ENGLISH
For Peace, Justice, Human Rights and more International Solidarity "Mister Kpakpato" is the opponent N°1 of imperialist and dictatorial regimes.
www.misterkpakpato.com

FRANCAIS:
Pour la Paix,la Solidarité internationale, la Justice et les Droits de l'Homme dans le monde, Mister Kpakpato est l'Oppasant N°1 aux régimes impérialistes et dictatoriaux dans le monde.
www.misterkpakpato.com

China Olympics 2008 - Don't Politicize It!

The following article gives you a glimpse of the feeling of Chinese around the world...

A letter to NY Times.
================
March 31st, 2008 3:48 am

Mr. Kristof:

I am a 3^rd generation ethnic-Chinese overseas, an American lawyer based in San Francisco, with my own private law firm engaged in transactional work between China/HKG/Taiwan and California.

I am not known for being an apologist for the Chinese government, but as an ethnic Chinese in the overseas Diaspora, I am outraged at the "piling" and orchestrated China demonization and bashing on this lead-up to the '08 Olympics.

That the West, from Europe, and the U.S., have exploited this year's Olympics to machinate, scheme, and execute this "Mau Mau" against China and its peoples, at this time, at this juncture, using the Dalai Lama and his secessionist movement, smacks of western powers "overreaching" and will be met with resistance and outrage from the ethnic Chinese Diaspora communities scattered throughout 135 countries around the world.  In San Francisco, the only Olympics torch relay stop in the U.S., we ethnic Chinese in the San Francisco Bay Area have been completely muffled by your news media in America, and the biased reporting tilting towards the "Shangri-la" Lamaism farce of a pacifist Dalai Lama is outrageous and will not be allowed to pass without the appropriate response, in our own "asymmetric" ways.

China and its peoples are no longer the "sick men of Asia." Over a century and a half ago, opium was used by the Western imperialists to subjugate China and the Chinese people. Today, the drugs and drug addiction are reversed, with Western Europe and the U.S. sapped by its own domestic erosion of fundamental civility, economic decline, and implosion within its inner cities.

Your financial systems are in chaos, characterized by greed, rampant looting and plundering in Wall Street. You are stuck in a quagmire in the Middle East which sees no end in sight.

But for China, and its cheap imports, the U.S. economy will be in an even worse shape than it is today. As to Europe, who cares? Sarkozy and Merkel presides over two countries and economies which we Chinese really don't care much about, especially among the growing ethnic Chinese overseas Diaspora not just in Asia-Pacific, but now spreading onto Latin America and Africa.  Big deal. The Europeans and Americans can boycott the Beijing Olympics come August, 2008.

My family and I will proudly attend and participate in the Olympics "coming out" party in Beijing, willingly, with pride, and with our pocketbooks.

In the meantime, let my white liberal/regressive neo-fascist San Franciscans wallow in their own perverted, constricted, narrow-minded little world.

The world has passed San Francisco by.

As a matter of fact, we ethnic Chinese in San Francisco are mobilizing and hoping that we can secede from white San Francisco. Why not ? Since it appears that you white Americans are so hyped up over "Shangri-La" Tibet as an Independent State, and support secession as a universalist right.

Why now allow us Chinese in San Francisco to secede and form our own city, with our own governance. After all, we constitute 1/3 of your damn white supremacist city where the power is reposed in white people, and our city hall is controlled by white people.

Free San Francisco. A free San Francisco East.

Free Quebec. Free Louisiana.

Free Hawaii.

Free El Norte Aztlan, and return America's Southwest, a huge swath of Texas, California back to Mexico.

Didn't the U.S. illegally seize what used to be Mexican land and territory?

As an ethnic Chinese in the overseas Diaspora, I and others will mobilize and we will fight back, as we mobilized in response to all the anti-Chinese pogroms in our overseas Diaspora experience.

