Tibet, known as the “Roof of the World”
or the “Land of Snows” because it contains the world’s highest mountains, is
a strip of land between China and India, seperated and distinguished from
the two nations by mountain ranges on its either sides. The Tibetan people
are ethnically different from the inhabitants of their surrounding nations
and speak their own language.
The Dali Llama, the Tibetans believe,
is a reincarnation of the Budda, who is reincarnated after the death of each
Dali Llama and serves as the religious and political head of the Tibetan
state. The current Dali Llama assumed his full leadership role in 1950,
when the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLO) invaded Tibet. The Dali
Llama then traveled to China and India to seek peace negotiations. When the
Tibetan people of Lhasa, the capital city, preformed a massive demonstration
calling for China to leave Tibet in 1959, the Chinese army crushed the
uprising and the Dali Llama fled to India with an estimated 80,000
followers. The refugees have settled in the Indian city of
Dharamsala, which is the location of the exiled Tibetan government.
Tibet remains under the administrative control of
China, though the Central Tibetan Administration contends that Tibet is
under illegal military occupation from China. One of the main arguments
between China and Tibetan nationalists is over Tibet’s history as a part of
China or its own distinct culture and nation. China believes that Tibet as
always been a part of China and argues that they do not infringe upon
Tibetan sovereignty. China refers to Tibet as the Tibetan Autonomous Region
(TAR), treating the region like a province of China. The area referred to
as the TAR covers almost half of cultural Tibet and all of the land
controlled by the Tibetan government before the Chinese PLO occupation,
making the TAR the second largest province of China. The Dali Llama
currently does not seek independence for Tibet, but does call for better
treatment of Tibet as a province of China.
China has long been criticized for its human rights
violations in the TAR. China, itself, has recently launched a website
dedicated to Human Rights in the TAR, arguing the many improvements in the
lives of Tibetans since the Chinese “democratic reform [of the region] and
serfs’ liberation.” The question of Tibet brought Chinese policies under
fire before the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, and the world took particular
notice when, after a pro-Tibet protest marking the anniversary of the PLO’s
invasion, many peaceful protesters were jailed. At the sixth session of the
UN Human Rights Council, The Tibetan UN Advocacy, an NGO based in Geneva,
was formed to educated Tibetans about the United Nations and involve them in
the body. The UN General Assembly passed three resolutions in the years
just following the Chinese control of Tibet, calling on China to respect
Tibetan rights and right to self-determination. In 1991, the UN
Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minority
Rights passed a resolution urging China to respect Human Rights and calling
on the Secretary General to pass reliable information on Tibet to the UN
Commission on Human Rights.
