A Great Mountain Burned by Fire

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Great Mountain Burned:Layout 1

3/3/09

11:24

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INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR TIBET

Photos of the Dalai Lama and other senior religious leaders at Kirti monastery in Ngaba county, Sichuan, were stamped upon, torn, or shot at by armed police following a raid on the monastery in early April 2008. Kirti monastery was at the center of the wave of protests in eastern Tibet when monks were joined by laypeople and schoolchildren in a major protest on March 16, calling for a free Tibet, with pictures of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan flags on display.

In short, such talk is without the slightest justification for anyone who checks reality and is aware of cause and effect, and even for someone from the opposite way, the two are so similar that your criticism rebounds on yourself. On TV and in the newspapers they say that the demonstrations were intended to obstruct and oppose China’s emergence as a great power and the improvement of the living standards of the Tibetan nationality. Supposing that such things were true, some questions must be asked. If the living standards of Tibetans had really improved so much, why would they feel so unhappy as to try to stop this? If Tibetan living standards are so developed, and the demonstrators were exclusively Tibetan, why should their not enjoying a “decent standard of living” be greeted with such dismay?

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