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BEIJING: Tibetans are planning to boycott their own New Year celebrations starting Wednesday to protest against Chinese rule, exiles say, pitting them against China's authorities who want them to party.
The battle of wills comes amid reports of increased security in Tibet and neighbouring Tibetan-populated regions of western China as Chinese authorities fear unrest ahead of two highly sensitive anniversaries next month.
The Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, has called for the boycott of Tibetan New Year -- or Losar -- partly to mourn those killed or jailed in a crackdown following unrest that swept across the Himalayan region last year.
"Usually its a day of festivity and gaiety when everyone gets together," Tenzin Taklha, the Dalai Lama's India-based spokesman, told AFP.
"But this year it's going to be observed as a day of prayer in memory of all the Tibetans who died and all those who are still suffering under Chinese rule."
Rights groups and Tibetan bloggers have also reported extensively on what they call an "act of civil disobedience", which they say is gathering momentum in Tibet and western areas of China with Tibetan populations.
Chinese authorities, meanwhile, are trying to spur Tibetans into celebrating, by giving them money and food donations, and organising a televised gala extravaganza.
Officials have recently handed out 800 yuan (117 dollars) each to nearly 70,000 poor and retired Tibetans "to enable people in difficulty to enjoy a happy and auspicious Tibetan New Year", according to the government's China Tibet News website.
The four-hour long gala will be broadcast on state television Tuesday evening to mark Tibetan New Year's Eve.
The New Year comes ahead of the highly sensitive anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet on March 10, 1959, that led to the Dalai Lama fleeing his homeland.
China has ruled Tibet since 1951, a year after sending in troops to "liberate" the region.
Protests began on March 10 last year to mark the 49th anniversary of the uprising, then escalated into riots four days later in Tibet's capital and elsewhere.
Tibet's government-in-exile says the government crackdown following last year's unrest left 200 Tibetans dead.
China denies this, but has reported police killed one "insurgent", and blamed "rioters" for 21 deaths.
The Dalai Lama has spoken out forcefully ahead of these two sensitive anniversaries against what he describes as heavy persecution in his homeland.
"Today there is too much anger... the situation is very tense. At any moment there can be an outburst of violence," he told journalists in Germany this month.
In one of the first reported signs of unrest this year, protesters in a Tibetan area of southwest China's Sichuan province took to the streets last week in support of the Dalai Lama, leading to a severe crackdown, according to rights groups.
The information is difficult to confirm as foreign reporters are banned from large swathes of Tibetan regions in western China, as well as Tibet itself.
Chinese authorities have vowed to ensure there is no unrest.
Leaders in Tibet last week said they would "firmly crush the savage aggression of the Dalai clique, defeat separatism, and wage people's war to maintain stability," the state-run Tibet Daily reported.
The China Tibet News also reported in January that police had investigated over 8,400 people and detained 81 during a week-long 'Strike Hard' campaign in Lhasa.
Barry Sautman, a Tibet expert at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said that despite the increased security, protests were still likely during the sensitive period coming up.
"It's not possible for the security forces to anticipate all protest actions, especially at the sites of the many hundreds of monasteries, nunneries and temples," he said.
- AFP/yt
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