The 2008 Tibetan unrest, also referred to as the 2008 Tibetan uprising in Tibetan media, was a series of protests and demonstrations that initially occurred over the Chinese Communist Party's treatment and persecution of Tibetans. Protests in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, by monks and nuns on 10 March have been viewed as the start of the demonstrations. Numerous protests and demonstrations were held to commemorate the 49th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan Uprising Day, when the 14th Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet. The protests and demonstrations spread spontaneously to a number of monasteries and throughout the Tibetan plateau, including into counties located outside the Tibet Autonomous Region.
The arrest of monks at Labrang Monastery escalated tensions, leading to ethnically-charged violence against non-ethnic Tibetans and their perceived sympathizers. The resulting clashes between ethnic Tibetans and Han and Hui Chinese resulting in a number of Han and Hui stores and buildings being destroyed and numerous Chinese civilians being injured, killed, or displaced.
The use of force by Chinese police and military forces during the unrest has been controversial, with some, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, deeming it excessive force. The International Campaign for Tibet estimates a total of 235 protests occurred from 10 March until the end of October 2009. The Chinese government's Xinhua News Agency estimated that 150 protests occurred between 10 March and 25 March. The Chinese government reported that 23 people were killed during the riots themselves, while the Central Tibetan Administration claimed 203 were killed in the aftermath alone, and the Dalai Lama alleged 400 Tibetans were killed in total. Foreign journalists were expelled or forced to leave during the uprising anniversary. Amnesty International reported 1,000 Tibetan protestors remained "unaccounted for" by June 2008, while the Central Tibetan Administration reported 5,600 arrests of Tibetans between March 2008 and January 2009, with 1,294 injuries within the same period.
Protests supporting Tibetans were held in cities in North America and Europe, as well as in Beijing, Australia, India, and Nepal. Many of the international protests also called for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics. On 24 March, the torch lighting ceremony in Greece was disrupted by activists, including some from Reporters Without Borders. At Chinese embassies, protests ranged from pelting the embassies with eggs and rocks to protestors entering the premises and raising Tibetan flags, which was outlawed in Tibet by the Chinese government in 1959.
Protesters in Tibet that were arrested and detained claimed they were tortured and told to admit they were paid to protest by the 14th Dalai Lama. The Chinese government stated the unrest was motivated by separatism and blamed the Dalai Lama for orchestrating it. The Dalai Lama denied the accusation and said that the situation was caused by "deep seated disillusionment and despair" in Tibet, and invited Chinese officials to come to India with its evidence. Representatives of the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama held talks on China's Tibet policies on 4 May and 1 July of the same year.
Background
The protests erupted amidst growing frustrations with China's persecution of Tibetans and of Tibetan Buddhists, which Tibetans assert began after China's annexation in 1951. Unresolved situations remained regarding Tibet's three highest spiritual leaders - the 14th Dalai Lama and the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa both escaped to India, while the 11th Panchen Lama's location remains unknown. Photographs of the Dalai Lama remain outlawed, as are Tibetan flags. Efforts at brokering agreements on behalf of Tibetans by the Dalai Lama with China had stalled.
The protests and uprisings in Tibet since 1950 include earlier mass protests in Lhasa—the 1959 Tibetan uprising, and the 1987 protests which were likewise led by monks from Sera monastery, Drepung monastery and Ganden monastery.
Of the 1989 bloody suppression in Lhasa, journalist Jim Yardley wrote:
"In the past China has not hesitated to crush major protests in Tibet or to jail disobedient monks. [Former] President Hu Jintao, who [was] also the general secretary of the Communist Party, served as party boss in Tibet during a violent crackdown in 1989. His support for the bloody suppression of unrest that year earned him the good will of Deng Xiaoping, then the paramount leader, and led directly to his elevation to the Politburo Standing Committee and eventually to China’s top leadership posts."
The Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) proposed the Middle Way Approach to address the government of China's policies in Tibet. Specific agreements offered to China include the Five Point Peace Plan in 1987, the Strasbourg proposal in 1988, and the Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy in 2008.
Tibetan loyalty to the Dalai Lama is considered disloyalty to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and is viewed by the Chinese government as a crime of separatism and a threat to China's national security and expansionism. Kelsang Dolma wrote, "when the 2008 Tibet protests erupted, fomented by discontent with decades-long repression, the CCP ruthlessly responded by killing and arbitrarily arresting protesters".
