On the occasion of Chinese Senior Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo visit to India, we the Tibetan Youth Congress strongly condemn his visit to held a boundary talk with a counterpart. A boundary talk between India and China is not its first kind. Several talks were held during the past many years, but both sides have not yielded any concrete and appropriate result. It is because of that there is no border between India and China. Tibet is the only legitimate country that has full authority to hold boundary talks with India. Aftermath of the Indian Prime Minister Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee’s June 2003 visit to China, there are reasons to believe that both sides are genuinely interested in furthering their cooperation. But we oppose the Indian Prime Minister’s declaration and recognition of ‘Tibet Autonomous Region is part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China’, which has made a profound disappointment and resentment to the Tibetan people.
Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) is the largest non-governmental organization in the Tibetan community. Its stand on complete independence of Tibet, consisting of all the three provinces has been very consistent. TYC has been totally opposing the Chinese government division of Tibet by the formation of so-called TAR (Tibet Autonomous Region) in 1965 and incorporating the Amdo and Kham regions into other Chinese provinces.
While we welcome the new era development between the world two most populous nations India and China, at the same time we would like to stress and remind that the cordial relations must not build at the cost of Tibet. It has been well documented that prior of 1959 and after the Indian recognition of the Chinese position in Tibet, the relations were entirely problem free. Tibet has played a vital role as a buffer state. A boundary talks between India and China will not address any important message until the issue of Tibet is solved. One does not solve a dispute involving thousands of square miles of territory, was the cause of humiliation in 1962. And the China has no right and authority to talk on the border issue, as there never exist the border between India and China in the history. The present scenario comes only after the China forcibly and illegal invasion of Tibet in 1949. Before that Tibet was a peaceful independent nation having cordial relationship with its neighbouring countries India, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma and China.
China’s continued colonization and occupation of Tibet has clearly showed that all is not well inside occupied Tibet. A human rights situation in Tibet is still worsening in many prevailing cases, even if the international community has warned the Chinese government. For the past eight years, the world’s youngest political prisoner of conscience the 11th Panchen Lama is in captivity of the Chinese government. In the recent times, the high Tibetan lama Tulku Tenzin Delek was sentenced death of two year reprieve and his disciple Lobsang Dhondup was executed on 26th January 2003 by the Chinese government without any fair trial and authentic evidence. One of the political prisoners Nyima Dakpa, a 29 years old was died on 1st October 2003 in Tibet that coincides the 54th anniversary of China’s National Day. He has been imprisoned for many years raising the voice for justice against the Chinese government was subjected to brutal tortured and bad treatment. There are still many Tibetan political prisoners incarcerated in different prisons by the Chinese authorities. We call upon the Chinese government to release all the Tibetan political prisoners without any condition and quit Tibet too.
China has a systematic policy to completely eradicate the Tibetan identity that jeopardized the very survival of Tibetan people and its rich culture and religion. A railway line is being built by the Chinese government to connect Lhasa will make the colonization and marginalisation of the Tibetans even easier. It will also have far reaching negative impact to Tibet’s neighbouring countries, especially for India. Today, Tibet is the only largest remaining colony in the world that needs to be decolonized.
There are many evident that China has never abide any agreement or talks, whether it was 1954 Pancsheel Agreement with India or 1951 so called agreement with Tibet. It also includes the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) incursions into Indian Territory during Vajpayee’s visit to China. We will not consider and accept any agreement comes out of this visit. We therefore earnestly appeal and call upon the Government of India not to hold any boundary talks with China, for they are not the legitimate country to talk about the Indo-Tibetan Borders. Tibetan people have high respect and indebt to the Government and people of India for their moral support at this darkest period of our history.
Issued by: Office of Central Executive Committee of Tibetan Youth Congress
