Riots in Lhasa - By a Finnish professor
Riots in Lhasa - By a Finnish professorby Eirik Granqvist, a foreign expert in Shanghai who visited Tibet in 2006
"The western medias announced that China had cut all information and that articles about the riots could not be sent out! I got mad about all the apparently incorrect information and wrote this article and two other similar ones although I am not a journalist but just because I could not stand all the bad things about China that was told. I sent them by e-mail without problems and they arrived well but two newspapers did neither respond neither publish what I had written. The third answered and wanted a shorter version that was published many days later as a normal 'readers voice'. What Dalai Lama had said was largely published every day together with a real anti-China propaganda. What I had written was apparently too China friendly for the 'free press'."
I was very shocked by what I had seen in the television and been reading in China daily about the riots in Lhasa. The most that shocked me was anyhow may be not the cruel events by themselves but how the medias in my country of origin, Finland, reported the events. A friend has scanned and sent me articles and I have checked also myself what can be found at Internet.
Very few Finnish people have ever visited Tibet, but I was there together with my wife in 2006. This was private persons and not as a part of a group-travel. I have seen Lhasa with my own eyes. I have been talking and chatting with people there. This was without any restrictions. Okay, we had a lovely and very competent guide that helped us much and took us where we wanted to go in the mornings but in the afternoons we were alone. Therefore I think that I have something to tell.
I am also interested in history and know more than people in general. When writing this, I do not have any reference books so I write out of my memory. If I do a small mistake somewhere, I beg your pardon. Anyhow, I think that this gives my writing an objectivity. I am well aware of that I will be accused for this and that for writing what I think is the truth. I will be accused by those who think that they know but do not know and by those that haven't seen by their own eyes.
Tibet was for centuries an autonomous concordat between Nepal and China. Sometimes China ruled Nepal as well. The king of Tibet used therefore to have one Chinese wife and one Nepalese and then a number of Tibetan ones.
With the fifth Dalai Lama, the religious and the political power were unified under the rule of one person, The Dalai Lama. Tibet became a theocratic dictatorship and closed itself for the rest of the world. No foreigners were anymore allowed in.
At the end of the nineteenth century, the famous Swedish traveller Sven Hedin made an attempt to reach Lhasa but was sent politely back, out of Tibet by Dalai Lama.
A French woman, Alexandra David-Néel was more successful. She visited Lhasa dressed as a Tibetan pilgrim and she was fluent in the Tibetan language. She told how she was afraid many times that she should be discovered and then she knew that she like other suspects or opponents should "happen to fall down" from the walls of the Potala palace.
Tibet was not a paradise. Tibet was an inhuman dictatorship!
The weakened Chinese Qing Dynasty had more and more lost its influence in Tibet. Tibet became more and more interesting for the Russian empire in the north and the British in the south.
In 1903 a British army expedition directed by the colonel Younghusband reached Lhasa. The British lost 4 soldiers but slaughtered more the 700 Tibetans that tryed to stop them, mainly by magic. The British installed "a commercial representation" in Lhasa. The Chinese evacuated Dalai Lama to the Qinghai plateau where he hade limited rights of move, probably for preventing him from having contacts with the British occupants.
The Finnish national hero, Marshal Mannerheim, visited him there in 1907 during his famous horseback trip through central Asia. He was then a colonel in the Tsar Russian army and his trip was in reality a spy trip. Therefore the 13th Dalai Lama was interesting.
The power of Dalai Lama was weakened. In 1950 the PLA marched in to Tibet without war. The 14th Dalai Lama seems at the beginning to have accepted this just as a security for his power as the theocratic dictator he was. He enlarged and restructured the Norbulingka Summer Palace in a luxury way in 1954.
The Chinese decided anyhow to finish with the cruel theocratic dictatorship under which the opponents fell down from Potala. The borders where during this dictatorship closed for all foreigners and the only schools where the religious ones. It is well known that it is easier to rule a population with a low education and is ignoring the outside world. In Tibet, about 5% of the population owned everything and the rest literally nothing. About 40% of the Tibetans were monks and nuns living as parasites on the rest of the population that had to feed them. Tibet was not a paradise!