- Posted by Edward Liu
---------------------------------

From CNN: "I don't view the Olympics as a political event," President Bush said this past week. "I view it as a sporting event."

Interesting.  And did you know, Dubya, that many people don't view your time in the White House as a presidency?

Maybe you should try a little presiding.

Full story here.

By Lobsang Chodron, AlterNet
Posted on April 1, 2008, Printed on April 1, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/80893/

From my room above the Tibetan-exiled community of McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala, India, all throughout the day, I can hear the protests of Tibetan marchers. Their voices strain into the night, an urgent plea for someone to listen, to pay attention, to respond. I have been based here, on and off, over the last three and a half years, but for some reason, now, more than ever, I am listening.

I am an American nun in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

Before my involvement in Buddhism, I was heavily involved in political work in Washington, DC and San Francisco, California. I thought this was a way to bring about positive change in a conflicted world. I was free to organize political meetings and marches. I was encouraged to speak out in the face of social injustice. I was hired to write about whatever seemed to move political conscience.

However, most individuals born in the United States take these basic liberties for granted. I often did until I engaged in extensive travel outside of the United States. Now, here in Dharamsala, I feel censored. I fear that by writing that I may never be granted another Chinese visa allowing me to travel to Tibet. As a Buddhist, it is too difficult to imagine never again seeing the sacred places and images in Tibet that have so inspired my spiritual practice. In fact, I was due to lead a pilgrimage this May to Tibet. At this moment, however, the tour organizer is researching alternative destinations and designing a new itinerary, one that will take us to a place that is not only holy, but free, not only spiritually beneficial, but safe.

This leads me to question what is free and safe and how best can I respond when those very values are threatened.

Here in Dharamsala, I go down to the town every other day to lend support to the Tibetans. I feel helpless, but join in the protests taking place throughout the town. I clap for, smile at, say thank you (in Tibetan) to, and put my palms together as a symbolic gesture of prayer for the variety of marchers who pass through the narrow streets. At times the Tibetans organize themselves into specific groups with each group marching at different intervals to keep the urgency of their cause heightened. Therefore, at one point I watch a group of Tibetan nuns chanting slogans and waving Tibetan flags through the street. At another time a group of school boys from the Tibetan Children's Village (TCV) swarm through, their fists raised in protest, the blue sweaters and grey slacks of their uniforms betray nothing of their quest for a free homeland.

It is tragic to me how many of these Tibetans have never been able to step foot in their homeland while I have enjoyed two visits to Tibet over the years. Imagine what it is like never to have your own home. To always be a visitor, a refugee without the seeming stability and familiarity of your own land and culture. While I have been on the road for more than three years now, often living out of suitcases, moving rooms, crossing borders, I have a passport that allows me entrance without visa to a country in which I am entitled to stay for as long as I like. I can always go home. Home we often take for granted. For Tibetans, a home such as that is a distant dream.

And I have been warned. I am visitor, a "tourist" in India and it is illegal for me to incite demonstrations and create violence. Some foreigners have already been arrested, their passports stamped giving them 48 hours to leave the country and inability to return to India with this passport or perhaps forever. Creating violence is actually against my very code of ethics as Buddhist nun and therefore, harming others is something in which I am not at all interested. However, what I am most interested in, in this case, is freedom. Most Tibetans are also not citizens of India and their protests have prompted some arrests by the Indian government. Most of them are and always will be refugees here.

The days I do not venture into town, I focus more on my own spiritual practice. Since coming into contact with Tibetan Buddhism, my politics have evolved into a combination of internal and external work. The activism on both fronts feels the best balance now in order to create what His Holiness the Dalai Lama calls "inner disarmament," when the delusions of confusion, anger, desire, pride, jealousy, etc. are subdued and transformed into more positive behavior. This I have found to be some of the most effective political work I have done.

