Solidarity and Resistance on Tibetan Uprising Day in New York

Around a thousand people marched from the United Nations Headquarters to the Chinese Consulate in New York City today to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Tibetan Uprising Day.

The day is observed not only in the United States but also internationally. This year, there were also commemorations held in Canada, New Zealand, UK, India, Japan and Taiwan.

The commemoration in New York consisted of two parts, a protest in front of the UN and a rally outside of the Chinese Consulate. The event began earlier this morning, when some several hundreds participants gathered at Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn and walked to the UN Headquarters together. The majority of the participants then joined them in front of the UN for a protest, where numerous speeches were delivered, and then marched all the way to the Chinese Consulate.

Several prominent Tibetan figures showed up at the UN protest, including Tibetan government’s Representative for North America Ngodup Tsering, Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile Member Pema Chagzoetsang, and Chemi Lhamo, student president of the University of Toronto’s Scarborough Student’s Union (SCSU). Rebiya Kadeer, former president of Uyghur World Congress, also spoke to the crowd.

(Tibetan rally outside of the Chinese Consulate in New York.)

New generation of activists

Dorjee Tseten, executive director of Student for a Free Tibet, the advocacy group organizing the march in New York City, said that the Tibetan communities want to tell the Chinese government that Tibetans will keep on fighting.

“If they [Chinese government] think that Tibet issue will die when His Holiness no longer lives, they are fooling themselves, because the new generation – there’s a whole new generation, both inside and outside of Tibet – is taking the responsibility,” he said. “So we will continue to resist. When there’s more oppression, there’s more resistance.”

Chemi Lhamo represents one of the activists leading new-generation Tibetan movement. The student leader came under the spotlight after the University of Toronto’s student-president election, when Chinese netizens and students from her school flocked to her social media, accusing her of lying to the voters and “hiding” her support for Tibet Independence.

“They didn’t want me as their president simply because of my Tibetan identity. Not because of my work ethic, or my experiences, or my capabilities; simply because I’m a Tibetan who yearns for home,” Lhamo said to the crowds in front of the UN.

(Around a thousand people participated in the Tibetan Uprising Day commemoration.)

Uprising Day

At the protest, what a lot of the speakers talked about was the history behind what made the Tibetan exile communities around the world – the Tibetan Uprising Day.

The Uprising Day, which the Chinese government called Tibetan Rebellion, came after Chinese officials’ invitation to the Dalai Lama to attend a performance at their military headquarters in Tibet in 1959. Fearing the Chinese military would abduct their leader, on March 10, tens of thousands of Tibetans surrounded the Norbulingka Palace, where the Dalai Lama resided in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, to prevent him from leaving for the event. The demonstration then quickly turned into a protest against Chinese government’s control of the region – eventually it became the flashpoint of a series of armed conflicts between China’s People’s Liberation Army and the outnumbered Tibetan army. Starting from there, Tibet was bombarded by the Chinese military for days, leading to the death of nearly 90,000 people.

The Dalai Lama then went into exile to India; so did other tens of thousands of Tibetans.

The tension between Tibet and the People’s Republic of China could be dated back to 1951, when representatives from then independent Tibet signed the Seventeen Point Agreement with the Chinese government. The Agreement, sometimes called the Peace Agreement of Tibet, stated China’s sovereignty over Tibet. It also specified the preservation of Tibetan culture and Tibetan people’s right to religion.

Decades have passed since the Agreement, however, Tibetans are losing their right to protect their culture. In 2016, Tashi Wangchuk, a Tibetan advocating for Tibetan language education, was arrested after he was seen featured in a documentary produced by The New York Times. Last May, the Qinghai Provincial court in China sentenced him to five years in prison for his intention to “incite separatism”.

(Taiwan Independence activists joined Tibetan commemoration.)

In Taiwan, as the next presidential election is underway, several politicians from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) have proposed to sign a similar “peace agreement” with China. KMT Chairman Wu Den-yih was the first to bring up the issue, saying that his party will seek to sign a treaty with China if they regain presidency in 2020. Since then, it has been hotly debated in Taiwan.

Informed of the discussions that are going on in Taiwan, Tseten said that, as a Tibetan, it is really difficult to trust the Chinese government.

“From the experience of Tibet, what we have learned is that in the name of peace, in the name of liberation, the Chinese Communist government brings repression and cultural genocide,” he said. “So it’s important for the Taiwanese people to fight and to preserve their own human rights and freedom.”

United against China’s aggression

The commemoration in New York appealed to a diverse crowd. Among the participants there were also non-Tibetans such as Uyghurs, Southern Mongolians, Taiwanese and Hong Kongers who came to show solidarity. Representatives from each group all spoke briefly about the oppression their people are facing.

The Tibetans present expressed concerns for their fellow participants and, to some, also for their own family.

One participant, Nyima Dhondup, 39, said this is the 15th Tibetan Uprising Day commemoration he has attended. Having escaped Tibet to India in 1994, he felt strong about the event because all of his family are still in Tibet and he worried his advocacy of Tibetan rights will put them in danger.

“I’m posting all the political situations on my Facebook, so I cannot contact them regularly. I don’t want to hurt them because of me,” he said. Dhondup moved to New York in 2010 and is now working in a hotel in the city.

“I want to tell the Chinese government: how you guys torture us and how you guys forced us become part of China, it is not right. We will never give up until we are free. We fight, and it never stops,” he continued, “and then we will free Tibet.”

(Feature photo by Joy Chang. Participants gathered in front of the UN protesting against Chinese government’s oppression of the people in Tibet.)