Now China decided that the Tibetans should have the same rights and place in the society as the rest of the country's population. The monasteries should be emptied from their excessively large monk and nun populations.
Tibet could earlier be reached only by some horse trails and was for the rest insulated. The Chinese built rapidly a trafficable road. The insulation was broken.
In 1959, the young Dalai Lama caused a peoples upraising, using the religion as power since he was loosing his own powerful position. The upraising was however stopped, may be in not a too clever and smooth manner. Dalai Lama then left Tibet and his fellow citizens and escaped to India wherefrom he has continued to fight for his come back and reinstall the theocratic dictatorship that China will never allow again.
Then followed the ten years of Cultural Revolution that was an unhappy time for all China that closed itself to the rest of the world.
Now Lhasa has a modern airport and a railway. China has invested a lot in Tibet. The standard of living has been raised a lot in Tibet and last Xmas I have seen Tibetans spending sun-holidays on Hainan Island! Very lucky looking old women in traditional dresses walking on the beach with their husbands and the youngsters dressed like other young people enjoying the beach life.
The possibilities for Dalai Lama to take back his power has diminished and he does not anymore have the population with him. China and India are developing their cooperation and with the closer friendship, India will for sure also not more admit Dalai Lama to disturb this development. His possibilities to act against China will be diminished.
Therefore he undertook recently an around the world diplomatic travel since he has seen the possibility of harming the now good international image of China and provoking boycotts of the Olympic games in Beijing.
The Lhasa riots where very well prepared. Curriers where crossing the borders illegally for to see Dalai Lama and get his orders. A group of foreign mountain climbers filmed recently across the border an unlucky incident when one of these curriers got shot and another that crossed the border openly declared that he wanted to go to see the Dalai Lama. I have seen that in television just before I left for China in November. (continued) China is no longer a closed country. There is no need for illegal border crossings if you are not doing something illegally! You just ask for a passport and take the necessary visas and cross the border at a legal border crossing or better, just take a regular flight from Lhasa to Kathmandu!
There where no peaceful demonstrations in Lhasa that where brutally knocked down! Young men went to action after a well prepared scenario at many places at the same time so that police and fire brigade should be taken by surprise and unable to act everywhere at the same time. This was successful! People where just knocked down without differences and all what could be broken was broken in the shortest possible time. With Molotov cocktails, fires where lit and fire cars where stopped. 18 normal citizens where killed without feelings and one police. The police had order to not respond with firearms for not being internationally blamed!
When I have seen the filmed riots in television, my diagnosis was immediately clear. The scenario was the same that I had seen many times of organized riots in France since more the forty years of tight familiar contacts and 21 years of living there. The difference was only that less ordinary people seemed to take part in Lhasa. The rioters where surprisingly few but well organized! China's positive image in the world should be damaged!
Dalai Lama is acting as the friendly and peaceful father. This is an old trick that also dictators like Hitler and Stalin used. I am not comparing him with them but he is acting like a demon when he tries to take back his power at any cost, not once caring for human lives and against Buddhistic non-violence principles. It was a try to do a coup d'ètat that failed. Now he is asking for international help for to stop the violence that he, himself had planned!
When I visited Tibet in 2006, I was surprised by the relaxed atmosphere and the few policemen in Lhasa. All that I have seen were Tibetans. Not the Han-Chinese. The atmosphere was remarkably peaceful and gave a picture of general well living. There was no oppressed feeling like I had seen so many times in the Soviet Union and its satellites before all that non-human system collapsed. People in Lhasa where friendly and wanted to speak to me, mostly without success since I do not speak Chinese nor Tibetan but up and then somebody could speak some words in English. Their wish for contact was just out of normal curiosity towards the foreigners.