As a policy begun by Chairman Mao in 1950, Beijing promotes settlements of Han Chinese within Tibet, which dilute Tibetan culture and identity, as the Dalai Lama and others have stated. The CTA also states, "[u]nder the guise of the economic and social development, Beijing encourages its population to migrate to Tibet with the clear aim to marginalize Tibetans from the economic, educational, political and social life of the region." A railway link opened in 2006 delivers three thousand Han a day to the region. Within Lhasa, Tsering Woeser reports that Tibetans are discriminated against at spiritual sites, and residents were relocated to rural areas, as urban areas were redeveloped for Han residents and businesses. Nomadic Tibetans are forced to build homes and borrow money for construction costs, while their grazing lands are redistributed, as reported by Free Tibet.
China's policies which the Dalai Lama describes as "cultural genocide" marginalize Tibetans and create simmering socio-economic issues in Lhasa.
According to the Central Tibetan Administration, environmental concerns also motivated the protests. Some of Asia's most important rivers flow from the Tibetan plateau, and "are being polluted and diminished by careless industrialisation and unplanned irrigation" as stated by the Dalai Lama.
According to the Tibetan Independence Movement, Tibetans in Lhasa were angered by inflation that caused the prices of food and consumer goods to increase. Prices also continued to rise in other parts of the country, while Tibetan youth stated that equal access to jobs and education is another economic issue related to the mass settling of Han Chinese.
Protests in Tibet
Lhasa
According to a report by the Human Rights Watch, a group of 300–400 protesting monks from Drepung monastery marched to Lhasa's center on 10 March in midday demanding religious freedom, and their route was blocked by police. According to the report, monks were kicked and beaten with batons and 60 monks were arrested that day.
The next day on 11 March as 300–400 monks from Sera monastery departed in a line to demand the release of the arrested Sera monks. An eyewitness told the BBC that around 300 monks from Sera monastery moved onto the street and were kicked and beat by 10 to 15 plainclothes Chinese police officers in what he described as "gratuitous violence". Outside the monastery, the monks began a sitting protest and were surrounded by riot police and armed military units. Radio Free Asia reported that an eyewitness saw tear gas being fired into the crowd. The Human Rights Watch report stated hundreds of monks and nuns from Ganden Monastery and Mani Nunnery also began marching into Lhasa on 11 March. According to the report, participants claimed that they were stopped by police and returned to their monastic centers, which were promptly cordoned off.
On 14 March, a group of monks preparing to depart from Ramoche Temple in the center of Lhasa to demand the release of monks from Drepung and Sera were barred from leaving by police. They began throwing stones at the police, some of which were hard enough to break their shields. As the police withdrew, the enraged crowd began targeting ethnic Chinese passersby. According to the Toronto Star, businesses that had Chinese markings were targeted to be burned, smashed or looted. Fires were spread to buildings, and Han and Hui people were beaten, while a building's fire killed four Han women and a Tibetan woman hiding in same building.
When Chinese police and military units reentered Lhasa on 14 March, reports state tear gas canisters were launched and shootings began. Amnesty International reports that machine guns were used. State hospitals were reported by Human Rights Watch as closed to protestors by Chinese authorities, and reports of wounded and killed Tibetans were suppressed.
Police cars, fire engines and other official vehicles were reportedly set on fire. Reports state Tibetans attacked Han and Hui passerby using stones, and an eyewitness stated from their hotel window, "It seems like it's ethnic—like they want to kill anyone not Tibetan." The witness also said he saw a group of 20 armed men firing guns, and that he was unsure if they were police officers or armed rioters. Chinese state media reported non-Tibetan-owned businesses and banks were robbed and houses were attacked and burned down, including government buildings and schools. Police used tear gas and cattle prods. According to Chinese state media, 18 civilians were killed by rioters.
A crowd of 70-80 Tibetan youths tried to storm the Lhasa Great Mosque and set fire to the front gate. Shops and restaurants in the Muslim quarter were destroyed. A Chinese businessman reported that many Hui Muslim stores were burnt. Also burnt were stationery shops, banks, and a wholesale market at Tsomtsikhang, where many shops are owned by Han Chinese and Hui Muslims.
