Taiwan Friends of Tibet (TFOT) chairwoman Chow Mei-li (周美里) yesterday urged the public to voice support for the Tibetan cause by joining a parade on Sunday.
Chow said that doing so would also be a way of voicing support for Taiwan’s freedom.
The group will hold a parade in Taipei to commemorate the 51st anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule on March 10, 1959. The actual parade date this year, March 14, coincides with the date of the most recent protests against Chinese rule in the Tibetan capital Lhasa two years ago, and the date China passed its “Anti-secession” Law in 2005 that threatens to use “non-peaceful means” to bring Taiwan under its control if Taiwan declares independence.
“Fighting for Tibet’s freedom today is fighting for Taiwan’s own freedom in the future,” Chow told a press conference to publicize the parade and the release of the first Chinese translation of the Dalai Lama’s autobiography My Land, My People.
“If we look at the history of negotiations between Tibet and China, we find that all the promises Chinese leaders made to Tibetans during negotiations over the past 50 years were empty ones,” Chow said. “Should we still be so naive as to believe China’s cross-strait promises?”
Yiong Cong-ziin (楊長鎮), co-founder of TFOT, agreed.
He said it was ironic that the government put so much effort into promoting cross-strait agreements last year as the Tibetans commemorated the 50th anniversary of their exile, and Mainlander Taiwanese commemorated the 60th anniversary of their escape from China following the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) defeat by the Chinese Communist Party.
“The 17-point agreement signed between Tibet and China, with commitments made by the Chinese [in the 1950s] to leave cultural, social and religious affairs in the hands of Tibetans, was the Tibetan version of ‘one country, two systems,’” Yiong said. “Thinking about the agreement, are we not afraid about the economic cooperation framework agreement [ECFA] that President Ma Ying-jeou [馬英九] said should be signed with China this year? No one knows what it’s about so far.”
“While many first-generation exiled Tibetans may have passed away as we commemorate the 51st anniversary of the uprising, the next generation of Tibetans will carry on the mission to make Tibet free,” Chow said. “Remember, the Jews rebuilt their country more than 1,000 years after their country was destroyed.”
The Free Tibet parade will begin at 1pm on Sunday outside Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT station in downtown Taipei.
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