[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 45 (Friday, March 10, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E579]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                          TIBETAN UPRISING DAY

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                        HON. JOHN EDWARD PORTER

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, March 10, 1995
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, as co-chairman of the Congressional Human 
Rights Caucus, I have long followed the plight of the Tibetan people 
and the peaceful activities of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, for which 
he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. Forty six years ago in 
1949, Communist China invaded Tibet. By 1959, the Chinese Army had a 
strong military presence in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, and it was 
rumored that the Chinese had a plan to take the Dalai Lama to Beijing 
to act as a Chinese puppet. On March 10, 1959, in response to 
indications by the Chinese garrison in Lhasa, Tibetans staged massive 
demonstrations. Thousands of Tibetans surrounded the Dalai Lama's 
Palace to prevent him from being taken by the Chinese or voluntarily 
surrendering to avoid conflict and protect the Tibetan people. The 
Chinese made their intentions clear and began shelling the palace, 
causing further Tibetan demonstrations that ultimately resulted in the 
deaths of tens of thousands of Tibetans, many of them monks and nuns. 
The Dalai Lama narrowly escaped the slaughter by disguising himself and 
fleeing over the Himalayas to India. In the past 40 years, His Holiness 
has worked tirelessly to appeal for international help to save his 
people.
  Congress officially recognizes that Tibet is an illegally occupied 
country whose true representatives are the Tibetan government in exile 
and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Currently, the most critical issue for 
the Tibetan people is the transfer of Chinese population into Tibet, 
which is reducing the Tibetans to a minority in their own country and 
undermining the Tibetan culture. We cannot ignore the plight of the 
Tibetans and their ongoing loss of community and identity. Because 
today, March 10, marks an important day for Tibetans, I ask my 
colleagues to join me in remembering and paying tribute to the 1.2 
million Tibetans who have died under Chinese rule since 1949 and to 
work with me through the Congressional Human Rights Caucus to continue 
to focus congressional attention on this issue. I also commend to my 
colleagues the following A.M. Rosenthal editorial ``Criminals for 
Freedom'' regarding this deplorable situation.
                [From the New York Times, Dec. 27, 1994]

                         Criminals for Freedom

                          (By A.M. Rosenthal)

       From concentration camps come few dispatches, not even when 
     a whole nation is imprisoned. Silence is as real as barbed 
     wire. For the captors, it is at least as effective.
       So, when occasionally I write about the captivity of Tibet, 
     readers sometimes ask why I care so much.
       They ask why they should involve themselves. Isn't so much 
     else more important to American interest?
       And since the invasion and occupation by the Chinese 
     Communists have gone on so long, almost a half century now, 
     with Beijing's grip growing ever tighter, forcing more and 
     more Tibetans out of the country, and the world not even 
     taking note, are not Tibetans and foreigners perpetuating an 
     impossible dream when they insist that Tibet lives?
       As the years pass, the questions become ever more important 
     to answer--else the silence will become eternal, and the 
     concentration camp one more national grave.
       But before they can be answered, another question must be 
     put: Why is it that Tibet, a nation with a history almost as 
     old as man's memory, a nation with a culture unique in the 
     world, with a religion that not only binds together its own 
     people but embraces men and women all over the world, why is 
     this nation, almost alone among nations, denied the most 
     elemental rights of nationhood and personal freedom?
       When I was a young reporter, The Times assigned me to the 
     bureau it had just set up at the brand new United Nations. 
     The total membership then was 56 and new countries were 
     asking to be admitted. One day a British delegate warned that 
     if the U.N. kept growing, the membership would be as high as 
     70, maybe 80.
       Today the membership stands at 184. Among them are 
     countries that are minute in population and size. Their most 
     important industry is the bureaucracy created to run them.
       And there are other members whose boundaries and identities 
     were craved out of the map by the colonial powers of Europe 
     for their own administrative and imperial conveniences.
       And yet there they all are, flags waving on First Avenue, 
     their ambassadors treated as they should be, with dignity and 
     attention.
       But Tibet--Tibet is not only barred from U.N. membership 
     but its representatives are usually not even allowed in its 
     halls and meeting rooms or in the state departments of the 
     world.
       Why? The nations know what has been happening--the 
     massacres, tortures, pillage, the deportation of millions of 
     Tibetans and their replacement by Chinese, the stone-by-
     stone, temple-by-temple destruction of a great culture.
       The truth is that almost all the nations of the world made 
     a deliberate decision to abandon Tibet to its captors. Among 
     these nations were many U.N. members ruled by dictators. At 
     least they had some rationale--the brotherhood of tyranny.
       But for the others, including the United States and Europe, 
     the reason was money. Beijing constantly warns that trade 
     with China will be cut off for any nation daring to do all 
     that the Tibetans really ask--speak up for their elemental 
     human and political rights.
       Once President Clinton did that. But that was long ago--a 
     year or so. Now Washington talks about sending his wife or 
     the Vice President to visit Beijing, the heart and head 
     office of the Chinese and Tibetan concentration camps.
       So, after all, what do we have in common with Tibetans? I 
     can think of only this: shared criminality.
       The same political crimes that bound us to the victims in 
     the Nazi camps, to the dissidents in the Soviet Gulag, to the 
     people in the Khmer Rouge death pits and in the torture 
     chambers of the Middle East bind us to the Tibetans.
       Every day we commit the crimes for which Tibetans have been 
     made captive, tortured and murdered and for which their 
     nation has been sundered and occupied. We talk, we write, we 
     act, we think, we pray.
       Tibet has no ethnic or national constituency in the U.S. 
     But in America, as around the world, are thousands of people 
     who do what they can for Tibet--write, talk, act, pray, help 
     the International Campaign for Tibet (202) 785-1515. Among 
     them are intellectuals, business people, members of Congress, 
     working people, Democrats and Republicans.
       This constituency is staunch and slowly growing. That is 
     the best reason I can give for hoping for the future of the 
     imprisoned nation in the Himalayas--the international 
     conspiracy of the criminals for freedom.
     

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