Tibetans in Switzerland, marching in Saint Prex in 2008

Tibet, like Switzerland, has mountains and lakes (photo: Liam Bates 2007)

Bern, Switzerland (TSR, Fre) – Fifty years ago today the Dalai Lama fled Tibet, starting an exodus of refugees who today number 123,000 throughout the world. The second largest group of Tibetans in exile, outside Asia, lives in Switzerland. Some 2,000 marched in Bern today, to the Chinese embassy not long after the Dalai Lama made a speech in India that garnered world media attention.

A leader of the Swiss Tibetan movement, Deki Youdeun, told TSR that the refugees here have public opinion behind them to put pressure on China, and now the group would like the Swiss government to use its influence on China to improve human rights in the region. It is looking to Switzerland, she said, “for real support at the level of the government, with Switzerland clearly condemning in the media the torture and disappearances happening [in Tibet].”

The Swiss foreign affairs ministry, however, notes that Tibet is a region and not a separate state, and it is thus not covered by international law. It therefore has no direct relationship with Switzerland. Human rights in Tibet have been on the agenda as part of discussions with China since 1991. Given the size of the Tibetan refugee community in Switzerland, the government in Bern maintains contacts with the community in order to help “bring about a lasting and peaceful solution of the Tibetan question.”

The Dalai Lama’s speech from his home in India has been heavily covered by media worldwide, with emphasis placed on a phrase he used, that China has created a “hell on Earth” for Tibetans. The phrase was used in reference mainly to the past: “Having occupied Tibet, the Chinese Communist government carried out a series of repressive and violent campaigns that have included “democratic” reform, class struggle, communes, the Cultural Revolution, the imposition of martial law, and more recently the patriotic re-education and the strike hard campaigns. These thrust Tibetans into such depths of suffering and hardship that they literally experienced hell on earth.”

The speech (read the official translation into English in its entirety) was a “model of generous mildness, except for ‘hell on earth’ part, Canada’s Globe & Mail reporter in Dharamsala, India, Stephanie Nolen wrote on Twitter shortly after the speech. She noted that she found it “A bit scary, the gap” between world media headlines such as the New York Times calling it a “blistering speech”, others a “harsh attack” – [with] all stories datelined Beijing, not here. I didn’t hear any blister, any fury.” New York Times blogger Robert Mackey says “Although he painted Chinese rule of Tibet in stark terms, the Dalai Lama stopped short of endorsing calls for Tibetan independence.”

The strong words nevertheless have clearly riled Chinese media, with Xinhua writer Cheng Zhiliang writing an angry ripost.

Related:

Audio and slide show report from Canada’s Globe & Mail, with Stephanie Nolen in Dharamsala, India

NPR (US) radio discussion, 2008, on the past and future of Tibet, featuring four Tibetan specialsts: Tsewang Rigzin, president of the Tibetan Youth Congress, an exile group that advocates full independence from China; Tsering Wangdu Shakya, a Tibetan scholar and professor at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for Asian Research (Born in Lhasa, he fled to India with his family after the Chinese invasion. He is the author of “The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947,” which The New York Times called “the definitive history of modern Tibet.”); Robbie Barnett, director of the Modern Tibetan Studies program at Columbia University; from Melbourne Australia, journalist Cameron Stewart of The Australian, in Tibet in early November 2008.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.