It really is a testament to the information-control paranoia of the CCP that merely “finding” the torch, whose journey up Everest is the very reason for your being there in the first place, becomes such an “event”. I can’t imagine the frustration one must endure if one were to actually live in such an environment of constant “supervision”. But good work, and keep up the great stories.

Chinese says dont bring politics with games, then why is not bringing olympic torch in Tibetan mount everest, great, hardest, and going torch in a sensitive area of lhasa and xinjiang and so on, is not that politics, Why two torch one in hongkong now and one in averest,
If people want to know more about CCP waht it looks like see ( Nine commentaries of chinese communist)

well done, the post has successfully given an image of how CCP control the information to all readers. News of torch does not really matter? Right now who is really caring about where is the torch about?

I guess people are more excited to dig more problems of China. Keep going. Your readers like it.

Millions if not more Chinese university and college students, studying on Visas abroad, are “voluntering” in each subsequent nation that the Olympic torch passes through to show up en-masse in embassy provided t-shirts, carrying embassy provided banners, screaming out of embassy provided megaphones, and chanting and singing embassy provided lyrics and speeches - these poor souls - who if they do not do as they are directed - will likely have their Visas immediately cut off - not to mention whatever sanctions will be imposed by the Government of the People’s Republic of China on them and their family and friends whether they return or especially if they ask for political asylum.

Any and every single article. posting, and letter is of import, right now, not simply for the people of Tibet, but for the billions of innocent people of China, because once the Olympics pass,. the government of the People’s Republic of China, will never again, in our lifetimes make such a tactical public relations miscalculation.

Demorcracy, may never be attendant within the borders of China, but the principles of justice, equality, and dignity can and must be represented within the brotherhood of mankind throughout the world.

The opposition is not to the good people of China but to the government of the People’s Republic of China, keep your focus people, CNN is not merely leading the media in providing the information, but indeed leading the charge by helping open channels of communication that otherwise would no longer exist.

as a chinese, i am so proud of my country to host the summer olympic. I support my country with all my heart. It is so funny that those brainwashed westener keep accusing that the goverment is behind evwerything. from your biased eye, no matter what chinese do,it is will be wrong. Don’t you?

A job well done!!! Government of the People’s Republic of China successfully crused the voice of innocent Tibtians. Whole world is quite for a long time on injustices done for Tibtians….shame on all of us….I think it is the right time to speak loud as whole world’s attention is on Chinese acts.

Please keep reporting eyewitness news. thank you. Keep safe.

Jack,

As much as I appreciate a great expletive laced attack from Mike Tyson or even the odd diatribe from Ann Coulter, frankly you are someone who is completely beyond my understanding as to why you would feel it would be appropriate to reduce the level of discourse between adults to profanity. My ethical, intellectual, and religious principles forbid me to respond in kind.

And so, I will merely say, this, like most individuls who hold opposing points of view, when met in a conversation by someone who is better versed and more experienced in the topic at hand, the last optiono of the desperate is the personal attack or the use of profanity. You are better than that, Jack, and so are we all.

I apologize, if the facts, in my posting offended you and your beliefts in some manner, but I simply refer you to the over 300,000 pages of documentation from human rights organizations and NGO’s ranging from Doctors and Lawyer without Borders and the Vatican through to Amnesty International to the Red Cross. The undeniable truth is, Jack, long after you and I are gone from this eart without footprint or evidence or our existence, the government of the People’s Repbulic of China will still have supporters and detractors, but in the end, the human condition has always and will always fight for and win personal freedom of choice, voice, and action.

God Bless, Jack, and once again, I beg pardon, for the factual offence.

To MFM: well said. I’ve seen this “Jack”’s posts elsewhere, and I’m not sure if his vocabulary allows for much other than the use of profanity. Clearly, you are a bigger person than he is, as evidenced by your measured response.

S, K, Cheung, dear sir/madame, although, I greatly appreciate your supportive and kind senitments, I am not worthy of any subjective value measurement of being superior to any other individual mortal, we are all imperfect, and I am likely profoundly much more flawed in many ways, according to my third grade teacher, and several of my law professors, than my brother, “Jack”, the only people of import in this discussion are the good, innocent, voiceless, and unrepresented citizens of The People’s Repbulic of China and Tibet. If in the next few weeks or months, we as a global community, can with the help of groups like CNN, record as many images, articles, stories, opinions and interviews as possible, it will be a testament to the sacrifices of those from Tianemen Square to the very heart of Tibet today.

And, if, my brother, “Jack” feels better by utilizing the Western free-speech doctrine and profantiy to attack me while defending the People’s Rebulic of China which affords no such freedoms to their citizenry. Than that is fine, I would prefer being the target of abuse rather than that abuse being re-directed to some poor marginalized soul in Tibet, China, or some other part of the world dominated by the People’s Republic of China’s government, elite, and supporters.

This conflict of ideas, principles, and human rights will sadly S. K. Cheung, not be resolved in our lifetimes, but there is hope because the overwhelming majority of Chinese and Tibetan people that I know and have met in the West and abroad are good, decent, peace loving, and in search of personal rights and freedoms - there will one day be a wave that no wall or government will be able to withstand - it stopped the Romans, it stopped the Nazis, and it will stop the Government and elites of the People’s Republic of China.

To MFM: hear hear. The Bolsheviks and the USSR lasted 70 years or so. Maybe the CCP will “enjoy” a similar fate by 2020. I hope I’m around to see that.

To MFM,

I posted twice, but none of them showed up…

I am so suprised that you think millions of Chinese overseas students were forced to support China by Chinese government. The truth is that, this time, on the Olympics and Tibet issues, the majority of Chinese are behind Chinese government.

I am an engineer working in US for over 8 years. I watched western media daily.
Seems to me 99% reports about China are negative. No wonder westerners hate China
so much. Visit China, my friend, see China and Chinese with your own eye, not the media.
China is not a hell, Chinese government is not perfect, but they are doing their job,
to trying to give a better life to all the Chinese, which is 25% of global population.

During these days, I saw westerners mass hysteria against China. Two facts about Tibet,
1. Tibetants life span doubled since Dalai’s flee.
2. population doubled.

When the whole western society denance China, did any of you think about 5 Chinese girls who were burned to death by those “peaceful monks”? did you ever notice hundreds of destroied shops? Are you conscience troubled even for once?

To CNN

My apology. Among 11 comments, 2 comments surpport China, one is polite, one is cursing.

All I did is try to tell some truths. You western media always blame Chinese government block any negative info against them on Internet. you are doing the exact same thing.

Play fair my friend. And don’t push Chinese young generation away , don’t push them back to communist.

Dear S.K. Cheung, “Bolsheviks”? I think my brother or sister, you have been reading or watching too much sujective and un-academic propoganda based material. It is not our place to judge or marginalize anyone, as people we should have learned that example through the centuries, we did not, In modern history, we should have learned it from the extremism of Hitler and the Nazis, and their use an irrational global animus of the Jewish people and anti-semitism to fuel their polical and military agenda, but we did not. And, then we watched Senator Joseph McCarthy turn the term “liberal” from a term enjoined to patriots to one bordering on profanity in the United Staes of America and deystroy thousands of lives, careers, and families wihout cause or evidence, and again we did not learn. And, most recently, the nation state of America, entered into and destroyed Iraw not only wihout cause but based on falsified evidence, and a “freedom fry” xenophonbic hate fueled blood lust, and we promised it would never happen again - until ofcourse it happens again.

In regards to your analysis of the former USSR having lasted only 70 years, indeed on the face of it, your assertion is correct, the union, has collapsed for a myriad of reaons, political, econonmic, military, and ethnic, but in reality, when Russia still possess enough nuclear weaponry to deystroy this planet several thousand times over, and there is a growing movement throughout the former USSR to revive the failed empire, it would be imprudent to make the same miscalculation that Premier Kruscheve did so many years ago and state that “we will bury you”, make certain that an individual or empire is truly dead before you arrange the funeral.

Have a great day. God Bless.

Hi MFM:

I am sure you made up the following story. I personally know a lot of friends of mine went to the pro-China demonstration on the torch route in my city. They were not asked by the Chinese Embassy.

I am sure you made up the following story because you don’t even know the Chinese government issue the Students’ passport, not their visas. The student visas are issued by the receiving countries the studenets are studying. There is no way for the Chinese government to cut off their visas.

You may compasinate about what you believed in from what you receieved from the Tibet Government-in-Exile. However, don’t make up and make obvious technical mistakes when you claim your facts.

I am sure you can find 30,000 or more pages from all your groups you trust. I can find 300,000 or more pages about all the bads of Dalai Lama, Tibet Government-in-Exile, or any western governments too. My source can be also from the Western Scholars’ research too.

From MFM: “Millions if not more Chinese university and college students, studying on Visas abroad, are “voluntering” in each subsequent nation that the Olympic torch passes through to show up en-masse in embassy provided t-shirts, carrying embassy provided banners, screaming out of embassy provided megaphones, and chanting and singing embassy provided lyrics and speeches - these poor souls - who if they do not do as they are directed - will likely have their Visas immediately cut off”

To MFM: the Bolsheviks and their revolution are historical facts; not much subjective about that. Distaste for a political system does not mean marginalization of the subjects of said system. I think it is disingenuous to compare an anti-CCP sentiment with anti-semitism. That the USSR is dead is also a fact. Whether Russia will become progressively un-democratic is certainly debatable; however, I find it exceedingly unlikely that the former Soviet republics will choose to subjugate themselves to Moscow again, not to mention the rest of Eastern Europe.

