Martial Law in Tibet

March 10, 2009 will mark the 50th anniversary of the failed revolt against Chinese rule in Tibet.

In 1950 the People's Liberation Army of China invaded Tibet. It was nine years later that His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet fled to India. By 1960, the Dalai Lama had settled in Dharamsala which has become the capital of the Tibetan exile community in the Himalayan foothills of northern India.

Last year Tibetans rioted against Chinese rule. Now the Chinese authorities have imposed an unofficial state of martial law.

Enraged nomads stormed through this windswept town on the Tibetan plateau a year ago this month, raiding a police compound, setting fire to squad cars and forcing police officers to flee. To the north, Tibetans on horseback galloped into a schoolyard, ripped down a Chinese flag and hoisted a Tibetan one, shouting “Free Tibet!”

Now, the authorities have imposed an unofficial state of martial law on the vast highlands where ethnic Tibetans live, with thousands of troops occupying areas they fear could erupt in renewed rioting on a momentous anniversary next week. And Beijing is determined to keep foreigners from seeing the mass deployment. [...]

Last March, the largest Tibetan uprising against Communist rule in decades erupted after Chinese security forces suppressed a protest by monks in Lhasa. At least 19 people were killed in ethnic rioting in Lhasa, most of them Han civilians, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. In the ensuing crackdown, 220 Tibetans were killed, nearly 1,300 were injured and nearly 7,000 were detained or imprisoned, according to the Tibetan government in exile, which is based in Dharamsala, India.

The Chinese government accused the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetans, of fomenting the violence. The Dalai Lama advocates Tibetan autonomy under Chinese rule, but disavows violence and says he does not favor secession.

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