I had heard that the religious life should been oppressed but it was flowering! I had also heard that so many Han Chinese where moved in that the Tibetans where now very few in Lhasa. I did however see much more Tibetans there. May be that the Han Chinese where hiding?
The western medias announced that China had cut all information and that articles about the riots could not be sent out! I got mad about all the apparently incorrect information and wrote this article and two other similar ones although I am not a journalist but just because I could not stand all the bad things about China that was told. I sent them by e-mail without problems and they arrived well but two newspapers did neither respond neither publish what I had written. The third answered and wanted a shorter version that was published many days later as a normal "readers voice". What Dalai Lama had said was largely published every day together with a real anti-China propaganda. What I had written was apparently too China friendly for the "free press".
A letter from a normal Chinese Student in Finland
I have tried to post discussion in one of the bigese New agency in Finland through internet, it showed that I have completed sent it, but it was never show up. Next is the letter, I don't know if it is too radical:I felt very sad, when Chinese were killed by riots, but the Western media just one sided report it. And try to imply the Han Chinese dislike Tibetans, but I know it is not true, like me many Chinese have never thought about against any minorities, we even want be a minorities because they have better treatment than the Han Chinese. Such as low university entrance scores, and can have more children, and so on.
When I knew many people were killed by mob, I scared, they were could be my families, these kind of feelings I believe the other countries' people can not understand.
The Western media I have been trusted for a long time, has crashed. (We have been called the pro-West generation.) I don't know how many times they have been lied before. You can not find any positive report about China in Europe. Before the railway to Tibet was build, they said China isolate Tibet want they became poor, when the railway was built, they said Chinese try to 'culture genocide' Tibetans.
What I want to say here is, please stop: the hatred between peoples. Breaking up China? How many Chinese refugees each European country willing to take, one million? or two million? And if you are so much believe Dalai Lama, I would think you would not afraid to see the other side of the coin: [url]http://www.anti-cnn.com/[/url] the oversea Chinese's voice, or to see both sides of the coin: in Youtube.
A normal student in Finland.
I don't know if the message was able to post in the internet, does it make me a communist propagandist (like many Chinese who has spoken against the riot, have been called in some 'Sanomat' news.) or just a patriot like Jean Sibelius in Finland. thanks you, Mr. Eirik Granqvist! You are honest, couragoues, and outright person! You are respectful representative of west civiliation! Otherwise, we could not even see a light from fair nature of human being. I am so upset, actually I cried. :'( But your letter like to restore some confidence in kind nature of human being! Thank You! thank you for your account, i recall the first news here in australia made the same points. video footage clearly showed the trouble was initiated by red-robed monks. within two days that morphed into the chinese police attacking buddhists, which was plain bullshit.
your statement agrees with wwhat was first said.
i am on china's side!!!!
where does the dalai lama get his money from?
that was a question asked by a journalist writing for the Melbourne Age last year:here's what he said.
this is the link for the article:
[url]http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/beh...?page=fullpage#[/url]
THE AGE (Melbourne, Australia)
Behind Dalai Lama's holy cloak
Michael Backman
May 23, 2007
THE Dalai Lama show is set to roll into Australia again next month and again Australian politicians are getting themselves in a twist as to whether they should meet him.
Rarely do journalists challenge the Dalai Lama.
Partly it is because he is so charming and engaging. Most published accounts of him breeze on as airily as the subject, for whom a good giggle and a quaint parable are substitutes for hard answers. But this is the man who advocates greater autonomy for millions of people who are currently Chinese citizens, presumably with him as head of their government. So, why not hold him accountable as a political figure?
No mere spiritual leader, he was the head of Tibet's government when he went into exile in 1959. It was a state apparatus run by aristocratic, nepotistic monks that collected taxes, jailed and tortured dissenters and engaged in all the usual political intrigues. (The Dalai Lama's own father was almost certainly murdered in 1946, the consequence of a coup plot.)
