According to the research by a Canadian journalist, a
conference organized by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNSt) gave
the impetus to the current anti-Chinese Tibet campaign that violently
forced the interruption of the Olympian Torch Relay in Paris last
Monday.[1] The conference was the fifth "International Tibet Support
Groups Conference," that was held from May 11 - 14, 2007 in Brussels.
According to FNSt information this conference was supposed to do
nothing other than the four preceding conferences [2] - "coordinate the
work of the international Tibet groups and consolidate the links
between them with the central Tibetan Government in Exile."[3] The
German foundation, which is largely state financed, began the
conference preparations in March 2005, and coordinated its plans with
the Dalai Lama at his headquarters in the self-proclaimed Tibetan
Government in Exile in Dharamsala, India. More than 300 participants
from 56 countries, 36 Tibetan associations and 145 Tibet support groups
were represented at the conference.
Roadmap
After several days of consultations the conference
ended with a concerted "plan of action". The paper is entitled "Roadmap
for the Tibet Movement for the Coming Years" covering four areas of
interest: "political support for negotiations", "human rights",
"environment and development" and "the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing."
The results of the conference are directed to the Tibetan people as
well as "their supporters around the world."[4] Rolf Berndt, a member
of the FNSt's executive council in Brussels, declared that the Olympic
Games "are an excellent opportunity" to publicly promote the cause of
the "Tibet Movement".[5] The conference participants agreed to make the
Olympics the single focus of attack for their activities for the next
15 months.[6] They hired a full-time organizer for their campaign, who
has since been directing the worldwide Tibet actions from their
Washington headquarters.
State Department
The decisions taken at the conference in Brussels,
prepared by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, are particularly
significant not only because of the large number of participants but
also because of the influential politicians who helped in their
formulation. For example the self-proclaimed Tibetan Government in
Exile, which enjoys much prestige among separatists, was represented by
its "Prime Minister" Samdong Rinpoche. Also attending was another
eminent politician from the Indian Himachal Pradesh state, bordering on
the People's Republic of China, where the town Dharamsala is located,
the "seat" of the Tibetan "Government in Exile." A brisk interchange
takes place between Himachan Pradesh and the Chinese autonomous region
of Tibet. Paula Dobriansky, the Undersecretary of State in the US State
Department and special coordinator for Tibet questions also
participated. She was a member of the National Security Council already
in the Reagan Administration, continued her career in the State
Department during the administration of President Bush Sr. and since
2001 was again in the US foreign ministry. Ms Drobriansky is considered
to be one of the members of the neo-conservative inner circle in the
Bush Administration and ranks as a hard-liner capable of imposing
policy.
Every Day
As a Canadian journalist learned through his
research, the campaign headquarters in Washington, that had been
decided upon at the conference in Brussels, has been able to develop
rather successful activities. Already at the beginning of August 2007,
exactly one year before the opening of the Olympics, a close associate
organized a high profile action at the tourist filled Great Wall to the
north of Beijing. She maintains close contact to the Tibetan
"Government in Exile".[7] Another close associate recently orchestrated
the disturbance of the Olympic Torch Relay in Greece, seen on
television around the world. The Washington headquarters is
orchestrating other "protests" intended to disturb the Torch Relay. The
campaign will reach its climax during the Olympic games in August. "We
are determined to have non-violent direct action in the heart of
Beijing, inside the Games, every day," one activist declared.[8]
Merciless
The anti-Chinese Tibet campaign, initiated under the
direction of a German Foreign Ministry front organization (Friedrich
Naumann Foundation) and a high-ranking representative of the US State
Department, is developing its full efficacy in the aftermath of the
uprisings in West People's Republic of China that began only a few days
before the start of the Torch Relay. Whereas the German media mainly
reported on brutal attacks of the Chinese security forces, eye-witness
accounts provide a different picture of what happened. The British
journalist, James Miles ("The Economist"), who was in Lhasa from March
12 - 19, reports of pogrom-like attacks by Tibetan gangs on non-Tibetan
members of the population of the city, among them the Muslim minority.
According to Miles, the shops of Tibetan merchants were marked and left
unscathed while all other shops were plundered, destroyed or set
afire.[9] In one building alone five textile saleswomen were burned to
death. Besides Miles, western tourists also described the attacks on
non-Tibetans. One Canadian saw how a group of Tibetans beat a Chinese
motorcyclist and proceeded to "mercilessly" stone him. "Eventually they
got him on the ground, they were hitting him on the head with stones
until he lost consciousness. I believe that young man was killed,''
reported the tourist.[10]
Manipulations
Whereas Miles was describing the reluctant reactions
of the Chinese security forces in an interview broadcast over CNN, the
German media is using the uprisings as a backdrop to represent brutal
Chinese repression. Facts obviously play a subordinate role. In the
meantime, television channels and daily journals have had to admit
manipulations of pictures. Film sequences with Nepalese policemen
beating demonstrators were sold as documentation of alleged Chinese
police attacks.[11] The security forces' saving a boy from an attacking
Tibetan mob was coarsely labeled a violent arrest. Even Miles' report
was editorially presented in a context to focus on Chinese repression.
For the purpose of comparison, german-foreign-policy.com documents
excerpts of a CNN interview with the British journalist as well as the
corresponding passage from a renowned German daily.[12] (Click here.)
Anticipation
The pogrom-like mob-violence not only created the
necessary media profile for the current Tibet campaign, initiated with
the help of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, it also permits an
insight into the character of Tibetan separatism. The "prime minister"
of the Tibetan "Exile Government," who had participated in the
formulation of the plan of action at the May 2007 Tibet Conference in
Brussels, had already at the end of the 1990s, expounded in the German
media on his views of the future of non-Tibetans, who had immigrated to
Tibet over the past 50 years. In the case of a successful secession,
they will have to "return to China, or if they would like to remain, be
treated as foreigners." He explained the planned measures: "they will,
in any case, not be allowed to participate in the political life."[13]
The prospect of discrimination against all non-Tibetan members of the
population was anticipated in mid-March by mobs in their bloody attacks
on Chinese and members of the Muslim minority.
