Mission & History
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Historical Summary
The Tibetan people are uniquely adapted to live on the one million square mile Tibetan plateau, the highest land-mass in the world, averaging 14,000 feet in altitude. Politically, Tibet is an ancient nation with a recorded history dating back to 127 B.C.E. After uniting the plateau into a single country, the Tibetan Empire reached its peak during the 7th and 8th centuries, conquering parts of Nepal and India, the Silk Route states, and briefly even T’ang China. The Tibetan kings imported Buddhism from India from the 6th to the 9th century, and became so devoted to its teachings of nonviolence and enlightenment that they neglected their military empire. In the 13th century, Tibet surrendered to the Mongols to avoid an invasion and became a tributary to the Mongol Empire until 1368. During China’s Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Tibet was completely independent under three Tibetan ruling houses. In 1642, the Great Fifth Dalai Lama created the Ganden government, with a unique monastic/secular-coordinated administration. This government demilitarized Tibet and officially formed it into a spiritual nation that supported Buddhist education above all, and was economically self sufficient. In foreign affairs, the Dalai Lama became the mentor of the new Manchu emperor of Manchuria and China, and received worldly protection for Tibet, in exchange for his providing spiritual teachings to the Manchurians and maintaining the peace with the Mongolians and Uighurs. In 1904, the British invaded Tibet, to impose trade upon theTibetan government, and to prevent Tibet’s coming under the protection of Russia. In 1949 and 1950, the People’s Liberation Army of the People’s Republic of China invaded the eastern provinces of Amdo and Kham. In 1951, when world governments, including India, England, and the US, declined to confirm Tibet’s inviolate national status, the Chinese government imposed the so-called “17-point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet” on the Tibetan government and soon after marched unopposed into the Tibetan capital of Lhasa. Resistance to the Chinese occupation escalated, particularly in eastern Tibet, and Chinese repression increased dramatically. By 1959, popular uprisings led to a massacre of Tibetans in Lhasa; the Fourteenth Dalai Lama was forced to flee to India for his safety, where he has lived in exile ever since with around 100,000 of his people. Since the invasion, an estimated 1.2 million Tibetans were killed as a result of the Chinese occupation. After escaping in 1959, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama established a democratic government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India. In 1989, he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his long-term efforts to resolve the Tibetan issue peacefully.
CONTEMPORARY SITUATION
Historical Tibet consisted of three provinces, U-Tsang, Kham, and Amdo, filling the one million square miles of the Tibetan plateau The Chinese annexed the whole of Amdo and most of Kham, incorporating the land into bordering Chinese provinces The remaining area, the Tibetan U-Tsang province and part of Kham, has been renamed the “Tibet Autonomous Region.” About one third the size of the originalTibet, it is this area alone that
China officially refers to as “Tibet ”This explains why, although Tibetans count themselves as 6 million people, the Chinese often set the number at 2 million.
Cultural Destruction
By 1969, approximately 6,250 monasteries, the cultural centers of Tibetan life, had been destroyed. In the 1980’s, some were rebuilt and re-opened, but the Chinese authorities tightly control activities in these monasteries, forcing individual monks and nuns to apply for a permit in order to join. Strict regulations require an oath of allegiance to communist ideals. Devotion to, and even photographs of, His Holiness the Dalai Lama are banned both inside and outside the monasteries. Prisons and labor camps are among the most common methods of persecution. Numerous Tibetans have perished from starvation and hard labor while in captivity.
ENVIRONMENTAL DEVASTATION
Tibet’s high plains, forests, and mountains form a unique high altitude ecosystem.The Chinese authorities have systematically exploited Tibet’s natural resources, devastating Tibet’s ancient forests and unique wildlife, mining minerals and precious herbs, and using the Tibetan plateau as a nuclear dump site. Construction of the recently completed railway into Lhasa further compromises this naturally fragile ecosystem. The rapid influx of tourists, miners, and Chinese immigrants that the train enables will continue the trend of environmental destruction unless dramatic steps are taken to protect the land and its resources.
MILITARY INSTALLATIONS
Construction by the Chinese of military installations throughout Tibet, especially within border areas, is increasing. Both a symptom and a facilitator of the expanding influence of China on Tibetan life, these military bases wreak their own havoc on the delicate mountain and high plateau ecosystems. But their impact on Tibetans attempting to flee to safety outside Tibet or to visit their spiritual leader, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, in India, is even more profound. Chinese border patrols stationed at these military bases routinely shoot at Tibetan refugees or arrest them for trying to leave the country, making the naturally arduous passage over high mountains to Nepal even more dangerous.
Population Transfer
The most serious threat facing Tibetans is the systematic transfer of Chinese colonists into Tibet. Prior to 1949, there were very few Chinese in Tibet, and most of them were merchants. More than 8 million Chinese have now settled in Tibet, a population transfer that threatens to overwhelm the remaining 6 millionTibetans and their distinct ancient Buddhist culture.
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