But still these past few days I have felt like a coward. Afraid to act, to write, to sign petitions, to send messages to those in power. I walk past the hunger strikers outside His Holiness the Dalai Lama's temple and see in their eyes that some of them would starve to death for freedom. They won't, though, since His Holiness strongly discourages harming others. And this includes themselves. I wonder what I would starve to death for.

In Tibet, it is far worse than starving. The accounts we read daily have come out of Tibet via mobile phones and at tremendous risk to the caller. I think of the bravery of those who have stood up in Tibet to raise awareness to the Tibetan plight. Risking execution, beatings, imprisonment and torture, these individuals blaze more brightly for me than any Olympic torch. Of what truly do I have to be afraid?

I follow the news from around the world. I am stunned to read what Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Christensen said in response to whether the U.S. would boycott the Olympics, that the "Olympics are an opportunity for China to show progress on human rights..." I wonder what the International Olympics Committee president Jacques Rogge and his committee were thinking in 2001 when they selected China for the 2008 site. The very Olympic charter states that it holds "a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity." Where is the peace and "human dignity" for Gendun Choekyi Nyima, the young Panchen Lama, and his family disappeared several years ago in China? I want to ask the committee how they would define the words "human rights."

Who are the brave among these people who can stop worshiping money and power over basic human values?

Congressperson Nancy Pelosi is brave. I watched her arrive with an American delegation. One of her delegation has even attended Buddhist lectures I give in Delhi. I stood with the Tibetans who waved Indian, Tibetan and American flags. I thought there is so much these three entities could do together right now in the name of courage and freedom. What will it take?

I sometimes wish there was a large oil reserve in the center of Tibet.

Economic sanctions brought South Africa to its knees. And what better time to put pressure on China with the Olympics just around the corner. What countries will go this distance? What about one in particular whose very national anthem proclaims freedom and bravery.

Finally, I phone Tenzin Thakla, the head of security for the Tibetan government-in-exile. I tell him a bit about my background and ask him how I can be most helpful. "You are from a free country," he says. I mention how some of my friends involved with news agencies in the States have asked me to write something. "Write," he adds. So I break out of my cowardice and write.

And ask the world not to let this cause go the way of the Burmese one or to fester like the issues facing Darfur. The Olympics presents an opportunity for dialogue to begin between China and the Tibetan government. While I am not interested in thwarting the Chinese efforts this August, it is time to say enough. The Olympic torch was lit on March 24. May we ensure that it is a time we do not let the light go out on the Tibetans.

***

If You Want to Stand Up for Tibet, Help the Organization, Loving Kindness Peaceful Youth

On Friday 28th March 2008, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, the Dalai Lama spoke directly about the troubles in Tibet, asking all supporters worldwide to help in any way they can, providing that this happens in a strictly non-violent way. He explained that this is a moment of crisis, and that it is all of us, rather than just the Tibetans in exile, who have the potential to shift the situation.

So a new project has been created... STAND UP FOR TIBET! Basically...

We all want to stand up for Tibet. So let's do it, literally.

How do I get involved?

The concept is simple and everyone can be involved ... Any age, any culture, any faith ...

1.Every day, commit to simply standing up. Just for a moment, a second, a minute ... however long you want.

2.Get hold of a Tibetan flag (print one out, draw it, buy a flag etc) OR write Tibet on yourself, or on a piece of paper and hold it up.

3.Then take a picture of yourself (or with your group of friends/family) ... With your camera, webcam, phone... Whatever.

(just make sure its a picture of you and you have either a Tibetan flag or the word "Tibet" somewhere in the image)

Quietly or noisily. Get creative and think big! Get out on the streets, in schools, on trains and buses, in the workplace, at football games, in bars and restaurants. Be visible, newsworthy, fun and contagious.

Then what do I do with the image?...

Simply email it to Loving Kindness Peaceful Youth: standupfortibet@lkpy.org OR Text it to us: +61 447 036 542

What will happen then?...

