April 2008

China's Treatment of Tibet Cannot be Overlooked

Dear Friend,

As a member of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, I have a moral responsibility to speak out against oppressive action anywhere in the world. That’s why I have been so opposed to the Chinese government’s treatment of the Tibetan people.

In 1949, the newly-established People’s Republic of China (PRC) sent military troops to occupy Tibet, which has been treated by Beijing as its westernmost province since then. The occupation has been disastrous for the Tibetan people. Monasteries, religious structures and other aspects of Tibetan Buddhism and its ancient culture were either damaged or totally destroyed. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has mercilessly repressed political dissent and religious freedom in the country, and there are reports that more than 1-million Tibetans died during the first 30 years of PRC rule.

In 1959, at the age of 24, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama fled Tibet under threat of imprisonment and execution, and went into exile in India with a group of his followers. He remains there today, along with a Tibetan refugee community of tens of thousands. He is still widely regarded as the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, their foremost advocate, and a figure of international stature. The Dalai Lama has steadfastly maintained that Tibet was an independent country, but he is willing to accept that it is now part of the PRC. He has also been willing to negotiate with Beijing, and has advanced a number of very moderate proposals regarding his country’s future status. The Communist regime, however, has only met this willingness with stiff opposition, and is currently instigating yet another crackdown in the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics.

Congress has and will continue to stand strongly by the Tibetan people:

• In 1991 the Congress passed a resolution stating that Tibet is an occupied country;
  
  
• In September 2007, I co-sponsored a House Resolution 610, urging the Bush Administration to boycott the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing this August unless the Chinese regime stops engaging in serious human rights abuses against its citizens, and stops supporting human rights abuses by the Governments of Sudan, Burma, and North Korea against their citizens.
  
  
• In March 2008, I spoke at a White House demonstration, sponsored by the International Campaign for Tibet and the Capital Area Tibetan Society.
  
  
• As of April 2008, I will be co-chair (along with Congressman Dana Rohrabacher) of the new Congressional Tibet Caucus.

We cannot stand silently by and watch as another wave of brutality by the Beijing regime sweeps across that tiny and once peaceful country. More and more individuals and organizations are calling for a United States boycott of the Beijing Olympics to express to the government of the People’s Republic of China — and to the world — that its subjugation of the people of Tibet cannot be condoned or overlooked.

 

Aloha,

Neil Abercrombie

Member of Congress