Hi MFM:

I am sure you made up the following story. I personally know a lot of friends of mine went to the pro-China demonstration on the torch route in my city. They were not asked by the Chinese Embassy.

I am sure you made up the following story because you don’t even know the Chinese government issue the Students’ passport, not their visas. The student visas are issued by the receiving countries the studenets are studying. There is no way for the Chinese government to cut off their visas.

You may compasinate about what you believed in from what you receieved from the Tibet Government-in-Exile. However, don’t make up and make obvious technical mistakes when you claim your facts.

I am sure you can find 30,000 or more pages from all your groups you trust. I can find 300,000 or more pages about all the bads of Dalai Lama, Tibet Government-in-Exile, or any western governments too. My source can be also from the Western Scholars’ research too.

From MFM: “Millions if not more Chinese university and college students, studying on Visas abroad, are “voluntering” in each subsequent nation that the Olympic torch passes through to show up en-masse in embassy provided t-shirts, carrying embassy provided banners, screaming out of embassy provided megaphones, and chanting and singing embassy provided lyrics and speeches - these poor souls - who if they do not do as they are directed - will likely have their Visas immediately cut off”

Dear S. K. Leung, you are absolutely correct “Bolsheviks and their revolution are historical facts; not much subjective about that. Distaste for a political system does not mean marginalization of the subjects of said system. ” And, I meant aboslutely no disrespect my friend. But so too are the historical facts that democracratic revolution in the west was based on the annihilation of the native peoples in north and south america, slavery, and the whole scale denial of human rights and privileges based on gender, race, religion, and ethnicity, until and beyond the twentieth centure, and similarly as you so eloquently put it ” Distaste for a political system does not mean marginalization of the subjects of said system. ”

The issue in an erudite and informed discussion is coherent, polite, and balanced discourse based on the acceptance that human society is based and always will be on an inherently instable base of politcal, social, and intellectual underpining of hypocritical rhetoric rather than substance.

No one thought is better than another, no one person is better than another and no one idea is better than another, only together and in brotherhood and understanding can we be bring together the unity and peace required for the globalized success and harmony that the majority of mankind not only wants but indeed demands.

You are far too intelligent and well-spoken to become emotionally offended by an intellectual difference of opinion, S. K. Leung, do not fall prey to the very issues that are making the “Freedom Fry” generation the laughing stock of the global community - you are much better than that - and you know it.

And, as for my brother or sister, Chen, when met with extremists, I was taught simply to accept the insults, measure the the value of the commentary based against the weight of objective facutal evidence from a dearth of unconnected and unrelated sources contradicting the extremist postion, and state that education, erudition, and intellect, will always and has always provided an avenue of triumph over those that benefit from or utilize barbarity and force to enhance their own personal or social material. political, or other standing or acquisition.

The principlese of my faith, ethics, and intellect forbid me from resorting to your form of irrational personal attack and invective, and so I am left with the only option of responding to you as one adult to another.

I beg pardon for my offence, Chen, I and the majority of the global community will simply have to remain in contravention of your assertions or interpretion of the actions and abuses of the government, elites, and supporters of the People’s Republic of China.

God Bless.

I just pointed out an obvious mistake of MFM’s story to make clear his story is a made-up story, I am called an extremist. As far as I know, everyone of these students went to the pro-China rally because they love their motherland. The Chinese Embassy may provide some Chinese National flags because it may be difficult to find them in a foreign country. So what? Go find out who is providing the financial support to all these NGOs and the Dalai Lama cliques.

MFM. So much for all your arguments. LOL.

To MFM: We agree entirely on the rather checkered past of western civilizations and democracies, not only in the western hemisphere, but dating back decades and centuries to their forebearers in Western Europe. However, I think the societies in which we live today bear witness to the potential of a free and democratic society. And while much has been done, much more remains. Yet that does not diminish my visceral dislike of communist regimes in general, and the CCP brand in particular. The reasons for this sentiment are probably beyond the scope of this discussion. Having said that, and as you eloquently state, I agree that tolerance of opposing views is paramount in maintaining polite discourse. I am certainly not averse to criticizing our own governments when warranted, and the Iraq War and “freedom fries” silliness certainly do not reflect favourably on US foreign stature. And if we have differing opinions, I think they are of a subtle nature. On the other hand, I do feel that some thoughts and ideas are more worthy of consideration than others.

Monday, May 5, 2008
Chen, my dear brother or sister, a large number of my peers and friends emailed and telephoned me after reading your second partisan and ignorant and dismissive People’s Republic of China posting, and were appalled by my clearly inadequate reply to your first posting, a and to that end, I respectfully submit one (Human Rights Watch) of hundreds of thousands of objective NGO’s reports on The People’s Republic of China’s government, elites, and supporters:

China

Events of 2007

Despite China’s official assurances that hosting the 2008 Olympic Games will help to strengthen the development of human rights in the country, the Chinese government continues to deny or restrict its citizens’ fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, freedom of association, and freedom of religion.

The government’s extensive police and state security apparatus continues to impose multiple layers of controls on civil society activists, critics, and protesters. Those layers include professional and administrative measures, limitations on foreign travel and domestic movement, monitoring (covert or overt) of internet and phone communications, abduction and confinement incommunicado, and unofficial house arrests. A variety of vaguely defined crimes including “inciting subversion,” “leaking state secrets,” and “disrupting social order” provide the government with wide legal remit to stifle critics.

Human Rights and the 2008 Olympics
Despite temporary regulations in effect from January 1, 2007, to October 17, 2008, that give correspondents freedom to interview anyone who consents, foreign journalists continue to be harassed, detained, and intimidated by government and police officials. The temporary regulations do not extend to Chinese journalists or foreign correspondents’ Chinese assistants, researchers, and sources, who continue to risk reprisals for violating government directives on taboo reporting topics.

Official efforts to rid Beijing of undesirables ahead of the Olympics have accelerated the eviction of petitioners—citizens from the countryside who come to the capital seeking redress for grievances ranging from illegal land seizures to official corruption. In September-October, the Beijing municipal government demolished a settlement in Fengtai district that housed up to 4,000 petitioners.

The countdown to the Olympics has also sparked a construction boom. An estimated one million migrant construction workers are integral to this effort, yet their labour conditions are harsh and unsafe, and workers are often unable to access public services. When a subway tunnel under construction collapsed in March, trapping six workers, the first step the employer took was to prevent workers from reporting the accident by confiscating their mobile phones.

Freedom of Expression
In 2007 the Chinese government stepped up its efforts to control increasingly vibrant print and online forms of expression, and sanctioned individuals, journalists, and editors for failing to conform to highly restrictive but inconsistently implemented laws and regulations.

China’s system of internet censorship and surveillance is the most advanced in the world. Filtering, blocking, and monitoring technologies are built into all layers of China’s internet infrastructure. Tens of thousands of police remotely monitor internet use around the clock. The elaborate system of censorship is aided by extensive corporate and private sector cooperation—including by some of the world’s major international technology and internet companies such as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Writers, editors, bloggers, webmasters, writers, and journalists risk punishments ranging from immediate dismissal to prosecution and lengthy jail terms for sending news outside China or posting articles critical of the political system. For example, Zhang Jianhong, former editor-in-chief of the Aegean Sea website, was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment on March 19 for “inciting subversion.”

The countdown to the Beijing Olympics has seen the threshold lowered for internet content considered “sensitive” by China’s censors and prompted closure of access to thousands of websites in 2007, including popular international sites such as Wikipedia and Flickr. The government has expanded its traditional criteria for internet censorship from topics including references to the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, the outlawed Falungong “evil cult,” and content perceived as sympathetic to “separatist” elements in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan, to include “unauthorized” coverage of everything from natural disasters to corruption scandals that might embarrass the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). By official estimate, the government shut down more than 18,000 individual blogs and websites since April 2007, and in August, censors widened their focus to include shutting down numerous internet data centers. Official measures to filter or remove “sensitive” content from domestic websites sharply accelerated in the run up to the 17th CCP Congress in October.

Chinese journalists continue to risk severe repercussions for pursuing stories that touch on officially taboo subjects or threaten powerful private interests. Miao Wei, former executive editor of Sanlian Life Weekly, confirmed in April that he had been demoted in connection with a cover story on the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Lan Chengzhang, a reporter with China Trade News, was murdered in January while investigating an illegal coalmine in Datong, Shanxi province. In mid-August five journalists, including a reporter from the party mouthpiece People’s Daily, were interviewing witnesses to the Fenghuang bridge collapse in Hunan province when plainclothes thugs interrupted the interviews and kicked and punched the journalists, who were then detained by police.

Legal Reform
Legal reforms proceeded at a fast pace in 2007 in order to achieve the CCP’s overriding goal of making the rule of law “the principal tool to govern the country.” New legislation was adopted on a wide range of issues such as property rights, labour contracts, administration of lawyers, access to public records, and the handling of emergencies. But the party’s continued dominance over, and interference with, judicial institutions, as well as weak and inconsistent enforcement of judicial decisions, means that overall the legal system remains vulnerable to arbitrary interference.

