Tibetans and their supporters will hold protests worldwide tomorrow, 1 July, to denounce the launch of the railway that will connect Beijing and Lhasa, Tibet’s capital. The “Reject the Railway” campaign will see protests at Chinese embassies and consulates in major cities around the world, including Ottawa, New York, London, and Dharamsala, India. The Norwegian Tibet Committee is following the developments closely. (30-JUN-06)
Text: Free Tibet Campaign. Picture: BBC
Tibetans fear that the Chinese Government will use the railway to further its colonization of Tibet by moving in ever-larger numbers of Chinese settlers and military personnel while transporting out Tibet’s vast natural resources.
Destroy Tibetan identity
“China´s Tibet railway has been engineered to destroy the very fabric of Tibetan identity,” said Lhadon Tethong, the Executive Director of Students for a Free Tibet. “China plans to use the railway to transport Chinese settlers directly into the heart of Tibet in order to overwhelm the Tibetan population and tighten its stranglehold over our people. We will continue to take action to defend Tibetan culture and today´s protest is but a preview of what the People´s Republic of China can expect as we approach the 2008 Beijing Olympics.”
Economic development
Hu Jintao, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and former Party Secretary of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, will officially open the railway on July 1st in Golmud – an eastern Tibetan town and starting point for the newly extended 1,200 km line to Lhasa. Chinese authorities claim the railway will bring economic development to Tibet while Tibetans hold that the true motivation is consolidation of China´s political control of the region. Tibetans fear that the railway will facilitate the entry of large numbers of Chinese settlers into Tibet, further marginalizing Tibetans socially and economically, bolster China´s military strength in the region, and cause irreparable damage to Tibet’s high-altitude ecosystem. Many Tibetans see the railway as the final phase in China´s plan to wipe out Tibetan identity and culture.
Speak out
“The Chinese government openly admits its political motivation for this project,” said Matt Whitticase, Campaign Spokesperson for Free Tibet Campaign. “The completion of the railway marks the realization of Mao’s dream to assimilate Tibet into the People´s Republic of China. Through our global day of action we hope to expose this reality and give voice to Tibetans inside Tibet who are not free to speak out in opposition to this devastating project.”
