(TibetanReview.net, Mar29’23) – China marked on Mar 28 the 64th anniversary of its bloody repression of a Tibetan uprising in 1959 which resulted in tens of thousands of Tibetan deaths; Tibet’s temporal and spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, escaping to India; and an end to the May 23, 1951 Sino-Tibetan agreement which promised a special status for Tibet. It all happened with China announcing that day what it called the launch of democratic reforms in Tibet.
But in keeping with its propaganda claim of having liberated Tibet, China marks the day as Serfs’ Emancipation Day.
The beginning of the uprising on Mar 10, 1959, is marked by Tibetans across the free world as Tibetan Uprising Day while in Tibet, this event is banned each year with imposition of massive new security measures.
China began celebrating the Mar 28 event only recently, in 2009. The year before, Tibet was hit by massive uprising protests which spread across much of the Tibetan Plateau. China responded by shutting down Tibet from the outside world and with overwhelming use of army violence which resulted in unaccounted tens of thousands of deaths, arrests, and disappearances and numerous other forms of repression which continues today.
The Chinese celebrations in Tibet’s capital Lhasa began with a flag-raising ceremony on the Potala Palace Square, followed by art and cultural performances conducted in different parts of the city, reported China’s official chinadaily.com.cn Mar 28.
People from all walks of life in the Tibet autonomous region held various activities on Mar 28 to mark anniversary of the liberation of a million serfs, the report said.
“Today, Xizang (China name for Tibet) is changing with each passing day, and there is no room for any anti-China forces to cause trouble. Their attempt to ‘contain China with Xizang card’ under the banner of ‘human rights’ is bound to fail,” the official globaltimes.cn Mar 28 quoted Zhu Ying, a professor at the Baize Institute at the Southwest University of Political Science and Law, China, as saying.