Tibetan Youth Congress is moving towards to Terrorism?

There have been nine young Buddhist monks self-immolated in Sichuan Province, China this year. The ninth self-immolation happened to be a Buddhist nun who is only twenty years old. This string of self-immolations by young Buddhist monks is all aim at the Chinese rule. They claimed that Chinese government deprived their freedom to pursuit their own beliefs and religions. After these such violent protests happened, Beijing censured Dalai Lama for supporting and even encouraging these young monks to self-immolate; Beijing considers this as “Terrorism in Disguise.” On the press conference, the foreign ministry spokeswoman of China, Jiang Yu, condemned the Overseas Tibetan independence forces and the Dalai Lama Group for not criticizing. And instead, they glorified and emphasized this issue, which will probably encourage more and more young monks to imitate this practice. From what the members of the Tibetan Youth Congress have done in the past, can we assume that this group is walking towards Terrorism? Will the Tibetan independence activities be more and more intense?

In order to find out the direction the Tibetan Youth Congress is growing towards, we have to look back to its history.

“The Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) is an international non-governmental organization that advocates the independence of Tibet from China. With around 30,000 members in the Tibetan diaspora, it is the largest of the pro-independence organizations of Tibetan exiles. The organization claims no particular religious or party political affiliation.” (Wikipedia)

Tyc was founded on October 7^th, 1970 in India by the Dalai Lama’s secretary-- Tenzin Geyche Tethong and three other people--Lodi G. Gyari, Sonam Topgyal and Tenzin N. Tethong. TYC then started to set up branches in different regions, and now they are mainly distributed in India, Nepal, Bhutan, Britain, Canada and the United States. The purpose of the organization is to pursuit the independence of Tibet; therefore Dalai gathered the Tibetan youths from outside of the country and use their enthusiasm for Tibet to achieve his goal. Dalai even introduced the backbones of TYC to work in the Tibetan Government in exile.

Violence is one of the ideas the TYC advocates for. Not too long after the organization was established, the members of the organization schemed a rebellion in Bhutan and the purpose was to turn Bhutan to the counterattack position for Tibet. They planned to burn the palace and assassinate the king. However, when the plan was about to take place, twenty-eight suspects were arrested by the police after they detected the plan. On a secret meeting of the TYC in India in 1989, the organization decided to solve the “Tibet Problem” with violence.

In the 1980s, after Dalai Lama brought up the "five-point peace plan" and "Strasbourg Proposal", the backbones of the TYC start lobbying in different countries and tried to prove the inefficiency of peace plan. Some of the members even claimed that they would be using violence constantly.

TYC was involved in 1987, 1988 and 1989 Lhasa riots. In 1987, the Tibetans went on the street to protest. And while the police came to stop the protest, a conflict happened between the protesters and the police. The protesters started to throw stones at the police and they even stole a pistol from them, chaos was resulted. The second riot happened on the last day of a religious meeting in 1988. The governors of the autonomous region were threatened to release the separatists who were arrested earlier. Many casualties were caused; a policeman was killed and twenty-nine were injured. Almost a hundred thugs with iron, sticks and stones attended the riot. They even destroyed the shops, clinics and restaurants on the way. The third riot was led by eight nuns and 3 monks in 1989. The thugs spread out wrong ideas to the public. They caused eleven deaths and one hundred injuries. Also, nine hundred shops were destroyed; twenty-four government agencies, companies and schools were affected; and twenty cars were smashed. The riot resulted an economic loss of ten million yuan. The most recent riot took place in 2008. During this riot, eighteen innocents were killed, 382 were injured, and 242 police were either killed or hurt. Besides, thousands of shops were smashed.

Looking at what the TYC have done. It’s obvious that the idea of being independent drove all these young people together and caused destruction to the public and the society. They used the media to spread out their ideas to the world and try to gain sympathy and support. In order to protect their transnational rights, they removed the programmatic rights. This organization is hurting the innocent to achieve their goals. They are just acting like terrorists.

Also, there are changes of their terrorist activities as the time goes along. Every time the riot happened, the effect resulted from it gets more and more serious; more casualties were caused and larger economic loss to cover. The weapons change too. The first riot started out with only stones but then the riots after, the thugs used sticks, iron and other tools to make the riot more intense. And now, the TYC is trying to get benefits from the media. The young monks and the nun used the one of the most painful ways to commit suicide. They wanted to show the world how they sacrificed for their beliefs and even show how they were suppressed by the government. All they want is attention from the world. They are just trying to make the world misunderstand Chinese government and stand on their side. Media plays a significant role in international affairs; a tiny piece of news can be received from every corner of the world. And the TYC is taking the advantage of it.

Nowadays, the young Tibetans of the TYC are not really following what Dalai Lama taught them about nonviolence, which means they are walking closer and closer to Terrorism. If the world is not in favor of terrorism, why do most of the countries stand on the Tibetan’s side? Even though China is not a democracy country, there are laws protecting people’s rights to pursuit their religions or beliefs. Democracy does not work in all the countries and I think before China change to be a democracy country, it’s more important to prevent the existence of terrorism.

Works Cited

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人民网强国社区. 人民网强国社区. 27 04 2008. .

Branigan, Tania. Theguardian . 19 October 2011. .

Demick, Barbara. Los Angeles Times. 23 October 2011. 2011 .

wikipedia. wikipedia. 23 02 2011. .