Ordinary citizens face immense obstacles to accessing justice, in particular over issues such as illegal land seizures, forced evictions, environmental pollution, unpaid wages, corruption, and abuse of power by local officials, a situation that fuels rising social unrest across the country. The authorities have stopped disclosing figures about the number of riots and demonstrations after they announced a decline from over 200 incidents per day in 2006, but large-scale incidents were reported in 2007 in almost all of China’s 34 province-level administrative units. Several demonstrations involved tens of thousand of people, such as in Yongzhou (Hunan) in March 2007 and Xiamen (Fujian) in June. In speeches and articles top security officials acknowledged the heightening of social conflicts, but remained defiant toward greater independence of the judiciary, blaming “hostile” or “enemy forces” for trying to use the nation’s legal system to undermine and westernize China. A string of lawyers defending human rights cases have been suspended or disbarred under a yearly licensing system that acts as a general deterrent to taking cases viewed as “sensitive” by the authorities.

The rights of criminal defendants continued to be sharply limited and violated by law enforcement agencies. Defense lawyers face chronic difficulties including accessing defendants in custody, consulting court documents, and producing exculpatory evidence before the court. Despite the reiteration by the Supreme People’s Court in September that judges ought to “pay more attention to evidence and treat confessions with more skepticism,” torture, especially at the pretrial stage, remains prevalent. The Public Security Bureau continues to make wide use, including for political and religious dissidents, of the reeducation-through-labour system, which allows detention for up to four years of “minor offenders,” without trial.

Human Rights Defenders
Chinese human rights defenders, seizing on the official promise of lawful governance, are becoming more assertive and skilful at documenting abuses and mounting legal challenges. But the authorities, who have never tolerated independent human rights monitoring, have retaliated with harassment, unlawful detention, forced disappearances, and long prison sentences, often on trumped-up charges.

Authorities have targeted a small, loosely-organized network of lawyers, legal academics, rights activists, and journalists, known as the weiquan movement, which aims to pursue social justice and constitutional rights through litigation. The movement focuses on the protection of ordinary citizens in matters such as housing rights, land seizures, workers’ rights, and police abuse. Yang Chunlin, a land rights activist, was arrested in July and charged with subversion for his role in organizing a petition titled “We want human rights, not the Olympics.” Lu Gengsong, a former lecturer turned activist who documented illegal eviction cases and official collusion, was arrested in August on suspicion of subverting state power. Both are awaiting trial. The same month environmental activist Wu Lihong was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment under ill-defined business fraud charges; his wife reported he had been tortured while held incommunicado. Yang Maodong, a Guangzhou-based land rights activist arrested in September 2006 and still awaiting trial, also reported that he had been repeatedly tortured in detention.

Defenders who document and report abuses against other activists are particularly vulnerable. In September lawyer Li Heping was abducted in broad daylight, held for six hours, severely beaten, and told he should leave Beijing. Li Jianqiang, a renowned human rights lawyer, was disbarred without reason. The human rights monitor Hu Jia has been kept under extralegal house arrest in Beijing for most of the year. Yuan Weijing, the wife of the blind activist Chen Guangcheng who is currently serving a three-year sentence for exposing family planning abuses, was prevented from traveling abroad to collect a human rights prize on his behalf.

Labor Rights
Chinese workers continue to be forbidden to form independent trade unions, as the government maintains that the party-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) adequately protects workers’ rights. This restriction on legally-sanctioned labour activism coupled with increasingly tense labour disputes in which protesting workers have few realistic routes for redress have contributed to increasing numbers of workers taking to the streets and to the courts to press claims about forced and uncompensated overtime, employer violations of minimum wage rules, unpaid pensions and wages, and dangerous and unhealthy working environments.

Workers who seek redress through strike action are often subject to attacks by plainclothes thugs who appear to operate at the behest of employers. In July a group of 200 thugs armed with spades, axes, and steel pipes attacked a group of workers in Heyuan (Guangdong), who were protesting over not having been paid for four months; they beat one worker to death.

Children’s Rights
Under “Work and Study” programs regulated by the Ministry of Education, schools in impoverished areas are encouraged to set up income-generating activities to make up for budgetary shortfalls. According to the ministry, nationwide more than 400,000 middle and junior high schools, for children ages 12 to 16, are running agricultural and manufacturing schemes. Overly vague program regulations and poor supervision have led to chronic abuse by schools and employers alike: some of the programs interfere with children’s education, lack basic health and safety guarantees, and involve long hours and dangerous work. Children as young as 12 have been employed in heavy agricultural and hazardous construction work. Others have been dispatched to local factories for weeks or months of “summer employment.” Some schools have turned into full-fledged workshops to produce local handiwork or foodstuff while relegating teaching to a few hours a week.

Women’s Rights
Gender-based discrimination and violence remain entrenched problems in China. Despite slowly increasing attention to domestic violence, public awareness and access to services in rural areas are especially low. Strong son preference contributes to sex-selective abortions, differential care of girls leading to significantly higher rates of female infant mortality, and in extreme cases female infanticide or sale to human traffickers.

HIV/AIDS
A senior central government official in September described China’s HIV/AIDS situation in several provinces as “very serious” due to drug trafficking and illegal blood sales. But despite government assurances that it had prioritized all possible measures to contain the spread of HIV/AIDS, activists and grassroots organizations continued to come under attack in 2007 by local officials and security officials.

Dr. Gao Yaojie, a doctor who helped expose the Henan province HIV-contaminated blood sales scandal, was barred in February from going to the United States to receive a human rights award until an international outcry forced the government to reverse that decision. In August the government forced the cancellation of two meetings of HIV/AIDS activists in Guangzhou (Guangdong) and Kaifeng (Henan). On August 15 Henan Public Security Bureau officials also ordered, without explanation, the temporary closure of two provincial offices of the nonprofit China Orchid AIDS project.

The government’s announcement in September that it would introduce compulsory screening of all blood products beginning on January 1, 2008, to prevent the transmission of HIV and other blood-borne diseases through transfusions and pharmaceutical products is an important step forward in official efforts to help control the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Freedom of Religion
The Chinese government recognizes the right to believe, but limits worship to a state-controlled system of registered and controlled churches, congregations, mosques, monasteries, and temples.

The official registration process requires government vetting and ongoing scrutiny of religious publications, seminary applications, and religious personnel. The government also closely monitors the membership and financial records of religious institutions and the personnel they employ, and retains the right to approve or deny applications for any group activities by religious organizations. Those who fail to register are considered illegal and are liable for criminal prosecution, fines, and closure.

Reprisals against non-registered religious organizations have primarily focused on arrests of Protestants who attend “house churches,” for Bible study meetings and training sessions. The majority of those arrested are rapidly released, some after paying fines, but leaders of such underground churches are sometimes held on fabricated charges including “illegal business practices.” The freedom of belief of certain groups designated by the government as “evil cults,” including Falungong, continues to be severely restricted.

Involuntary Resettlement Programs
The growing scale of forced resettlement projects across China to make way for infrastructure, environmental, and urbanization projects in 2007 continued to be marked by widespread irregularities, including lack of consultation, forced evictions, embezzlement, and corruption. China announced in October plans to relocate up to 4 million more people from areas surrounding the Three Gorges Dam—the world’s biggest hydroelectric power project.

Multiple programs to remove indigenous populations from environmentally fragile areas, such as on the Tibetan plateau, appear to be motivated, at least in part, by an integrationist agenda aimed at weakening minority cultural distinctiveness and extending Chinese control over their lives. An official policy of forcibly relocating ethnic Tibetan herders in Tibet, Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan to urban areas is seriously disrupting traditional lifestyles and has put under threat the livelihoods of approximately 700,000 such people already resettled. In September the Chinese government announced that it would resettle another 100,000 nomads from Qinghai province alone.

Tibet
The Chinese government accuses the Dalai Lama, in exile in India since 1959, of being the linchpin of alleged plots to separate Tibet from China. It views Tibetan Buddhism as complicit in those efforts. The government lodged strong objections to meetings between the Dalai Lama and US, Australian, Austrian, and German leaders in 2007.

Widespread and numerous instances of repression target ordinary citizens, monks, nuns, and even children in an effort to quash alleged “separatism.” Seven Tibetan boys in Gansu province were detained for over a month in early September after they allegedly wrote slogans on the walls of a village police station and elsewhere calling for the return of the Dalai Lama and a free Tibet. Ronggyal Adrak was detained and charged under state security offenses by police on August 1 after he called for the Dalai Lama’s return at a horse race festival in Sichuan province. He is awaiting trial.

The Chinese government has failed to bring to justice those responsible for the shooting death by People’s Armed Police officers of a 17-year-old nun, Kelsang Namtso, while trying to cross the border into Nepal on September 30, 2006.

Xinjiang
Drastic controls over religious, cultural, and political expression of Muslim populations remained in place in 2007 in the Uighur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang—aside from Tibet, the only province of China where the ethnic Chinese population is not the majority, despite in-migration of over a million people from other parts of China in the past decade. The government only tolerates religious activities in state-controlled religious venues, conducted by state-appointed clerics. Minors are prohibited from participating in religious activities and, in some localities, barred from entering mosques.

