DHARAMSHALA, August 28: Tibetan Youth Congress, the largest pro-independence group in exile, has declared 2013 as the ‘International Year of Tibetan Independence’ and announced a series of activities to commemorate 100 years of the 13th Dalai Lama’s ‘Proclamation of Independence.’
Addressing a press conference today in their office headquarters in Dharamshala, TYC president Tsewang Rigzin said the year-long activities will begin with an ‘International Rangzen Conference.’
“The International Rangzen Conference will be held in Dharamshala coinciding with the actual date of the proclamation of Independence by the 13th Dalai Lama 100 years ago on February 13, 1913,” Rigzin said.
TYC in a release stated that the Conference is aimed at strengthening the “conviction and determination of rangzen advocates for the restoration of Tibetan independence.”
Thubten Gyatso, the 13th Dalai Lama, who was forced to take refuge in British India from 1910–1912, following the Manchu invasion of Tibet, returned to his country after Tibetans expelled the Manchu forces from Tibet, marking the restoration of Tibet’s independence.
The 13th Dalai Lama declared Tibet’s independence on February 13, 1913 (8th day, first month, water ox Tibetan year) by making the ‘Tibetan Proclamation of Independence,’ a five-point public statement reasserting Tibetan Independence.
TYC said four preliminary regional Rangzen conferences have also been planned in North America (December, New York); East Asia and the Pacific (Taiwan, October 27-28); and India, Nepal and Bhutan (New Delhi, November 24-25); with the Europe regional meeting already concluded last July.
Rigzin said the main aims of the conferences are to “assert the essential purpose and goal of restoring the independence of Tibet” and to “develop plans and strategies to restore Tibetan independence.”
TYC will also hold a competition for the creation of a ‘Rangzen Emblem’ that can be used by any organisation or individual supporting the Rangzen Movement. The winner will receive INR 50,000.00 as cash prize.
“While creativity is an important component of this competition, we encourage candidates to come up with an Emblem, which will be easy to emulate yet, powerful enough to elicit fervent emotion,” TYC said.
During its recently concluded 43rd Working Committee Meeting, TYC resolved to launch an indefinite hunger strike campaign in solidarity with the ongoing wave of self-immolations inside Tibet and to amplify the demands of the self-immolators.
Three Central Executive members of TYC; Dhondup Lhadar, Vice-President, Penpa Tsering, Organisational Secretary, and Jigme (Sholpa), Cultural Secretary will be sitting on the indefinite fast beginning September 3 in New Delhi.
Rigzin urged Tibetans and supporters to join a ‘Global Day of Protest’ on September 18 to call on the United Nations to “immediately intervene and pressure China to douse the fiery protests inside Tibet.”
The Tibetan Youth Congress also urged Tibetans and supporters to take part in a ‘Global Day of Action’ on September 24th by contacting the United Nations, European Union, world leaders and parliamentarians through email, phone and fax for concrete support to resolve the issue of Tibet.