The government set up in exile in India and, at least until the 1970s, received $US1.7 million a year from the CIA.
The money was to pay for guerilla operations against the Chinese, notwithstanding the Dalai Lama's public stance in support of non-violence, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.
The Dalai Lama himself was on the CIA's payroll from the late 1950s until 1974, reportedly receiving $US15,000 a month ($US180,000 a year).
The funds were paid to him personally, but he used all or most of them for Tibetan government-in-exile activities, principally to fund offices in New York and Geneva, and to lobby internationally.
Details of the government-in-exile's funding today are far from clear. Structurally, it comprises seven departments and several other special offices. There have also been charitable trusts, a publishing company, hotels in India and Nepal, and a handicrafts distribution company in the US and in Australia, all grouped under the government-in-exile's Department of Finance.
The government was involved in running 24 businesses in all, but decided in 2003 that it would withdraw from these because such commercial involvement was not appropriate.
Several years ago, I asked the Dalai Lama's Department of Finance for details of its budget. In response, it claimed then to have annual revenue of about $US22 million, which it spent on various health, education, religious and cultural programs.
The biggest item was for politically related expenditure, at $US7 million. The next biggest was administration, which ran to $US4.5 million. Almost $US2 million was allocated to running the government-in-exile's overseas offices.
For all that the government-in-exile claims to do, these sums seemed remarkably low.
It is not clear how donations enter its budgeting. These are likely to run to many millions annually, but the Dalai Lama's Department of Finance provided no explicit acknowledgment of them or of their sources.
Certainly, there are plenty of rumours among expatriate Tibetans of endemic corruption and misuse of monies collected in the name of the Dalai Lama.
Many donations are channelled through the New York-based Tibet Fund, set up in 1981 by Tibetan refugees and US citizens. It has grown into a multimillion-dollar organisation that disburses $US3 million each year to its various programs.
Part of its funding comes from the US State Department's Bureau for Refugee Programs.
Like many Asian politicians, the Dalai Lama has been remarkably nepotistic, appointing members of his family to many positions of prominence. In recent years, three of the six members of the Kashag, or cabinet, the highest executive branch of the Tibetan government-in-exile, have been close relatives of the Dalai Lama.
An older brother served as chairman of the Kashag and as the minister of security. He also headed the CIA-backed Tibetan contra movement in the 1960s.
A sister-in-law served as head of the government-in-exile's planning council and its Department of Health.
A younger sister served as health and education minister and her husband served as head of the government-in-exile's Department of Information and International Relations.
Their daughter was made a member of the Tibetan parliament in exile. A younger brother has served as a senior member of the private office of the Dalai Lama and his wife has served as education minister.
The second wife of a brother-in-law serves as the representative of the Tibetan government-in-exile for northern Europe and head of international relations for the government-in-exile. All these positions give the Dalai Lama's family access to millions of dollars collected on behalf of the government-in-exile.
The Dalai Lama might now be well-known but few really know much about him. For example, contrary to widespread belief, he is not a vegetarian. He eats meat. He has done so (he claims) on a doctor's advice following liver complications from hepatitis. I have checked with several doctors but none agrees that meat consumption is necessary or even desirable for a damaged liver.
What has the Dalai Lama actually achieved for Tibetans inside Tibet?
If his goal has been independence for Tibet or, more recently, greater autonomy, then he has been a miserable failure.
Reply 6# edwardxderwent's post
It is so depressing why so many countries in the West allow separatists elements to set up bases in their land. When opposing groups reacts to the meddling of their countries internal affairs, these same nosey bodies countries label them Terrorists.Thank you CNN( and BBC,and those who follow you)
After weeks of anger, I suddenly feel a kind of happy.It's the 1st time in my life, to see ALL of the Chinese gather together so tightly,and fight for our motherland. And who achieve this, CNN, and all of his poppy media.
And it's the 1st time, that I've seen so many Chinese start to realize that some western media they're even worse than our cctv.
