The crackdown against protestors in Tibet has led to the deaths of over 100 Tibetans, at the same time that the U.S. government has removed China from its list of top 10 human rights violators.
Tibet was illegally invaded and taken over by China in 1951. In 1959, The Dalai Lama, the spiritual and political leader of the Tibetan people, was forced to flee to India to escape impending imprisonment. Since then, the Chinese government has systematically closed Tibetan monasteries, pillaged the once pristine Tibetan countryside, and impose its own poiltical, cultural, and economic order upon the country.
Tibet was illegally invaded and taken over by China in 1951. In 1959, The Dalai Lama, the spiritual and political leader of the Tibetan people, was forced to flee to India to escape impending imprisonment. Since then, the Chinese government has systematically closed Tibetan monasteries, pillaged the once pristine Tibetan countryside, and impose its own poiltical, cultural, and economic order upon the country.
What China has been doing in Tibet over the past 50 years is nothing short of cultural genocide. And yet, the world community--and the U.S government in particular--remains strangely silent. When it won the bid to host the 2008 summer Olympics, China made a promise to the world community to improve its human rights record. They clearly have reneged on this promise.
I think that the only thing that could possibly get the Chinese to grant a greater degree of autonomy to the Tibetan people is the threat of a boycott of this year's Olympics. I for one have already contacted my elected officials in Congress and told them that I demand that the U.S. withdraw from the 2008 Olympics unless human rights abuses in Tibet are stopped immediately. If enough of us do this, the U.S. government might eventually be shamed into taking action on this extremely important issue.
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