In June Xinjiang authorities started confiscating Muslims’ passports in an apparent bid to prevent them from making non-state-approved pilgrimages to Mecca. Civil servants, teachers, and clerics are subjected to intense indoctrination against the “three evil forces”—separatism, religious extremism, and terrorism. Eighteen people were killed and 17 arrested in January in a raid on what the government described as a “terrorist training camp” of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, a group whose existence independent analysts have been questioning since 2001. In November five of them were sentenced to death, and one to life imprisonment under various terrorism charges.

There is widespread evidence that the government uses isolated incidents to conflate any expression of public discontent with terrorism or separatism. Chinese officials have labeled the exiled activist Rebiya Kadeer—a Nobel Peace Prize nominee—a terrorist, and in April 2007 Ablikim Abdiriyim, her son, was sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment for “having spread secessionist articles over the internet.” Another son, Alim Abdiriyim, was sentenced in November 2006 to seven years’ imprisonment for tax evasion. Huseyincan Celil, a former political prisoner who had fled China in 2000, was forcibly returned by Uzbek authorities to China in 2006, and sentenced to life imprisonment in April 2007. China refused to recognize his Canadian citizenship and did not allow Canadian diplomats to attend his trial.

Hong Kong
The government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has failed to clearly indicate how it will fulfill two requirements of the Basic Law (the territory’s mini-constitution) that have crucial human rights implications: the direct election of the chief executive and the drafting of anti-subversion legislation under article 23. Despite an adequate legal framework to uphold freedom of expression, Hong Kong journalists denounced the self-censorship prevalent in the media, particularly with respect to the coverage of mainland issues.

Key International Actors
China continues to describe itself as a “responsible power.” Yet its resistance to the United Nations Security Council’s and the Human Rights Council’s taking decisive action to respond to serious human rights violations and hold individual countries accountable for their human rights records contradicted that label. China increasingly uses its leverage to minimize criticism in international institutions, most notably by forcing the World Bank in June to remove information about the consequences of pollution in China from a draft report. It continues to resist requests for cooperation with key UN offices, including the special rapporteur on North Korea, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), regarding the status of North Koreans in China.

Largely in response to considerable international pressure, China took more concrete and public steps to help ameliorate the human rights crisis in Darfur, Sudan. It appointed a new special envoy on Darfur and agreed to contribute peacekeeping troops, but it continued to enable Khartoum’s brutality by consistently blocking international efforts to impose sanctions. In addition, while China consented to some critical UN Security Council language following the August-September repression in Burma, it refused to speak strongly itself or take steps to end the crisis, such as suspending all military aid and cooperation.

Chen, my dear brother or sister, I am certain, that as a partisan or paid supporter of the government of the People’s Republic of China, you will within seconds post a rebuttal to my post, but I will not respond. I believe the point was made in my initial posting, and anyone who has not already seen after Tiananmen Square and Tibet what the government of the People’s Republic of China is capable of doing, needs simply to contact Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Vatican, Doctors or Lawyers Without Borders, the Red Cross, or the literally thousands of other human rights and NGO groups working to save innocent, voiceless, and unrepresented Chinese and Tibetan civilians as we sit comfortably in our homes in Western democracies.. Chen, my dear brother or sister, may we once again meet in peace and harmony.

God Bless.

Dear S. K. Leung, you must be tired my friend, you misspelled your own name, as S. K, Cheung, I appreciate your deferential response and adherence to principled and intelligent adult discourse.
And, one other point of clarification my friend, I would respectfully change your characterization of Western democracies egregious history of conduct as “checkered” to ingrained just remember the over-whelming majority of those fighting and dying in Iraq are poor, people of color, and marginalized, just like they were in Vietnam, and before that no other nation in the history of mankind has ever used weapons of mass destruction on any nation, but American did, on a militarily defeated Japan, no t once but twice, and you know the rest from slavery to the most recent “lynching” of Senator Obama by the Clinton campaign by using issues of race, religion, and ethnic fear mongering to derail and defeat an unprecedented political and social movement.

Nonetheless, my specific point aside, your postings are on balance, a very well worded and framed communication worthy of an intellect and individual who represents the appropriate nature of discourse between individuals whom may not agree on all matters of import but do agree in the brotherhood and sisterhood of all of the human race.

I am leaving on business for a week and will not be able to check back or respond until then my friend, have a great week.

God Bless.

Hi MFM,

You most likely are on the payroll of the Tibetan Government-in-exile and paid by them to post anti-China messages on the web.

Here are some links and articles for you to read. The Tibetans Government-in-exile are mostly the former slave-owners including Dalai Lama himself. He had 2000 slaves back in Tibet. These Tibetans-in-exile were human right abusers. They abused their own Tibetans.

http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html

Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth
(updated and expanded version, January 2007)

——————————————————————————–

I. For Lords and Lamas

Along with the blood drenched landscape of religious
conflict there is the experience of inner peace and
solace that every religion promises, none more so than
Buddhism. Standing in marked contrast to the
intolerant savagery of other religions, Buddhism is
neither fanatical nor dogmatic–so say its adherents.
For many of them Buddhism is less a theology and more
a meditative and investigative discipline intended to
promote an inner harmony and enlightenment while
directing us to a path of right living. Generally, the
spiritual focus is not only on oneself but on the
welfare of others. One tries to put aside egoistic
pursuits and gain a deeper understanding of one¡¯s
connection to all people and things. ¡°Socially
engaged Buddhism¡± tries to blend individual
liberation with responsible social action in order to
build an enlightened society.

A glance at history, however, reveals that not all the
many and widely varying forms of Buddhism have been
free of doctrinal fanaticism, nor free of the violent
and exploitative pursuits so characteristic of other
religions. In Sri Lanka there is a legendary and
almost sacred recorded history about the triumphant
battles waged by Buddhist kings of yore. During the
twentieth century, Buddhists clashed violently with
each other and with non-Buddhists in Thailand, Burma,
Korea, Japan, India, and elsewhere. In Sri Lanka,
armed battles between Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu
Tamils have taken many lives on both sides. In 1998
the U.S. State Department listed thirty of the
world¡¯s most violent and dangerous extremist groups.
Over half of them were religious, specifically Muslim,
Jewish, and Buddhist. 1

In South Korea, in 1998, thousands of monks of the
Chogye Buddhist order fought each other with fists,
rocks, fire-bombs, and clubs, in pitched battles that
went on for weeks. They were vying for control of the
order, the largest in South Korea, with its annual
budget of $9.2 million, its millions of dollars worth
of property, and the privilege of appointing 1,700
monks to various offices. The brawls damaged the main
Buddhist sanctuaries and left dozens of monks injured,
some seriously. The Korean public appeared to disdain
both factions, feeling that no matter what side took
control, ¡°it would use worshippers¡¯ donations for
luxurious houses and expensive cars.¡± 2

As with any religion, squabbles between or within
Buddhist sects are often fueled by the material
corruption and personal deficiencies of the
leadership. For example, in Nagano, Japan, at Zenkoji,
the prestigious complex of temples that has hosted
Buddhist sects for more than 1,400 years, ¡°a nasty
battle¡± arose between Komatsu the chief priest and
the Tacchu, a group of temples nominally under the
chief priest’s sway. The Tacchu monks accused Komatsu
of selling writings and drawings under the temple’s
name for his own gain. They also were appalled by the
frequency with which he was seen in the company of
women. Komatsu in turn sought to isolate and punish
monks who were critical of his leadership. The
conflict lasted some five years and made it into the
courts. 3

But what of Tibetan Buddhism? Is it not an exception
to this sort of strife? And what of the society it
helped to create? Many Buddhists maintain that, before
the Chinese crackdown in 1959, old Tibet was a
spiritually oriented kingdom free from the egotistical
lifestyles, empty materialism, and corrupting vices
that beset modern industrialized society. Western news
media, travel books, novels, and Hollywood films have
portrayed the Tibetan theocracy as a veritable
Shangri-La. The Dalai Lama himself stated that ¡°the
pervasive influence of Buddhism¡± in Tibet, ¡°amid the
wide open spaces of an unspoiled environment resulted
in a society dedicated to peace and harmony. We
enjoyed freedom and contentment.¡± 4

A reading of Tibet¡¯s history suggests a somewhat
different picture. ¡°Religious conflict was
commonplace in old Tibet,¡± writes one western
Buddhist practitioner. ¡°History belies the Shangri-La
image of Tibetan lamas and their followers living
together in mutual tolerance and nonviolent goodwill.
Indeed, the situation was quite different. Old Tibet
was much more like Europe during the religious wars of
the Counterreformation.¡± 5 In the thirteenth century,
Emperor Kublai Khan created the first Grand Lama, who
was to preside over all the other lamas as might a
pope over his bishops. Several centuries later, the
Emperor of China sent an army into Tibet to support
the Grand Lama, an ambitious 25-year-old man, who then
gave himself the title of Dalai (Ocean) Lama, ruler of
all Tibet.