I guarantee within 5 years, those who had tried to boycott the Beijing Olympic and distroy the torch Marching, when they calm down and think about what they've done today, they'll be so so so regret and shame of themselves, and so will their families and freinds.
So I'm not that sorry because some of the sulking politicians are not coming to the opening ceremoni cause it'll be their lost. I'm not worried cause I know no matter how those media lieing, or how Dalailama shake his tails in front of his masters, so far no any government dare to say in front of any public place, that Tibet isn't part of China.
So, after all, it will only make Chinese being stronger,braver,and wakeful.
So, thank you CNN, thank you BBC, thank you some of the western politician, and their poppy Dalailama. woo,admin hasn't remedied the mistake. Many thanks for what you have done for the peace lovers all over the world.
we really appreciate your impartical pointview of chinese people and china,which makes us feel better and more confident in our action against discrimination and sanction from the western world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, Thank you very much to rise this article to talk for Chinese people. Your information is very useful and make me know much more about our history! To be frank, i know less than you about Tibet! And i totally believe what you wrote.
I have business partner in Finland who are very friendly to Chinese and have a good trust to Chinese Products! Finish people are really good friends of Chinese People!:handshake davehor This letter was sent by Eirik Granqvist personally, so if it is a mistake as you said, please ask himself to send the letter to [email]anti-cnn@anti-cnn.com[/email], we will do as he requires. If we proof you have make up the story, we will delete your post. To davehor, so far the Eirik Granqvist has not sent reclaim that he wish to delete his article in this forum. So we will keep this article here.And here has some of pictures he sent to us, which we do not put them on this website, but you still can see them on [url]http://tigerloong.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/the-riots-in-lhasa-by-eirik-granqvist/[/url]
You can compare does Eirik Granqvist are the same as you so called 'your friend' Granqvist, Eirik Karl 脰sten. And please check the requlation of being fake report in this forum.
[[i] Last edited by kukkaukkonen at 18-4-2008 19:33 [/i]]
Riots in Lhasa
There are many incorrect data in this paper (see comments below).What I had written was apparently too China friendly for the 'free press'."----This is real problem: pro-Chinese data are seldom published here and Pro-Tibetan data are strictly prohibited in China.
Tibet was for centuries an autonomous concordat between Nepal and China.---This is not correct. For a centuries it was a free country, then dependent on Mongolian and Manchu, not Chinese empire.
Sometimes China ruled Nepal as well.---Therefore, Nepal should be also a part of China?!
With the fifth Dalai Lama, the religious and the political power were unified under the rule of one person, The Dalai Lama. Tibet became a theocratic dictatorship ---No more dictatorship than Vatican and much less dictatorship than any Communist country.
French woman, Alexandra David-N??el was more successful.---She was a theosophist, scientists do not believe her.
Tibet was not a paradise. Tibet was an inhuman dictatorship!---Again: no more than P.R.China.
The weakened Chinese Qing Dynasty had more and more lost its influence in Tibet.---Qing was Manchu but not Chinese dynasty. China was a part of Manchu empire.
The Chinese evacuated Dalai Lama to the Qinghai plateau where he hade limited rights of move, probably for preventing him from having contacts with the British occupants.---Incorrect. Dalai Lama fled to Mongol land of Kukunor (at that time not a Chinese province!), then migrated to Outer Mongolia (now free country).
The Finnish national hero, Marshal Mannerheim, visited him there in 1907----If we follow your system, Mannerheim was a 'splittist' and Finland must be a part of Russia.
The Chinese decided anyhow to finish with the cruel theocratic dictatorship under which the opponents fell down from Potala.---Really, they wanted to introduce forceably Maoist dictatrship in occupied Tibet.
About 40% of the Tibetans were monks and nuns living as parasites on the rest of the population that had to feed them.---And how many communist officials live 'as parasites'? Every Tibetan family wanted to have an own monk! So Tibetans wanted to have so many monks.