The images will be posted on the LKPY website (in the projects section under the new project "stand up for Tibet") They will also be posted on our facebook page (lkpy world) Then once we collect large numbers of images we are going to use them to help support Tibet!

Get the message out there ...

We need to get the message out there ... We need to make our feelings public throughout the world, and we need millions of people to join in! March 31st has been designated an international day of action by the International Tibet Support Network. Will you stand up that day, wherever you happen to be? And then continue, as long as the situation lasts?

We have the capacity to reach hundred of thousands of people. Each one of us knows someone we can forward this to or has access to a database. Can you circulate this email ASAP so it can reach everyone for March 31st! And attached is a poster... Print it out, plaster it everywhere... Lets get the message out there!

And remember ...

They say a waterfall starts from just one drop of water ... LKPY says peace starts from just one person! YOU can help to start the waterfall of peace in Tibet ... STAND UP FOR TIBET!

© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/80893/

By Timothy Garton Ash, Comment Is Free
Posted on March 25, 2008, Printed on March 31, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/80509/

Last week, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown promised to meet the Dalai Lama when he comes to Britain in May. So should all other leaders of free countries, whenever the opportunity arises. Anything less would shame us all. And it wouldn't help China either.

We face at least three difficulties in reacting to the unfolding tragedy of the Tibetans. We don't know enough about what's really going on, because the Chinese authorities are determined to prevent us finding out by expelling journalists, ratcheting up their customary censorship of the Internet, and telling lies. We feel impotent to prevent the horror unfolding. And we have to balance our deep sympathy with the Tibetans against our interest in a benign evolution of China. Appeasement of Beijing for short-term political and commercial gains is contemptible; trying to ensure that anything we do to help the Tibetans won't hinder the evolution of China is not. It's statecraft -- and moral, too.

Here's the good reason for not reacting to the repression of Buddhist monks in Tibet as we did to the repression of Buddhist monks in Burma. No, we shouldn't impose economic sanctions on the whole of China, as we do on Burma. Nor should we boycott the Beijing Olympics. There is too much at stake. The French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner has suggested that if the repression in China worsens -- not only in Tibet, but also with the persecution of Chinese dissidents such as Hu Jia -- European leaders might not participate in the opening ceremony of the Olympics. A threat worth making, perhaps, though it won't get far with his fellow EU foreign ministers when they meet next week.

It may be worth calling for United Nations observers to be sent in to Tibet, though China will doubtless veto that. As important is to insist that the Chinese authorities keep the promise they have made -- and are now breaking -- to allow foreign journalists free movement around the whole of China in the runup to the Olympics. (If they don't let reporters go to Tibet, this can only mean that Tibet is not part of China.)

Yet we know, in our hearts, that none of this will prevent them clamping down, with armed force -- the knock on the door at 4am, and all the familiar apparatus of a police state. As it is, Tibetans are arrested simply for possessing an image of the Dalai Lama. And there's the rub: the exiled 72-year-old spiritual and political leader of the Tibetans remains the only visible key to a peaceful solution. On all the anecdotal evidence from travelers in these parts, he still holds the love and loyalty of the majority of his people. At the same time, he offers to China's leaders a negotiated path to Hong Kong-style autonomy for Tibet, short of full independence. If they made a rational calculation of their own long-term interest, down this path they would tread.

But they don't. With the doublethink characteristic of repressive regimes, China's communist leaders say he is an irrelevance, a feudal relic; and yet they talk about him obsessively. They routinely denounce him as a "splittist", that is, one who wishes to split Tibet from the motherland by pursuing independence. This week we had the otherwise sober Chinese premier Wen Jiabao ranting about the "incident" in Tibet being "organised, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai clique". This, he said, proved that "the claims made by the Dalai clique that they pursue not independence but peaceful dialogue are nothing but lies."

