By Topden Tsering

Over 200 Tibetans and Tibet supporters will press China for meaningful dialogue with the exile Tibetan government in a silent protest outside the Chinese consulate in San Francisco on October 28 when the Chinese President, Jiang Zemin, briefly stops over at the city airport en route to Mexico.

The demonstration is a part of “Thousands March against Jiang” rally, which brings together the Tibetans, the Falun Gong, Taiwanese Independence advocates, China democracy groups and Uighers in a symbolic defense of freedom and human rights of repressed peoples everywhere.

The Chinese president’s US visit comes in the wake of recent release of Ngawang Sangdrol, a 24-year-old nun who was imprisoned for shouting slogans for Free Tibet when she was fifteen in 1992. In a gesture viewed as warming relations after two decades of deadlock between the Chinese government and the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama, Beijing recently allowed an exile Tibetan government’s delegation to visit Tibet.

The silent protest marks the Bay Area Tibetans and their supporters’ deference to a circular issued by the exile Tibetan Government restraining sloganeering against visiting Chinese leader. Their mouths gagged with black clothes scribbled with slogans, “Free Tibet”, “China Out of Tibet”, the protestors, holding banners and placards, will hold a four-hour vigil outside the Chinese Consulate building, alongside meditating Falun Gong practitioners, slogan-shouting Taiwanese groups and Chinese democracy activists.

“We welcome China’s initiatives in allowing the exile Tibetan government’s delegation visit to Tibet and its release of seven political prisoners this year. Now China should follow up on its sincerity by entering into earnest negotiations over the Tibet issue with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the exile Tibetan government,” said Sonam Topgyal, President of Tibetan Association of Northern California (TANC).

Topden Tsering, President of Tibetan Youth Congress, the largest non-governmental Tibetan organization committed to Tibetan independence, said, “We suspect that these developments might be just another tactic from Jiang’s tick-box foreign policy, a carrot with which to assuage the human rights and Tibet concerns of the US government, without really meaning to end its military occupation of Tibet.”

“Beijing should realize the ally it has in His Holiness the Dalai Lama in peacefully resolving the Tibet issue. Otherwise it’ll have to face a growing generation of younger Tibetans who’re frustrated, angry and open to any and all options before them in pursuing nothing short of independence for Tibet,” he said.

“Now more than ever, the entire world is watching China. Its path to international acceptance lies only in its resolution of Tibet issue at the earliest. Without resolving the Tibetan issue, China can never escape global condemnation,” said Giovanni Vassallo, Secretary of Bay Area Friends of Tibet.

Jiang Zemin was met with similar protests from Tibetans and Tibet supporters in Chicago and Texas where the Chinese president met with the US President, George Bush. In Houston’s Intercontinental Hotel, Chinese president dined and cut deals with corporate executives of Shell and Exonmobile, two US oil companies China has enrolled to exploit Tibet’s natural resources.

The Chinese president’s visit comes in a run-up to the Chinese Communist Party Congress next month when a major power reshuffle is expected to emerge. Although Jiang is expected to retire from his presidency, he might, in the tradition of his predecessor Deng Xiaoping, hold on to his Chairman positions in the Chinese Military Commission and the Chinese Communist Party.

The Bay Area coalition of Tibetans, Taiwanese independence groups, Falun Gong practitioners, Chinese democracy activists and Uighers is a growing force that plunged into the mainstream with a huge Amnesty International-organized rally against Jiang on October 20.

China forcibly occupied Tibet in 1959, killing some 1.2 million Tibetans and destroying more than 6,000 monasteries. Forced into exile, His Holiness the Dalai Lama has since been seeking resolution of the Tibetan issue through reconciliation and negotiations.

Contact: Topden Tsering, 510-548-1095
Cheme Gonpo, 510-207 3860
Giovanni Vassallo, 415-285-8861