area and many live in isolation it is still hard to determine which households have been targeted.
Along with raids, midnight arrests and house-to-house searches carried out in both rural and urban Tibetan areas, meetings are being held to distinguish between what the Chinese authorities call “friends and foes”, proceedings that are reminiscent of the notorious ‘class struggle sessions’ of the Cultural Revolution. A Tibetan intellectual, who has close contacts with Tibetan and Chinese officials from Siling (Xining), Lanzhou and Lhasa, reported that all Tibetan cadres are being made to attend daily meetings where they have to make confessions or denounce Tibetans who support the “Dalai Lama and the Dalai Clique”. They are warned that those who do not inform on or denounce protesters will be charged with the crimes of “counter-revolution and incitement to subvert state power”.
Although China abolished crimes of counter-revolution from its criminal code in 1997, the authorities appear to be increasingly regressing to terminologies borrowed from the PRC’s most repressive decades when it comes to portraying the current unrest in Tibet. That Zhang Qingli, head of the CCP in the TAR, called the Dalai Lama “a wolf in monk’s robes” appear to many outside China rather ridiculous, but it reveals the gravity of the current situation in Tibet and the nervousness of the authorities.
Notes:
1:
Beijing had in fact maintained certain restrictions on reporting in the TAR. Ironically, the most restive Tibetan regions are those in the eastern part of the plateau, for which such restrictions had not been decreed. This demonstrates the authorities’ flawed perception of the situation in these regions.
2:
Tibetans who reported the lone protest of the nomad chief in August 2008 were detained and sentenced. Details about the incident and its follow-ups are available on TibetInfoNet’s website under
http://www.tibetinfonet.net/content/news/10475
http://www.tibetinfonet.net/content/news/10488
http://www.tibetinfonet.net/content/news/10494
http://www.tibetinfonet.net/content/news/10496
http://www.tibetinfonet.net/content/update/79
http://www.tibetinfonet.net/content/news/10508
http://www.tibetinfonet.net/content/news/10523
http://www.tibetinfonet.net/content/news/10533
http://www.tibetinfonet.net/content/news/10540
3:
Note that, depending on the configuration of your computer, your web browser may need additional plugs-ins in order to play these recordings.