A throwback to the worst Stalinist demagogy, this statement is not merely at odds with, but the diametric opposite of, the truth, making black out of white. The Dalai Lama keeps repeating that he does not seek full independence. There is no human being in the world today who is more publicly, consistently and unequivocally committed to the path of non-violence. In accepting the Nobel peace prize in 1989, he mentioned "the man who founded the modern tradition of nonviolent action for change, Mahatma Gandhi" even before his own long-suffering Tibetan people. This week, he threatened to resign as political leader of the Tibetan government in exile if his followers resorted to violence. There is not a shred of evidence that he instigated the rising in Tibet. On the contrary, the fact that popular anger has boiled over into street protest -- including, it seems, some violence against innocent Han Chinese and local Muslims -- suggests that at least some Tibetans are becoming fed up with the course of non-violence on which he has kept them for so long.

So China's leaders misread, or at least misrepresent, the Dalai Lama's intentions. (How much is genuine incomprehension and how much deliberate lying is an interesting question.) Probably they also underestimate his power. As Stalin asked, "How many divisions has the Pope?", so they may ask, "How many divisions has the Dalai Lama?" If so, they are being just as shortsighted as Stalin was. Like Pope John Paul II, the 14th Dalai Lama possesses, in the affection not just of his own people but of millions across the world, one of the purest forms of soft power.

We, for our part, tend to underestimate the political importance of symbolic acts, such as meeting an exiled or dissident leader. Self-styled realists deride this as tokenism, thereby demonstrating their own lack of realism. For anyone who has experienced a repressive regime -- be it South Africa under apartheid, Czechoslovakia under Soviet-type communism, or Burma under the generals today -- knows just how important to the oppressed people are those acts of symbolic recognition, whether of a Nelson Mandela, a Vaclav Havel or an Aung San Suu Kyi. It's no accident that the website of the Tibetan government in exile lovingly lists all the "World Leaders His Holiness the Dalai Lama has met", including in recent years the prime ministers of Canada, Australia, Hungary and Belgium, the president of the United States, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

The Chinese authorities know these meetings matter too; otherwise they wouldn't expend so much effort trying to prevent them. Yesterday they declared themselves "seriously concerned" by Brown's decision. They are the real "splittists" here, trying to divide and rule between free countries competing for their economic favours. I have no doubt that this -- not any broader moral or strategic concern -- was the reason the British prime minister hesitated before committing, under pressure, to meet the Tibetan leader. So one thing EU foreign ministers definitely should agree in their informal meeting next week is that all European heads of government will receive the Dalai Lama, as a matter of course, whenever he comes calling. And the same should go for every other free country.

In establishing this principle, we would send three messages to Beijing: that democracies are not so easily divided; that the Dalai Lama truly represents -- dare I say, incarnates -- the path of non-violence and negotiation; and that we do wish to engage fully with a modernizing China and celebrate a wonderful Olympics this summer, but not over the dead bodies of Buddhist monks.

© 2008 Comment Is Free All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/80509/

Tja, also wollen wir mal auf den Zug aufspringen, hmm sagen wir zumindest halbherzig was die allg. Free Tibet Stimmung angeht.

Weil nun ja, ob ich jetz wirklich finde, dass Tibet wieder unabhängig sein soll oder nicht, da bin ich mir selbst garnicht so sicher.

Aber was mich echt sickig macht, is ja wie China einfach mal so komplett alle Reporter und Urlauber etc. aus der Bildfläche verschwinden lassen kann, um dann fernab aller Blicke einen auf Rambo zu machen

Alter Schwede, dann lässt man sich dadurch inspirieren etwas genauer hinzugucken und dann findet man dieses Dokument hier

ladet euch das ma runter und LEST ES AUFMERKSAM

in China is das politische Bloggen Scheißegefährlich und das mit ner behördlichen Apparatur die sich gewaschen hat...also ich dachte ja vorher auch das in China mit Meinungsfreiheit nich soweit her is aber so KRASS

man bin ich naiv gewesen

tibet, taiwan hin oder her...aber wie systematisch die unbequeme Stimmen
im eigenen Land verschwinden lassen und feinste propaganda übers Staatsfernsehen tüddeln lassen ...lässt mich echt zweifeln wie man in so nem Land glücklich sein kann... Land des ewigen Lächeln oder wie war das