Throughout Lhasa, raids, security sweeps and arrests by Chinese security forces reportedly continued for several days. Tsondru, a monk, is reported to have died after being thrown off a roof while under arrest by Chinese security forces. An early official statement by Tibet Autonomous Region Chairman Pema Trinley reported, "Only three law-breakers died during the pacification of the Lhasa unrest, no participation from the PLA" was revised to add that another person "jumped from a building" to avoid arrest.
Amdo/Gansu
On 14 March, 200 Labrang Monastery monks led a crowd of 300 people in demonstrations outside of their monastery in Gansu. The Guardian reported witness accounts of security vehicles being set on fire and Tibetan mob violence.
On 15 March, 4,000 Tibetans gathered near the Labrang Monastery and clashed with Chinese forces. The clashes centered around the Gelug school's Labrang monastery, one of the largest Buddhist monasteries in Tibet. Demonstrators marched through the streets of Xiahe. There were reports of government offices being damaged by the protesters, as well as reports of police using tear gas and shooting at protesters.
In Lanzhou on 16 March, 100 students participated in a sitting protest.
In Machu on 16 March, rioters set a government building on fire, while clashes continued on 18 March.
In Hezou on 19 March, footage emerged showing protestors tearing Chinese flags and raising Tibetan flags in their place.
China's Xinhua News Agency reported the cost of damage in Gansu at an estimated ¥230 million (US$32.7 million).
The Tibetan government-in-exile stated that 19 Tibetans were shot and killed on 18 March.
Amdo/Qinghai
Chinese authorities arrested twelve Tibetan monks after an incident in the historic region of Rebkong, which is located in the Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai (known to Tibetans as Amdo). Chinese security forces surrounded the Ditsa monastery in Bayan County. Qinghai province borders the Tibet Autonomous Region.
On 19 March, Chinese forces cordoned off the village of Taktser, where the 14th Dalai Lama was born.
In Tongren, demonstrations occurred at the Rongwo Monastery between 14 and 16 March.
In the capital city of Xining, a journalist with Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported that residents were receiving intimidating calls from the Public Security Bureau. A call received by a Tibetan professor was reported as having said "Take good care of yourself" in a threatening manner.
During special classes for students in the region, videos of Tibetan demonstrators demolishing stores and attacking police were shown. The sessions have been deemed propaganda by some. Tibetan students at the Medical University of Xining held demonstrations to express their solidarity with the protestors, as well as a vigil for killed protestors in Lhasa.
Passports belonging to Tibetans were confiscated to prevent returns to India and the delivery of reports on events to Tibetan exiles. Tourists and foreign residents were surveilled and informed about their possible expulsion in case they got involved in Tibetan protests.
Kham & Amdo/Sichuan
On 16 March, Tibetan monks and local residents clashed with police in Ngawa after monks held a protest at the traditional Tibetan grounds of Kham and Amdo. A witness told the BBC that approximately 17 Tibetans were killed, including a school girl. By 18 March, the town was "teeming with police and soldiers".
The India-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy reported that at least seven people were shot. There are other reports that police shot between 13 and 30 protesters after a police station was set on fire, reports of at least one policeman being killed, and the burning three or four police vans. Reports on the exact number of deaths were difficult due to the expulsion of journalists. The Chinese government stated that it opened fire on protestors in self defense on 20 March, reporting that four were wounded.
In Ngawa Town, after days of protests by 3,000 monks and 300 nuns, 27 of the nuns at the Kirti monasteries and nunneries were arrested by Chinese police forces on 20 March. Photographs of killed protestors near Kirti were circulated.
Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported that phone calls into the region from Zurich were intercepted, and exiled Tibetans were harassed during the calls. The arrested nuns were not heard from afterwards. During a telephone call, a nun stated she and the other nuns had no regrets, and that "the road of liberty is long and arduous".
A wave of arrests occurred in Sertar on 21 March, where police shot and killed a protestor. Chinese army troops blocked roads in Sertar, and many Tibetans were arrested. The London-based Free Tibet Campaign reported that troops had been sent to the county after protesters used explosives to destroy a bridge near the village of Gudu.