His two previous lama ¡°incarnations¡± were then
retroactively recognized as his predecessors, thereby
transforming the 1st Dalai Lama into the 3rd Dalai
Lama. This 1st (or 3rd) Dalai Lama seized monasteries
that did not belong to his sect, and is believed to
have destroyed Buddhist writings that conflicted with
his claim to divinity. The Dalai Lama who succeeded
him pursued a sybaritic life, enjoying many
mistresses, partying with friends, and acting in other
ways deemed unfitting for an incarnate deity. For
these transgressions he was murdered by his priests.
Within 170 years, despite their recognized divine
status, five Dalai Lamas were killed by their high
priests or other courtiers. 6

For hundreds of years competing Tibetan Buddhist sects
engaged in bitterly violent clashes and summary
executions. In 1660, the 5th Dalai Lama was faced with
a rebellion in Tsang province, the stronghold of the
rival Kagyu sect with its high lama known as the
Karmapa. The 5th Dalai Lama called for harsh
retribution against the rebels, directing the Mongol
army to obliterate the male and female lines, and the
offspring too ¡°like eggs smashed against rocks¡­. In
short, annihilate any traces of them, even their
names.¡± 7

In 1792, many Kagyu monasteries were confiscated and
their monks were forcibly converted to the Gelug sect
(the Dalai Lama¡¯s denomination). The Gelug school,
known also as the ¡°Yellow Hats,¡± showed little
tolerance or willingness to mix their teachings with
other Buddhist sects. In the words of one of their
traditional prayers: ¡°Praise to you, violent god of
the Yellow Hat teachings/who reduces to particles of
dust/ great beings, high officials and ordinary
people/ who pollute and corrupt the Gelug doctrine.¡±
8 An eighteenth-century memoir of a Tibetan general
depicts sectarian strife among Buddhists that is as
brutal and bloody as any religious conflict might be.
9 This grim history remains largely unvisited by
present-day followers of Tibetan Buddhism in the West.

Religions have had a close relationship not only with
violence but with economic exploitation. Indeed, it is
often the economic exploitation that necessitates the
violence. Such was the case with the Tibetan
theocracy. Until 1959, when the Dalai Lama last
presided over Tibet, most of the arable land was still
organized into manorial estates worked by serfs. These
estates were owned by two social groups: the rich
secular landlords and the rich theocratic lamas. Even
a writer sympathetic to the old order allows that ¡°a
great deal of real estate belonged to the monasteries,
and most of them amassed great riches.¡± Much of the
wealth was accumulated ¡°through active participation
in trade, commerce, and money lending.¡± 10

Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in
the world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300
great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the
monasteries rested in the hands of small numbers of
high-ranking lamas. Most ordinary monks lived modestly
and had no direct access to great wealth. The Dalai
Lama himself ¡°lived richly in the 1000-room, 14-story
Potala Palace.¡± 11

Secular leaders also did well. A notable example was
the commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, a member
of the Dalai Lama¡¯s lay Cabinet, who owned 4,000
square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. 12 Old
Tibet has been misrepresented by some Western admirers
as ¡°a nation that required no police force because
its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma.¡±
13 In fact. it had a professional army, albeit a small
one, that served mainly as a gendarmerie for the
landlords to keep order, protect their property, and
hunt down runaway serfs.

Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their
peasant families and brought into the monasteries to
be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for
life. Tash¨¬-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was
common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated
in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of
repeated rape, beginning at age nine. 14 The monastic
estates also conscripted children for lifelong
servitude as domestics, dance performers, and
soldiers.

In old Tibet there were small numbers of farmers who
subsisted as a kind of free peasantry, and perhaps an
additional 10,000 people who composed the
¡°middle-class¡± families of merchants, shopkeepers,
and small traders. Thousands of others were beggars.
There also were slaves, usually domestic servants, who
owned nothing. Their offspring were born into slavery.
15 The majority of the rural population were serfs.
Treated little better than slaves, the serfs went
without schooling or medical care, They were under a
lifetime bond to work the lord’s land–or the
monastery¡¯s land–without pay, to repair the lord’s
houses, transport his crops, and collect his firewood.
They were also expected to provide carrying animals
and transportation on demand.16 Their masters told
them what crops to grow and what animals to raise.
They could not get married without the consent of
their lord or lama. And they might easily be separated
from their families should their owners lease them out
to work in a distant location. 17

As in a free labor system and unlike slavery, the
overlords had no responsibility for the serf¡¯s
maintenance and no direct interest in his or her
survival as an expensive piece of property. The serfs
had to support themselves. Yet as in a slave system,
they were bound to their masters, guaranteeing a fixed
and permanent workforce that could neither organize
nor strike nor freely depart as might laborers in a
market context. The overlords had the best of both
worlds.

One 22-year old woman, herself a runaway serf,
reports: ¡°Pretty serf girls were usually taken by the
owner as house servants and used as he wished¡±; they
¡°were just slaves without rights.¡±18 Serfs needed
permission to go anywhere. Landowners had legal
authority to capture those who tried to flee. One
24-year old runaway welcomed the Chinese intervention
as a ¡°liberation.¡± He testified that under serfdom
he was subjected to incessant toil, hunger, and cold.
After his third failed escape, he was merciless beaten
by the landlord¡¯s men until blood poured from his
nose and mouth. They then poured alcohol and caustic
soda on his wounds to increase the pain, he claimed.19

The serfs were taxed upon getting married, taxed for
the birth of each child and for every death in the
family. They were taxed for planting a tree in their
yard and for keeping animals. They were taxed for
religious festivals and for public dancing and
drumming, for being sent to prison and upon being
released. Those who could not find work were taxed for
being unemployed, and if they traveled to another
village in search of work, they paid a passage tax.
When people could not pay, the monasteries lent them
money at 20 to 50 percent interest. Some debts were
handed down from father to son to grandson. Debtors
who could not meet their obligations risked being cast
into slavery.20

The theocracy¡¯s religious teachings buttressed its
class order. The poor and afflicted were taught that
they had brought their troubles upon themselves
because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence
they had to accept the misery of their present
existence as a karmic atonement and in anticipation
that their lot would improve in their next lifetime.
The rich and powerful treated their good fortune as a
reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past
and present lives.

The Tibetan serfs were something more than
superstitious victims, blind to their own oppression.
As we have seen, some ran away; others openly
resisted, sometimes suffering dire consequences. In
feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation–including eye
gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and
amputation–were favored punishments inflicted upon
thieves, and runaway or resistant serfs. Journeying
through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder
interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had
stolen two sheep belonging to a monastery. For this he
had both his eyes gouged out and his hand mutilated
beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a
Buddhist: ¡°When a holy lama told them to blind me I
thought there was no good in religion.¡±21 Since it
was against Buddhist teachings to take human life,
some offenders were severely lashed and then ¡°left to
God¡± in the freezing night to die. ¡°The parallels
between Tibet and medieval Europe are striking,¡±
concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet. 22

In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited an exhibition of
torture equipment that had been used by the Tibetan
overlords. There were handcuffs of all sizes,
including small ones for children, and instruments for
cutting off noses and ears, gouging out eyes, breaking
off hands, and hamstringing legs. There were hot
brands, whips, and special implements for
disemboweling. The exhibition presented photographs
and testimonies of victims who had been blinded or
crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. There
was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement
in yuan and wheat but refused to pay. So he took one
of the master¡¯s cows; for this he had his hands
severed. Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife
taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off.
There were pictures of Communist activists with noses
and upper lips cut off, and a woman who was raped and
then had her nose sliced away.23

Earlier visitors to Tibet commented on the theocratic
despotism. In 1895, an Englishman, Dr. A. L. Waddell,
wrote that the populace was under the ¡°intolerable
tyranny of monks¡± and the devil superstitions they
had fashioned to terrorize the people. In 1904
Perceval Landon described the Dalai Lama¡¯s rule as
¡°an engine of oppression.¡± At about that time,
another English traveler, Captain W.F.T. O¡¯Connor,
observed that ¡°the great landowners and the priests¡­
exercise each in their own dominion a despotic power
from which there is no appeal,¡± while the people are
¡°oppressed by the most monstrous growth of
monasticism and priest-craft.¡± Tibetan rulers
¡°invented degrading legends and stimulated a spirit
of superstition¡± among the common people. In 1937,
another visitor, Spencer Chapman, wrote, ¡°The Lamaist
monk does not spend his time in ministering to the
people or educating them. . . . The beggar beside the
road is nothing to the monk. Knowledge is the
jealously guarded prerogative of the monasteries and
is used to increase their influence and wealth.¡±24 As
much as we might wish otherwise, feudal theocratic
Tibet was a far cry from the romanticized Shangri La
so enthusiastically nurtured by Buddhism¡¯s western
proselytes.