Hmm is wohl eher ne entstellte Fratze für mich geworden

Damn jetz bin ich doch auf den fahrenden Zug aufgesprungen...Shit

....

ach un die neunmal  klugen Sprüche des IOC kann ich auch nicht mehr hören.... Olympia is keine politische Veranstaltung... tja das ham wir ja schon 1938 gesehen ...bloss nich nach links und rechts schauen...immer schön geradeaus...Enjoy the ride

We can affect this historic choice -- China does care about its international reputation. But it will take an avalanche of global people power to get the government's attention. The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has called for restraint and dialogue: he needs the world's people to support him. Fill out the form below to sign the petition--and spread the word.

Free Tibet !!!

LG Prenzlmaler.

I, for one empathise with and believe in the cause of the Tibetans. The brutal and imperial Chinese regime has unjustifiably laid claims to the land that was once an independent nation. However, when i think about my own stance on this issue, i feel that I am divided from within. From a purely political perspective, I feel it is better if we as a nation do not intervene in the domestic affairs of another nation and therefore leave the Tibetans to fight their own battle. Any undue interference on the part of India might affect Indo-China ties and considering our history, I feel we do not need a real or a cold war with China right now. However, from a humanistic perspective, I feel it is sacrilege to evict someone from their own homes!! There is nothing in this world that would justify something like that, least of all material or political gains! People have the right to their own land, their own religion and their own beliefs, not to mention a host of other factors which lend identity to an individual or people or a nation. The people in question here are Tibetans, who follow the Buddhist and Gandhian principles of non-violence, peace and dialogue. It is a shame for the rest of the world, who just stand and stare with fear, or worse, indifference when an armed battle is waged against poor and peace-loving people. For a number of the so called "developed" nations, the phrase "rest of the world" doesnt exist and means nothing, unless it refers to oil-rich countries!

Inspite of having these two diametrically opposing views in my mind, i still believe that it is high time the Tibetans get what is long overdue to them- their own land. However, considering more than half of the world in engaged in a territorial battle, whose land is it anyway? If educated and sensitive people also have second thoughts about expressing their opinions on what is right and fighting for it, is there any hope?

Exclusive: Foreboding on Tibetan plateau as China gathers forces

By Tim Johnson | McClatchy Newspapers

• Posted on Tuesday, March 18, 2008

LITANG, China — High on the Tibetan Plateau, an eerie quiet has settled on the usually bustling city of Litang. Few shops open their doors. Only police vehicles and packs of dogs roam the streets.

The city is under police lockdown. Convoys of troops whirr by, some with flashing lights. Most residents stay indoors. A massive paramilitary buildup appears under way in the region, but no one knows where or when it might unleash its force.

As in many Chinese cities with heavy ethnic Tibetan populations, authorities in Litang are racing to prevent new racial riots after a week of bloody clashes in Tibet and several neighboring provinces. Since early Monday, they've banned private vehicles from the streets and ordered store owners to close up.

No significant unrest has yet occurred in this city, which lies in a traditionally Tibetan area of western Sichuan province. But the government clearly is ready with a sledgehammer if it needs to respond. One resident who gave his name only as Dorje said, "It could get bad here."

Paramilitary trucks jam the main highway leading from central Sichuan into the Tibetan areas in the western part of the province. Among the more than 100 military trucks Tuesday were ambulances, paddy wagons, armored vehicles and troop carriers. Soldiers carried automatic weapons.

Whether the preparations were aimed for Litang or some other location was unknown, and contacting Chinese government officials to ask would be risky. While this reporter and another Western journalist were able to enter Litang, many others have been blocked in the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and other areas of Sichuan.