Now China decided that the Tibetans should have the same rights and place in the society as the rest of the country's population. The monasteries should be emptied from their excessively large monk and nun populations.---However, the Tibetans do not want that! They want conduct their traditional life. Communists never asked Tibetans whether they want to live in China or in separate country, or whether they want to become the Han-Chinese.
Tibet could earlier be reached only by some horse trails and was for the rest insulated.---Again: did you ask Tibetans what they want in traffic problems?
In 1959, the young Dalai Lama caused a peoples upraising, using the religion as power since he was loosing his own powerful position.---Really, it was people's uprising against Communist dictatorship.
The possibilities for Dalai Lama to take back his power has diminished and he does not anymore have the population with him.---Nevertheless large majority of the Tibetans like Dalai Lama.
The Lhasa riots where very well prepared. Curriers where crossing the borders illegally for to see Dalai Lama and get his orders. A group of foreign mountain climbers filmed recently across the border an unlucky incident when one of these curriers got shot and another that crossed the border openly declared that he wanted to go to see the Dalai Lama.---All these are not true. No evidence that the riots were prepared (only slogans instead of evidence). Regarding this incident: refugees (not curriers!) tried to leave Tibet to India and were attacked by Chinese soldiers.
To Nick
You said ''What I had written was apparently too China friendly for the 'free press'.''If you mean, I baned davehor's post. I would say I will not do appologize. davehor sent a post to say that 'his friend' Granqvist, Eirik sent a email to him, saying the thread we put in this internet is 'misused'. davehor want us delete the article away. At the end we found out it is just a lie. According to the rule of the forum I have to ban him.
We hate lies, we have facing so many lies these days from the Western media, we do not need more in this forum.
I will not give any comments on your post about Tibet, you have repeated some stereotype again here. I just hope you can put down your imagination, and have a look around the articles in the fourm, not just from Chinese people but also foreigners.
[[i] Last edited by kukkaukkonen at 25-4-2008 18:16 [/i]] [quote]Original posted by [i]davehor1[/i] at 28-4-2008 23:02 [url=http://www.anti-cnn.com/forum/en/redirect.php?goto=findpost&pid=9236&ptid=25][img]http://www.anti-cnn.com/forum/en/images/common/back.gif[/img][/url]
I would like to make a few points before I post the e-mail.
Firstly, I don't appreciate being called a liar
Secondly, I don't appreciate having my account locked so that I cannot respond to your ... [/quote]
davehor1 comes back again, this time his not a friend of Granqvist, Eirik, but 'a German Student speaks out about Western Bias' here is the post he posted in the forum, please judge for yourself [url]http://www.anti-cnn.com/forum/en/thread-1394-1-1.html[/url] If you check davehor1's online record(just pointing on his name), you can see 29-4-2008 he was still online, but he did not respond why he fake as Granqvist, Eirik's friend. Today (30-4-2008) I once again baned this liar.
to kukkaukkonen
I can't understand something from your reply to me.Quote: You said ''What I had written was apparently too China friendly for the 'free press'.'' ---- This was said by Mr. Granqvist, not by me. Check my post carefully: I quote his statements at first, and put my comments after dashes.
Quote: If you mean, I baned davehor's post. -----I did not mean that. No idea.
Quote: I will not give any comments on your post about Tibet, you have repeated some stereotype again here. I just hope you can put down your imagination, and have a look around the articles in the fourm, not just from Chinese people but also foreigners.-----I read carefully different materials in the Internet to compare different views. I hope you do the same. I quoted facts, not stereotypes. Nobody demonstrated them to be wrong, so they are correct. To Nick, sorry if I misunderstood you. But from your post I could not see you were quoting Mr. Granqvist, please put the proof if he said so, then people can have a dicussion. Thanks!
Agree with you, welcome debate not stereotypes. :handshake
to kukkaukkonen
In my post #14 I simply pasted phrases from the paper of Eirik Granqvist and commented each of them after dashes. So you may simply separate the source data from my comments.Page:
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