II. Secularization vs. Spirituality

What happened to Tibet after the Chinese Communists
moved into the country in 1951? The treaty of that
year provided for ostensible self-governance under the
Dalai Lama¡¯s rule but gave China military control and
exclusive right to conduct foreign relations. The
Chinese were also granted a direct role in internal
administration ¡°to promote social reforms.¡± Among
the earliest changes they wrought was to reduce
usurious interest rates, and build a few hospitals and
roads. At first, they moved slowly, relying mostly on
persuasion in an attempt to effect reconstruction. No
aristocratic or monastic property was confiscated, and
feudal lords continued to reign over their
hereditarily bound peasants. ¡°Contrary to popular
belief in the West,¡± claims one observer, the Chinese
¡°took care to show respect for Tibetan culture and
religion.¡±25

The issue was joined in 1956-57, when armed Tibetan
bands ambushed convoys of the Chinese Peoples
Liberation Army. The uprising received extensive
assistance from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA), including military training, support camps in
Nepal, and numerous airlifts.27 Meanwhile in the
United States, the American Society for a Free Asia, a
CIA-financed front, energetically publicized the cause
of Tibetan resistance, with the Dalai Lama¡¯s eldest
brother, Thubtan Norbu, playing an active role in that
organization. The Dalai Lama’s second-eldest brother,
Gyalo Thondup, established an intelligence operation
with the CIA as early as 1951. He later upgraded it
into a CIA-trained guerrilla unit whose recruits
parachuted back into Tibet.28

Many Tibetan commandos and agents whom the CIA dropped
into the country were chiefs of aristocratic clans or
the sons of chiefs. Ninety percent of them were never
heard from again, according to a report from the CIA
itself, meaning they were most likely captured and
killed.29 ¡°Many lamas and lay members of the elite
and much of the Tibetan army joined the uprising, but
in the main the populace did not, assuring its
failure,¡± writes Hugh Deane.30 In their book on
Tibet, Ginsburg and Mathos reach a similar conclusion:
¡°As far as can be ascertained, the great bulk of the
common people of Lhasa and of the adjoining
countryside failed to join in the fighting against the
Chinese both when it first began and as it
progressed.¡±31 Eventually the resistance crumbled.

Whatever wrongs and new oppressions introduced by the
Chinese after 1959, they did abolish slavery and the
Tibetan serfdom system of unpaid labor. They
eliminated the many crushing taxes, started work
projects, and greatly reduced unemployment and
beggary. They established secular schools, thereby
breaking the educational monopoly of the monasteries.
And they constructed running water and electrical
systems in Lhasa.32

Heinrich Harrer (later revealed to have been a
sergeant in Hitler¡¯s SS) wrote a bestseller about his
experiences in Tibet that was made into a popular
Hollywood movie. He reported that the Tibetans who
resisted the Chinese ¡°were predominantly nobles,
semi-nobles and lamas; they were punished by being
made to perform the lowliest tasks, such as laboring
on roads and bridges. They were further humiliated by
being made to clean up the city before the tourists
arrived.¡± They also had to live in a camp originally
reserved for beggars and vagrants–all of which Harrer
treats as sure evidence of the dreadful nature of the
Chinese occupation.33

By 1961, Chinese occupation authorities expropriated
the landed estates owned by lords and lamas. They
distributed many thousands of acres to tenant farmers
and landless peasants, reorganizing them into hundreds
of communes.. Herds once owned by nobility were turned
over to collectives of poor shepherds. Improvements
were made in the breeding of livestock, and new
varieties of vegetables and new strains of wheat and
barley were introduced, along with irrigation
improvements, all of which reportedly led to an
increase in agrarian production.34

Both the Dalai Lama and his advisor and youngest
brother, Tendzin Choegyal, claimed that ¡°more than
1.2 million Tibetans are dead as a result of the
Chinese occupation.¡±36 The official 1953 census–six
years before the Chinese crackdown–recorded the
entire population residing in Tibet at 1,274,000.37
Other census counts put the population within Tibet at
about two million. If the Chinese killed 1.2 million
in the early 1960s then almost all of Tibet, would
have been depopulated, transformed into a killing
field dotted with death camps and mass graves–of
which we have no evidence. The thinly distributed
Chinese force in Tibet could not have rounded up,
hunted down, and exterminated that many people even if
it had spent all its time doing nothing else.

For the rich lamas and secular lords, the Communist
intervention was an unmitigated calamity. Most of them
fled abroad, as did the Dalai Lama himself, who was
assisted in his flight by the CIA. Some discovered to
their horror that they would have to work for a
living. Many, however, escaped that fate. Throughout
the 1960s, the Tibetan exile community was secretly
pocketing $1.7 million a year from the CIA, according
to documents released by the State Department in 1998.
Once this fact was publicized, the Dalai Lama¡¯s
organization itself issued a statement admitting that
it had received millions of dollars from the CIA
during the 1960s to send armed squads of exiles into
Tibet to undermine the Maoist revolution. The Dalai
Lama’s annual payment from the CIA was $186,000.
Indian intelligence also financed both him and other
Tibetan exiles. He has refused to say whether he or
his brothers worked for the CIA. The agency has also
declined to comment.44

In 1995, the News & Observer of Raleigh, North
Carolina, carried a frontpage color photograph of the
Dalai Lama being embraced by the reactionary
Republican senator Jesse Helms, under the headline
¡°Buddhist Captivates Hero of Religious Right.¡±45 In
April 1999, along with Margaret Thatcher, Pope John
Paul II, and the first George Bush, the Dalai Lama
called upon the British government to release Augusto
Pinochet, the former fascist dictator of Chile and a
longtime CIA client who was visiting England. The
Dalai Lama urged that Pinochet not be forced to go to
Spain where he was wanted to stand trial for crimes
against humanity.

Into the twenty-first century, via the National
Endowment for Democracy and other conduits that are
more respectable sounding than the CIA, the U.S.
Congress continued to allocate an annual $2 million to
Tibetans in India, with additional millions for
¡°democracy activities¡± within the Tibetan exile
community. In addition to these funds, the Dalai Lama
received money from financier George Soros.46

Whatever the Dalai Lama¡¯s associations with the CIA
and various reactionaries, he did speak often of
peace, love, and nonviolence. He himself really cannot
be blamed for the abuses of Tibet¡¯s ancien r¨¦gime,
having been but 25 years old when he fled into exile.
In a 1994 interview, he went on record as favoring the
building of schools and roads in his country. He said
the corv¨¦e (forced unpaid serf labor) and certain
taxes imposed on the peasants were ¡°extremely bad.¡±
And he disliked the way people were saddled with old
debts sometimes passed down from generation to
generation.47During the half century of living in the
western world, he had embraced concepts such as human
rights and religious freedom, ideas largely unknown in
old Tibet. He even proposed democracy for Tibet,
featuring a written constitution and a representative
assembly.48

In 1996, the Dalai Lama issued a statement that must
have had an unsettling effect on the exile community.
It read in part: ¡°Marxism is founded on moral
principles, while capitalism is concerned only with
gain and profitability.¡± Marxism fosters ¡°the
equitable utilization of the means of production¡± and
cares about ¡°the fate of the working classes¡± and
¡°the victims of . . . exploitation. For those reasons
the system appeals to me, and . . . I think of myself
as half-Marxist, half-Buddhist.49

But he also sent a reassuring message to ¡°those who
live in abundance¡±: ¡°It is a good thing to be
rich… Those are the fruits for deserving actions,
the proof that they have been generous in the past.¡±
And to the poor he offers this admonition: ¡°There is
no good reason to become bitter and rebel against
those who have property and fortune… It is better to
develop a positive attitude.¡±50

In November 2005 the Dalai Lama spoke at Stanford
University on ¡°The Heart of Nonviolence,¡± but
stopped short of a blanket condemnation of all
violence. Violent actions that are committed in order
to reduce future suffering are not to be condemned, he
said, citing World War II as an example of a worthy
effort to protect democracy. What of the four years of
carnage and mass destruction in Iraq, a war condemned
by most of the world¡ªeven by a conservative pope–as
a blatant violation of international law and a crime
against humanity? The Dalai Lama was undecided: ¡°The
Iraq war¡ªit¡¯s too early to say, right or wrong.¡±53
Earlier he had voiced support for the U.S. military
intervention against Yugoslavia and, later on, the
U.S. military intervention into Afghanistan.54

III. Exit Feudal Theocracy

As the Shangri-La myth would have it, in old Tibet the
people lived in contented and tranquil symbiosis with
their monastic and secular lords. Rich lamas and poor
monks, wealthy landlords and impoverished serfs were
all bonded together, mutually sustained by the
comforting balm of a deeply spiritual and pacific
culture.

One is reminded of the idealized image of feudal
Europe presented by latter-day conservative Catholics
such as G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. For them,
medieval Christendom was a world of contented peasants
living in the secure embrace of their Church, under
the more or less benign protection of their lords.55
Again we are invited to accept a particular culture in
its idealized form divorced from its murky material
history. This means accepting it as presented by its
favored class, by those who profited most from it. The
Shangri-La image of Tibet bears no more resemblance to
historic actuality than does the pastoral image of
medieval Europe.

Seen in all its grim realities, old Tibet confirms the
view I expressed in an earlier book, namely that
culture is anything but neutral. Culture can operate
as a legitimating cover for a host of grave
injustices, benefiting a privileged portion of society
at great cost to the rest.56 In theocratic feudal
Tibet, ruling interests manipulated the traditional
culture to fortify their own wealth and power. The
theocracy equated rebellious thought and action with
satanic influence. It propagated the general
presumption of landlord superiority and peasant
unworthiness. The rich were represented as deserving
their good life, and the lowly poor as deserving their
mean existence, all codified in teachings about the
karmic residue of virtue and vice accumulated from
past lives, presented as part of God¡¯s will.

Were the more affluent lamas just hypocrites who
preached one thing and secretly believed another? More
likely they were genuinely attached to those beliefs
that brought such good results for them. That their
theology so perfectly supported their material
privileges only strengthened the sincerity with which
it was embraced.

