Glimpses of a Tibetan/Chinese Town Under Lockdown
The Guardian still image from a Guardian video filmed inside the town of Aba, which is under lockdown by Chinese security forces after a string of self-immolations by protesters.
February 13, 2012, 5:50 pm
By J. DAVID GOODMAN
In the latest of a string of self-immolation protests against Chinese policies, a 19-year-old Tibetan monk set himself on fire on Monday in the rugged western Chinese town of Aba, the advocacy group Free Tibet said in an e-mailed statement. It was the second self-immolation by a Tibetan teenager in three days and the 23rd since last March, according to the group.
Chinese security forces standing nearby quickly doused the flames before hauling the monk, Lobsang Gyatso, away from the scene, the group said. Neither the severity of his burns nor his current whereabouts were immediately known.
His protest followed that of an 18-year-old nun, Tenzin Choedon, who died on Saturday after lighting herself on fire.
The town of Aba, or Ngaba in Tibetan, and the wider area of the northwestern Sichuan province where it is located have been locked down for months by Chinese security forces who have thrown up a series of checkpoints along the roads leading into the area and prevented nearly all foreign journalists from entering, The Guardian’s Jonathan Watts reported. The authorities have also blocked Internet and mobile phone communications, preventing the type of activist and citizen journalist reports that have allowed information to escape to other restive areas around the world.
More: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/glimpses-of-a-tibetan-town-under-lockdown/?partner=rss&emc=rss
Video Report from the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/feb/10/inside-tibet-heart-protest-video
From the International Campaign for Tibet
= new reply since forum marked as read
How is demanding the restoration of independence and/or religious freedom, economic rights etc. causing the PRC misery. The PRC is attempting to absorb Tibet not only politically, but culturally and the PRC is fighting back with further provocations belying their already imperialist assault on the Tibetan people. If this was not the case, the PRC would be allowing journalists into Tibet. They are not because they know what they've done and continue to do is a crime against humanity.
Here this map might explains the territorial divisions since 1950:
Why would you think that just because the PRC moves people onto the land that it stops being Tibetan? I would note that to legally relocate in the PRC a permit is required (and it's been that way since 1958) under what is known as the Hukou system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system
What is the point of denying the previous border? Why defend the imperialism of the PRC?
...but rather than getting confrontational it is just better to hoist the deniers by their own petards.
Thank you. Aloha. 
Anyone who does not support the PRC is a McCarthyite 
...especially if they are liberal democrats.
you can have the last say.
cheers
The irony of the use of that term in this context is astounding.
i believe there were times in its past - when China prided itself on being a nation which, on principle, did not invade other countries.
that principle seems to have died with Dr. Sun Yat Sen. even his son-in-law did not appear to adhere to it.
Tibet has now disappeared into the resource hole.
Burma could be the scene of the next treasure hunt. the chief of its junta has more connection to China, than to Myanmar. there are supposedly over a million Chinese migrants, illegally mining the northern provinces of Burma.
who knows what's going on in Bhutan, Nepal and Sikkim; those tiny little countries control the headwaters of great Asian rivers. and water is the once & future oil of this planet.
...and I would note that India and the PRC are still fighting over Arunachal Pradesh: http://tinyurl.com/8xhoaxy
I mean hey, if the PRC wants to pull out of Tibet, grant it independence, and do so as part of a greater border agreement with India putting to end this whole issue I doubt the Tibetan government would oppose. But that's not going to happen because the PRC cares more about colonizing and exploiting Tibet than they do about inconvenient ideas like self-determination and human rights. I think the above map is drawn that way so as to encompass areas that were nominally under Tibetan control until 1950, use existing easy to draw demarcations, and so as not inflame any tension with India, which in its grace has granted refuge to the Dalai Lama and tens of thousands of Tibetans from the abusive tyranny of the PRC government. This isn't about race so much as it is about fundamental questions of international law.
Here is an 1877 American map of the region drafted for the Library of Congress:
And here is a map drawn up in 1914 by Rand McNally, in "The New Student's Reference Work.": 
A map from 1850 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Asien_Bd1.jpg
An earlier map from Germany: "Das Chinesische Reich, mit Seinen Schutzstaaten Nebst dem Japanischen Inselreiche", Meyer’s Hand Atlas, 1850: 
(Although Japan is also in Yellow, the title says that it is a map of the "China, along with the Japanese Island-Empire"
From the Taiwan National Historical Museum
...any of my points. You just show why the argument that map demarcation is all-important in determining such questions is irrelevant. What possible justification is there for the military occupation of Tibet other than the construction of empire? If we were to go by either of those maps Korea would still belong to Japan!
The Lines according to the Simla Accord of 1914 between Britain and Tibet, that China walked away from that would have established joint administration over "Outer Tibet"
Red = Outer Tibet - Joint China-Tibet
Cyan = Tibet
Yellow = Tibet/India - "The McMahon Line"
Simla Convention
To begin to defend what has happened in Tibet since 1950 requires the burying of many truths. The PRC had no right to force itself upon Tibet military, sack thousands of religious sites, and create an economic system designed to exclude and denigrate Tibetans. In this regard, the PRC made a choice and it is wicked and inexcusable. Considering that the cadres of the PRC have gone to such an extent to denounce imperialism, that they would so nakedly engage in it themselves is rank hypocrisy.
Welcome to DU!
Hey check out the Buddhist group sometime: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1249
