PIGS IN TIBET

I took this picture of the Potala on my first expedition across Tibet in 1986. Even though I’ve since logged over 10,000 kilometers criss-crossing Tibet, it is always a fantastic thrill to see one of man’s great architectural masterpieces, built seven centuries ago high on the Tibetan Plateau.

It is no thrill, however, for Tibetans. For them, the Potala is “dead,” for the Dalai Lama no longer lives there. The Potala is instead a bitter reminder to Tibetans that their country has been stolen, that they are slaves to their masters, the Chinese.

A Tibetan’s most prized possession, the greatest gift you can give him or her, is a picture of the Dalai Lama. I have passed out thousands of such pictures all over Tibet – and every one illegally, for it is against Chinese law to have them.

COA (Chinese Occupational Army) garrisons are littered throughout Tibet. The Tibetans call them Tibu Baptu, Monkey Stations. Tibetans look upon Chinese soldiers as tibu, monkeys; Chinese Communist Party officials as pakba, pigs; and the swarms of Chinese immigrants sent to colonize Tibet as chusin, crocodiles devouring Tibet’s culture.

After slaughtering two million Tibetans in the seizure of Tibet, destroying its sacred monasteries, exiling and demonizing the beloved Dalai Lama, and colonizing it with imperial tyranny, the Chinese Pakba have the audacity to elaborately celebrate each year the “Liberation” of Tibet.

Now the Pakba are going to execute an innocent Tibetan Buddhist monk, Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche, whom they have framed for a bombing in Chengdu in 2002. Using the excuse of “the global war on terror,” the Chicoms tortured a local Tibetan, Lobsang Dhondup into confessing and implicated the Rinpoche, one of Tibet’s most venerated religious leaders (Rinpoche is a title meaning “precious jewel,” conferred upon a lama considered to be a reincarnated “highly realized being”). No other evidence was presented showing his involvement.

This is a sobering reminder that under the veneer of capitalist glitz, China is an imperialist tyranny operating a colonial empire within its own borders. The Rinpoche’s death sentence was suspended for two years, due to an international protest campaign embraced by a number of countries, including the US. Colin Powell has personally requested the release of the Rinpoche in meetings with Chinese Foreign Ministry officials.

This week, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhang Qiyue announced the end of the suspension and that the death sentence would soon be carried out.

To participate in the effort to save the life of Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche, go to FreeTibet.org. There is no more peaceful religion on earth than Tibetan Buddhism. There are few people on earth who have been more brutalized than the Tibetans. I urge you to do what you are able to help save this decent man, and beyond that, to join the cause of a Free Tibet.