It might be said that we denizens of the modern
secular world cannot grasp the equations of happiness
and pain, contentment and custom, that characterize
more traditionally spiritual societies. This is
probably true, and it may explain why some of us
idealize such societies. But still, a gouged eye is a
gouged eye; a flogging is a flogging; and the grinding
exploitation of serfs and slaves is a brutal class
injustice whatever its cultural wrapping. There is a
difference between a spiritual bond and human bondage,
even when both exist side by side

. . . few Tibetans would welcome a return of the
corrupt aristocratic clans that fled with him in 1959
and that comprise the bulk of his advisers. Many
Tibetan farmers, for example, have no interest in
surrendering the land they gained during China¡¯s land
reform to the clans. Tibet¡¯s former slaves say they,
too, don¡¯t want their former masters to return to
power. ¡°I¡¯ve already lived that life once before,¡±
said Wangchuk, a 67-year-old former slave who was
wearing his best clothes for his yearly pilgrimage to
Shigatse, one of the holiest sites of Tibetan
Buddhism. He said he worshipped the Dalai Lama, but
added, ¡°I may not be free under Chinese communism,
but I am better off than when I was a slave.¡±57

It should be noted that the Dalai Lama is not the only
highly placed lama chosen in childhood as a
reincarnation. One or another reincarnate lama or
tulku–a spiritual teacher of special purity elected
to be reborn again and again–can be found presiding
over most major monasteries. The tulku system is
unique to Tibetan Buddhism. Scores of Tibetan lamas
claim to be reincarnate tulkus.

The very first tulku was a lama known as the Karmapa
who appeared nearly three centuries before the first
Dalai Lama. The Karmapa is leader of a Tibetan
Buddhist tradition known as the Karma Kagyu. The rise
of the Gelugpa sect headed by the Dalai Lama led to a
politico-religious rivalry with the Kagyu that has
lasted five hundred years and continues to play itself
out within the Tibetan exile community today. That the
Kagyu sect has grown famously, opening some six
hundred new centers around the world in the last
thirty-five years, has not helped the situation.

The search for a tulku, Erik Curren reminds us, has
not always been conducted in that purely spiritual
mode portrayed in certain Hollywood films. ¡°Sometimes
monastic officials wanted a child from a powerful
local noble family to give the cloister more political
clout. Other times they wanted a child from a
lower-class family who would have little leverage to
influence the child¡¯s upbringing.¡± On other
occasions ¡°a local warlord, the Chinese emperor or
even the Dalai Lama¡¯s government in Lhasa might [have
tried] to impose its choice of tulku on a monastery
for political reasons.¡±58

Such may have been the case in the selection of the
17th Karmapa, whose monastery-in-exile is situated in
Rumtek, in the Indian state of Sikkim. In 1993 the
monks of the Karma Kagyu tradition had a candidate of
their own choice. The Dalai Lama, along with several
dissenting Karma Kagyu leaders (and with the support
of the Chinese government!) backed a different boy.
The Kagyu monks charged that the Dalai Lama had
overstepped his authority in attempting to select a
leader for their sect. ¡°Neither his political role
nor his position as a lama in his own Gelugpa
tradition entitled him to choose the Karmapa, who is a
leader of a different tradition¡­¡±59 As one of the
Kagyu leaders insisted, ¡°Dharma is about thinking for
yourself. It is not about automatically following a
teacher in all things, no matter how respected that
teacher may be. More than anyone else, Buddhists
should respect other people¡¯s rights¡ªtheir human
rights and their religious freedom.¡±60

What followed was a dozen years of conflict in the
Tibetan exile community, punctuated by intermittent
riots, intimidation, physical attacks, blacklisting,
police harassment, litigation, official corruption,
and the looting and undermining of the Karmapa¡¯s
monastery in Rumtek by supporters of the Gelugpa
faction. All this has caused at least one western
devotee to wonder if the years of exile were not
hastening the moral corrosion of Tibetan Buddhism.61

What is clear is that not all Tibetan Buddhists accept
the Dalai Lama as their theological and spiritual
mentor. Though he is referred to as the ¡°spiritual
leader of Tibet,¡± many see this title as little more
than a formality. It does not give him authority over
the four religious schools of Tibet other than his
own, ¡°just as calling the U.S. president the ¡®leader
of the free world¡¯ gives him no role in governing
France or Germany.¡±62

Not all Tibetan exiles are enamoured of the old
Shangri-La theocracy. Kim Lewis, who studied healing
methods with a Buddhist monk in Berkeley, California,
had occasion to talk at length with more than a dozen
Tibetan women who lived in the monk¡¯s building. When
she asked how they felt about returning to their
homeland, the sentiment was unanimously negative. At
first, Lewis assumed that their reluctance had to do
with the Chinese occupation, but they quickly informed
her otherwise. They said they were extremely grateful
¡°not to have to marry 4 or 5 men, be pregnant almost
all the time,¡± or deal with sexually transmitted
diseases contacted from a straying husband. The
younger women ¡°were delighted to be getting an
education, wanted absolutely nothing to do with any
religion, and wondered why Americans were so na0Š7ve
[about Tibet].¡±63

The women interviewed by Lewis recounted stories of
their grandmothers¡¯ ordeals with monks who used them
as ¡°wisdom consorts.¡± By sleeping with the monks,
the grandmothers were told, they gained ¡°the means to
enlightenment¡± — after all, the Buddha himself had
to be with a woman to reach enlightenment.

The women also mentioned the ¡°rampant¡± sex that the
supposedly spiritual and abstemious monks practiced
with each other in the Gelugpa sect. The women who
were mothers spoke bitterly about the monastery¡¯s
confiscation of their young boys in Tibet. They
claimed that when a boy cried for his mother, he would
be told ¡°Why do you cry for her, she gave you
up–she’s just a woman.¡±

The monks who were granted political asylum in
California applied for public assistance. Lewis,
herself a devotee for a time, assisted with the
paperwork. She observes that they continue to receive
government checks amounting to $550 to $700 per month
along with Medicare. In addition, the monks reside
rent free in nicely furnished apartments. ¡°They pay
no utilities, have free access to the Internet on
computers provided for them, along with fax machines,
free cell and home phones and cable TV.¡±

They also receive a monthly payment from their order,
along with contributions and dues from their American
followers. Some devotees eagerly carry out chores for
the monks, including grocery shopping and cleaning
their apartments and toilets. These same holy men,
Lewis remarks, ¡°have no problem criticizing Americans
for their ¡®obsession with material things.¡¯¡±64

What the Chinese Gov’t is doing right now with the Olympic torch is exactly the same tactic Nazi ruler did during the 1936 Olympic in Germany. Nazi made the torch to cover many different island sysmbolizing that Hitler is going to run the entire world. Now, China is using the same tactic and laying the foundation aiming to dictate the future globe.
You know, no matter what, if chinese gov’t ever dream to reach that position, don’t forget that the citizens you are going to dictate will be your own brainless people. Rest people in the world would choose to live 7 feet under the ground rather than under Chinese Communist Dictatorship.

Western audiences love to read China bashing stuff and their media willingly obliges by providing the same, everyday 24/7, all the time.
That’s why people in Western countries get the jaundiced view of China. They should go find out the real China by reading more balanced news and reports form non-Western sources and perspectives. Better still why not go to China to find out at first hand your own independent picture for yourself. Don’t always believe what you read from your local news reports. They are just feeding you what you want to hear and see.

I think most of the chinese people on this blog who support chinese acts think that rest of the world do not like them But reality is not that. When it comes to chinese culture or country as a whole, I think we all like china but when it comes to HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS, whole world is together to speak the TRUTH that all of us know, even those support chinese acts know in their hearts of heart what is the truth!!!

Talking About Tibet and answering TNTtranceiver:

TNTtranceiver - you are so ignorent! At any given place population increases over a period of time …during the same time what is the population increase in China do you know?

Also life span in general have been increased all over the globe that I do not have to mention so why pointing out only Tibitians for this matter.

At the same time — talking about the death toll in Tibet - people killing people is inhuman act we all agree. However, have you ever thought about how many innocent “peaceful Monks ” and other innocent people have been killed by Government of the People’s Republic of China since 1950. Do you guyes have any count of those killings???

Have compassion, think wisely and act wisely too. Others property can not be your’s you can only occupy it as long as you could by force .

Have peace.

hi

i really appreciate what john has said in his comments on May 2 800GMT,
may i have his email- id to says thanx

Chen - I read whole article (It is big!) and here is my conclusion:

this whole article means nothing - every country has their own history. I have read many things about China written by chinese as well. So based on the article are you trying to proof that Tibetan’s do not deserve FREEDOM/self rule/soverignty?????

I think people living under communism and dictatorship government have tunnel vision…..so friends please increase your knowledge –and please have compassion for your fellow TIBEITIANS ….brainwashing world is not going to work…but empathy will.

Comparing Hitler’s Nazi regime to CCP regime is like comparing rotten Washington apple with Sunkist orange. What a joke. LOL .

I read reports somewhere that the Dalai Lama once had a Hitler’s Nazi officer as mentor and tutor. If that’s the case, some id*** could conceivably even compare the DL with Hitler

I dislike the CCP as much as the next person, but even I have to agree that comparing them to the Nazis seems a bit over the top. However, insinuating that the Dalai is comparable to Hitler is also quite out there.

