Sunday, March 16, 2008

Tibetan monks lead protests against China



This video comes from Russia Today

Beijing has set a deadline of Monday for demonstrators in Tibet to surrender. Chinese officials say the violence in the last few days has left ten people dead. But exiled Tibetan leaders put the death toll at a hundred and claim many more protestors have been injured.

Undoubtedly the Tibetan people will face even greater repression as a result of these demonstrations. The Chinese Communists devoid of any semblance of moral scruple will use the same jackboot tactics as were successfully employed by the Burmese Government in its crackdown on the 2007 uprising by Buddhist monks. Did not the Chinese Government school the Butchers of Burma in advanced techniques of military repression?

The following places the demonstrations in a historical context:

"Today from the legal standpoint, Tibet to this day has not lost its statehood. It is an independent state under illegal occupation. Neither China's military invasion nor the continuing occupation by PLA has transferred the sovereignty of Tibet to China.

As pointed out earlier, the Chinese government has not claimed to have acquired sovereignty over Tibet by conquest. Indeed, China recognises that the use or threat of force (outside the exceptional circumstances provided for in the UN charter), the imposition of an unequal treaty or the continued illegal occupation of a country can never grant an invader legal title to territory. Its claims are based solely on the alleged subjection of Tibet to a few of China's strongest foreign rulers in the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries..."

- Dr. Michael C Van Walt Van Pragg (International Lawyer) The Status of Tibet

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