Foreboding, however, cloaks this city, home to 50,000 people on a breathtaking plain 13,100 feet high.

At least 90 percent of Litang's population is ethnic Tibetan, and many are wary of speaking to foreigners even as they signal unhappiness with the unfolding repression.

"You can't drive. You can only walk," said one disgruntled resident, who isn't being identified to prevent reprisals in the increasingly tense conflict between Tibetans and ruling Han Chinese.

A businessman, staying at a hotel, said he'd heard that the closure of the city's stores would last for three days but that there'd been no formal announcement.

"Of course it's bad for business but it's only for three days," he said.

Asked about other conditions in the region, he balked. "I can't talk about it because I'll get hit," he said, giving himself a mock punch to the face.

In the sudden spasm of violence that's shaking China within its Tibetan minority population, authorities are resorting to tried-and-true techniques.

They're turning up the criticism of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, blaming him for instigating unrest rather than accepting that many Tibetans are bitterly angry over their treatment.

In Beijing, Premier Wen Jiabao told a news conference Tuesday that there's "plenty of evidence" that the Lhasa riots Friday and subsequent unrest over the weekend "was organized, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai clique."

The Litang television channel carries a constant loop message condemning the Dalai Lama and warning that it's a crime to have contact with him or his supporters.

Litang is home to a large Tibetan Buddhist monastery with a history of rebellion against communist dictates. The monastery, which now houses about 2,000 monks, was besieged and subjected to aerial bombardment by the People's Liberation Army in 1956 after it resisted communist revisions in the region.

"The monastery is one of four (in western Sichuan) that are the strongest supporters of the Dalai Lama," Dorje said, adding that some of the monks have studied in India, where the Dalai Lama lives in exile, and "come back with ideas."

No guards blocked access to the monastery Tuesday, however, and inside a senior monk spoke to two journalists, briefly and with obvious reluctance.

"There have been no problems here. It is a stable monastery," he said, speaking in one corner of a dimly lit prayer hall where dozens of monks chanted. When he was asked whether many monks supported the uprisings against Han Chinese domination that roiled the Tibetan capital of Lhasa last week, he looked pained. "This kind of thinking is prohibited."

Dorje said, though, that religious restrictions deeply irked local Tibetans.

"They control everything too tightly," he said. "They won't let us have the Dalai Lama as our guide."

He said Tibetans knew that they held no chance of success in rising up against the Chinese majority, "but we'll do it anyway."

He said Tibetan anger in western Sichuan ran deep, as it did in Tibet, and that the unrest wouldn't end easily, even with the massive use of force.

"Wherever the Tibetans are in the majority, the situation will be unstable," he said.

Read Tim Johnson's blog, "China Rises," at http://washingtonbureau.typepad.com/china

McClatchy Newspapers 2008

Dazu lassen sich ja ahufenweise Firmen, über den Tisch ziehen, Ideen und Technologie wird geklaut und man unterstützt eine Diktatur, die Umwelt verschmutzt, Pressefreiheit unterdrückt und .

Some lamas chanting prayers outside the temple...

Was explaining to my friends what prayer wheels were just now... A prayer wheel is a wheel on a spindle made from metal, wood or leather. On the wheel are written or encapsulated prayers or mantras. According to the Tibetan Buddhism belief, spinning such a wheel will have much the same effect as orally reciting the prayers.

The square in front of Johkang Palace... Everywhere near the temple.. you could see many Tibetan pilgrims in their traditional costumes spinning a prayer wheel in one hand and walking a circuit around the temple... pilgrims either walk or prostrate themselves along Barkhor street clockwise every day into deep night...

Barkhor Street - a circular street at the center of Old Lhasa...

As you can see... Barkhor Street is lined by stalls selling Tibetan jewellery, knives and other Tibetan relics... and that's also where I bought all my souvenirs from!

Happy buys from a Tibetan lady! I had a hard time bargaining with her!