MFM’s long-winded rantings on May 5th, 2008 611 GMT Monday, May 5, 2008 is typical of a Westerner’s point of view, perhaps reinforced by the right-wing conservative neo-colonialist political factions and their party controlled news media of their countries. Very few people would say China or the CCP rule is perfect. So are the rule of many third world countries, including China. The Western countries record is not very good either. Please kettle don’t call the pot black. Your record of human rights record is nothing to be proud of either.
Colonialist invasion of Africa, Latin America, North America, Falklands, Gibralta, New Zealand, Australia, Dutch East Indies, Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia, India, Ceylon, Concessions in China, Opium War, sale and drug peddling to colonies, Boxer rebellion massacres, looting and destruction of cultural relics throughout the world, looting and destruction of the Forbbiden City, Rape of Naking, anihilation of native populations in Latin America, North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Slave trading especially from Africa, concubinage and rape of colonial territories, use of and threaten use of nuclear weapons on to bully other countries, wholesale and wanton destruction of of the environments and endangered species throughout the world, French Vietnam War, USA Vietnam War, MyLai massacre, Korean War, Falkland War, Cuban War, Iraq War, Afghanistan War, Guantanamo torture prison, water boarding torture, the list goes on……………………………………………………….
Colonialist invasion of Africa, Latin America, North America, Falklands, Gibralta, New Zealand, Australia, Dutch East Indies, Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia, India, Ceylon, Concessions in China, Opium War, sale and drug peddling to colonies, Boxer rebellion massacres, looting and destruction of cultural relics throughout the world, looting and destruction of the Forbbiden City, Rape of Naking, anihilation of native populations in Latin America, North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, continued occupation of their native homelands, slave trading especially from Africa, concubinage and rape of colonial territories, use of and threaten use of nuclear weapons on to bully other countries, wholesale and wanton destruction of of the environments and endangered species throughout the world, French Vietnam War, USA Vietnam War, MyLai massacre, Korean War, Falkland War, Cuban War, Iraq War, Afghanistan War, Guantanamo torture prison, water boarding torture, the list goes on……………………………………………………….

Colonialist invasion of Africa, Latin America, North America, Falklands, Gibralta, New Zealand, Australia, Dutch East Indies, Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia, India, Ceylon, Concessions in China, Opium War, sale and drug peddling to colonies, Boxer rebellion massacres, looting and destruction of cultural relics throughout the world, looting and destruction of the Forbbiden City, Rape of Naking, anihilation of native populations in Latin America, North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Slave trading especially from Africa, concubinage and rape of colonial territories, use of and threaten use of nuclear weapons on to bully other countries, wholesale and wanton destruction of of the environments and endangered species throughout the world, French Vietnam War, USA Vietnam War, MyLai massacre, Korean War, Falkland War, Cuban War, Iraq War, Afghanistan War, Guantanamo torture prison, water boarding torture, the list goes on………………………………………………
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Nobel Peace Price, the Vatican, Doctors or Lawyers Without Borders, the Red Cross, hundreds of thousands of Western state-sponsored partisan NGO’s. These are nothing but neo-colonialist tools and weapons used by the still unrepentant imperialist and colonialist sions and descendents to impose, dominate, attempts to make the world in its own image and control the world and the global resources for their own benefit. These NGOs and organisations are sponsored and financed by their governments.
Outside of the Western countries, nobody care a damn what they say, preaching, proselytizing, lecturing, hectoring, bullying, subversion and fomenting unrest and destabilising other countries.
Hipocrisy of Western countries….. Israel, Jammu and Kashmir, Saudi Arabia, military juntas in Latin America and South America, middle-east, Africa, and Pacific islands, Marcos’ Philippines, Suhato’s Indonesia, Pak Chung Hee’s South Korea, even Iraq’s Sadam Hussein………these are or were buddies of Western countries at one time or another.
Western countries, please be more modest.

To: syama

Thanks for going through the whole article. I appreciate your effort. It is lengthy, I agree. At least I fulfill my promise to MFM that my article will be longer than his.

On your other points, here are my comments.

1. Human right:

China has jailed up to about 200 people (Tibetans and Chinese total? not sure what crime?) in Tibet for the past 20 years based a western report I read. I have no problem for people to ask China to improve upon its act. Remember these people are just jailed, not killed.

Granted, it is a human right violation even if one person is jailed. But it is a small human right violation compared to a lot of other much bigger human right violations.

Does anyone know how many Iraqi civilians killed. Why no one has an idea? That is because the so called “free and unbiased western news medias” rarely report that number. Please do a search for “Iraqi Civilian Death Number” on CNN, BBC, AFP, Washington Posts, New York Times and let me know the search results. Even if they occasionally report that number, it must be contained in fine prints. How often do you see a CNN news flash telling you 4000 precious lives of American soldiers perished. How often do you see a CNN news flash, if ever, telling you how many Iraqi civilian lives perished?

I don’t think I need to go into the discussion of the human right violations happened to Palestinian people. Everyone knows what is going on the the Palestinian soil. They made me laugh when the Jewish leaders in the US called for a boycott of Beijing Olympics. They may be more creditable if they called for a boycott of the State of Israel at the same time.

The truth is that the West is, and has been using this Tibet issue to undermine China for decades!

Again and granted, China needs to do better in human right. But don’t blow it to disproportion.

Also, Tibetans-in-exile don’t need to play victims. 99% of them used to be slave-owners or sons and daughters of slave-owners. If the Tibetans-in-exile really want to go back to Tibet and build a better Tibet, they are welcomed. Chinese government allows Tibetan-in-exile to return to Tibet as of now. But if they want to return to their power and old glory, they are out of luck.

2. Tibetan death caused by PLA and your replies to TNTtranceiver.

Here is where the history of Tibet comes into play.

When PLA entered Tibet, Tibet was in a society of feudal serfdom. Do you think those slave owners will automatically give up their luxury life and let the slaves go free? Americans had to fight a Civil war and had to kill thousands if not millions during the Civil War to liberate the slaves. When PLA battled Tibetan Army to liberate the slaves, PLA killed many Tibetan soldiers, Tibetan slave-owners, and some slaves forced to fight against PLA. So what? Revolution and liberation has almost always been violent during human history each time a newer, better and more advanced society replacing older social systems. Peaceful revolution is rare.

Remember Tibet used to have a society of feudal serfdom. The religious and political powers were combined and held by Lamas and Monks in old Tibet. Those monks and lamas got killed were not innocent people. They were the rulers and slave-owners, and they organized rebellion against the liberation of slaves. They were armed fighters trained by CIA and MI-5.

Let me ask you a question? If it were not PLA liberated slaves, would Dalai Lama and his ruling group(s) all suddenly be willing to free the slaves by themselves. Do you think the population will grow that much and lifespan will increase more under the serfdom ruling by Dalai Lama.

Let me ask you another question? If millions of Tibetans were killed by Chinese as claimed, would the Tibetan population grow? Please have hard evidence to backup your claims.

It is cheap and easy for Dalai Lama to talk about human right now. For the past 50 years, Dalai Lama had not done anything good and meaningful for the average Tibetans other than causing troubles. It has been the Chinese building schools, roads, and providing education to millions of Tibetans.

The reason to show the Tibetan history and let westerners to know a little bit of it is to show Dalai Lama was wrongly awarded Noble Peace Price. He was a slave-owner, a human right abuser in old Tibet, a CIA funded militant, a supporter of Iraqi war, and he has not done anything that contributes to the improvement of average Tibetans’ life. The West awarded him the Noble Peace Price to better use him as a tool against China.

Of course, all human beings deserve better life, including Tibetans and Chinese. Studying Tibetan and Chinese history just let us know that Tibetans and Chinese have come a long way to today. Human right in Tibet and China have been improved over the past 50 years, by not under Dalai Lama’s ruling, albeit still not good enough.

To Peter: man, you are out there in left field. Yes, you’ve listed (3 times no less) the travesties committed by Western societies in their history, and they are beyond dispute. They are historical wrongs from which we can all learn. Having said that, those things are water under the bridge; on the other hand, CCP China human rights abuses continue to this day, with no signs of abating. So when can we expect CCP China to get its act together? I’ll also concede Iraq as a contemporary mistake; however, Afghanistan under the Taliban aided and abetted the perpetrators of 9/11, and NATO was perfectly justified to go after that regime. Just think, if terrorists blew up the Forbidden City, or flew planes into Shanghai skyscrapers, would China be justified in retaliating against the attackers?
I’ve previously stated that it is unfair to characterize CCP-supporters as being paid-mouthpieces; it is similarly pathetic to accuse anti-CCP voices of being at the behest of “right-wing conservative neo-colonialist political factions and their party controlled news media “. We live in a free society, unlike China, and we’re all engaging in our right to express an opinion.
If you think NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS (read that name again) such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Nobel Peace Price, and Doctors or Lawyers Without Borders, are somehow partisan to Western governments rather than to their own mandates, you suffer from a degree of paranoia rarely seen in modern Western civilization. And the Vatican? What’s the Pope got to do with it? The Red Cross? Has China never benefitted from their humanitarian assistance? Come on! You’re of course free to support the CCP all you want, but at least make some sense.

To Chen: it is true and unfortunate that many Iraqis have died. I don’t have the numbers. I suspect, however, that most have died at the hands of other Iraqis (suicide bombs, Sunnis vs Shiites, etc). It can be argued that such killings may not have occurred if the Americans weren’t there. But I think most of the Iraqi blood spilled have not been directly by the hands of t