are the two largest Tibetan NGOs in terms of membership. Both organizations are similarly structured, maintaining both social and political activities. It is their political activities that contribute most directly to the nonviolent struggle. They organize collective activities for Tibetans to undertake outside of Tibet to protest China’s continued occupation of Tibet. A number of demonstrations, candle-light vigils, boycotts, blockades, peace marches, long-distance bicycle yatras 107 and petition campaigns are organized each year to coincide with important days on the Tibetan calendar. 10 March, the anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising, is a day on which demonstrations, processions and candle-light vigils are held throughout the Tibetan communities in exile each year. The activities are large scale, involving hundreds or thousands of Tibetans and their supporters and generate international attention and media coverage. The Tibetan Youth Congress won widespread support and international sympathy with the hunger strike they organized in Delhi in 1998 and again in 1999. The hunger strikes were directed at the United Nations, demanding the Tibetan issue be discussed in the General Assembly, that a special envoy be appointed to monitor Tibetan affairs and facilitate dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama, and a special rapporteur be selected to investigate human rights violations in Tibet. These Tibetan NGOs also network with other organizations world wide that support issues of concern to Tibetans. For example, the Tibetan Women’s Association sent delegates to Beijing for the United Nation’s Forth World Conference on Women in 1995. International media exposed the constant surveillance and harassment by police suffered by the Tibetan delegates, demonstrating vividly the harsh treatment faced by all Tibetans at the hands of the Chinese. As one exile was quoted, “If they can do this [harassment] to us here at what is suppose to be a UN conference on peace and equality, in front of the world media—what is happening to our people in Tibet where no one is watching?”
Individual Actions Within Tibet, large-scale organization of activity is impossible, and therefore dependent on spontaneous in volvement of the population. However, in exile, Tibetans are able to organize themselves and act. Thus most of the nonviolent activity occurring outside of Tibet is an organized group activity. Individuals express their support by participating in organized events, such aspeace marches, Tibetan Women in exile gag themselves with scarves to symbolize the silencing of Tibetan voices inside Tibet bike rallies, boycotts of Chinese goods and demonstrations at the First World Conference of Women in Beijing. against the Chinese occupation. However, some Tibetans (Tibetan Women’s Association) demonstrate individual acts of conscience in their opposition to occupation of their homeland. Pro-independence slogans and graffiti can be found near any Tibetan settlement in exile. In 1998, Thubten Ngodup, a 60-year old Tibetan participant in the TYC hunger strike onto death, set himself alight to symbolize the frustration felt by the Tibetan people (and died two days later from the burns).108 However, some acts of individuals are actually part of the CTA’s organized efforts to raise awareness about Tibet, such as when a doctor of Tibetan medicine or art who is on a lecture tour, or a Tibetan student speaks to a Chinese classmate about Tibet. These ‘independent actions’ are actually a part of the corporate activities of the Tibetan exile community to liberate itself from occupation by nonviolent means. Truth is Our Only Weapon: The Tibetan Nonviolent Struggle
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