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   XPost: soc.culture.usa, talk.politics.tibet, soc.culture.iraq   
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   From: acoustic@panix.com   
      
   In article <5434592.AG5o5d15Fo@Dharma>,   
   Peter Terpstra   wrote:   
   >The Silence Around Tibet's Ecological Crisis   
   >The Tibetan environment is deteriorating -- and Beijing doesn't want   
   >anyone to know.   
      
   That is bullshit!  How can it be a case of Beijing not wanting anyone   
   to know if the following is true!   
      
     >"There is no question that the landslide was caused by reckless   
     >placement of mine waste by the gold mining operations," said Jack   
     >Spadaro, after carefully viewing the two satellite images taken in   
     >2010 and 2012 that were sent by Robbie Barnett, the Director of   
     >Modern Tibet Studies in Columbia University. Spadaro is a mining   
     >safety and health and environment specialist who has had a 38-year   
     >career as an expert witness in litigation related to the   
     >environmental, health and safety aspects of mining.   
     >   
     >"Based on the available information and those satellite images, it   
     >is obvious that the accident is related to mining activities, rather   
     >than a pure 'natural disaster' as claimed by so-called experts,"   
     >said Yang, a geologist specializing in the west China region.   
      
   If satellite images are available to anyone to see that China was   
   doing wrong, and on top of it, trying to hide its wrongdoings, then   
   China is just too stupid to be a country every country in the rest of   
   the world has been stepping over each other to have an official visit   
   with its new leadership.   
      
   On the other hand, China is a new kid on the block in terms of large   
   scale industrial development.  It can make mistakes, just as other   
   countries who have gone through the same phase of development have   
   done.   
      
   So, there is no shame for China to learn from its mistakes and move   
   forward.   
      
   Besides, we don't know that the recent landslide was anything other   
   than a natural disaster.   
      
     Southern Weekly did not pursue the matter further, believing that   
     the evidence was "still not strong enough" for them to address such   
     a sensitive topic, although several Chinese and international   
     experts believed otherwise.   
      
   On the other hand, we might ask what Tibet would be like had the   
   central government of China been too weak to go into Tibet and take   
   out Da Lama and his decadent and backward-looking cohorts.   
      
   Tibet would have been either the little medieval kingdom run by monks   
   whose backward policies had struck the Austrian traveler Heinrich   
   Harrer in horror or it would have been run to the ground by foreign   
   contractors as we have seen in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Libya -   
   everywhere where the CIA has had a hand in propping up a regime that   
   the U.S. desires.   
      
     Chapter 9: Asylum Granted   
      
     Many people came to visit us.  Tibetans journeyed from far and wide   
     to Lhasa to attend the New Year Festival, among them people whom we   
     had got to know on our journey.  It was not hard for them to find   
     us, as we were still much talked of, and every child knew where we   
     lived.  Some brought us presents of dried meat, which is much   
     appreciated in Lhasa.  We learned, moreover, from these people that   
     the officials through whose districts we had passed had been   
     severely censured by the government.  it depressed us to feel that   
     person who had received us in such a friendly manner had suffered   
     such unpleasantness on our account.  But it seemed that they bore us   
     no grudge.  We met a bonpo whom we had bamboozled with our old   
     travel permit and he only laughed and semed glad to see us again.   
      
     The New Year's celebrations did not pass off this year without a   
     mishap.  An accident occurred on the Parkhor which attracted much   
     attention.   
      
   TIBETAN MONKS HAD FREE HUMAN LABOR; SO THEY OPPOSED TO MECHANIZATION   
   OF LABOR AS WELL AS ANY FORM OF PROGRESS   
      
     Every year they put up high flagstaffs made of heavy tree trunks   
     fitted into one another.  These are brought from distant places and   
     it is quite a task to carry them to Lhasa.  It is managed in a very   
     primitive way, and my indignation was aroused when I saw, for the   
     first time, a prcession coming in.  It reminded me of the Volga   
     boatmen.  About twenty men drag each trunk whci his attached to them   
     by a rope round their waists.  They sing a monotonous air as they   
     trudge along, keeping step with one another.  They sweat and pant,   
     but their foreman, who leads the singing, gives them no pause for   
     rest.  This forced labor is in part a substitutte for taxation.  The   
     carriers are picked up at villages on the road and dismissed when   
     they come to the next settlement.  The monotonous airs to which they   
     drag their burden are said to distract their minds from the severity   
     of their task.  I should have thought they would do better to save   
     their breath.  The sort of fatalistic resignation with which they   
     lent themselve to this back-breaking toil always used to infuriate   
     me.  As a product of our modern age, I could not understand why the   
     people of Tibet were so rigidly opposed to any form of progress.   
     There must obviously be some better means of transporting these   
     heavy burdens than by manhandling them.  The Chinese invented and   
     used the wheel thousands of years ago.  But the Tibetans will have   
     none of it, though its use would give an immense impulse to   
     transport and commerce and would raise the whole standard of living   
     throughout the country.   
      
     When later, I was engaged in irrigation works, I made various finds   
     which strengthened my belief that the Tibetans had known and used   
     the wheel many centuries ago.  We uncovered hundreds of great blocks   
     of stones as big as wardrobes.  These could not have been carried   
     save by mechanical means from the remote quarries where they had   
     been hewn.  When my workmen wanted to carry such a block from one   
     place to another they had first to hew it into eight pieces.   
      
   UNDER THE MONKS, TIBET'S GREAT DAYS BELONGED TO THE PAST   
      
     I became more and more convinced that Tibet's great days belonged to   
     the past.  There is a stone obelisk dating from A.D. 763 which bears   
     witness to my theory.  It records the facat that in that year the   
     Tibetan armies marched to the gates of the Chinese capital and there   
     dictated to the Chinese terms of peace, which include an annual   
     tribute of fifty thousand bales of silk.   
      
   POTALA PALACE COULD NOT HAVE RISEN IN ANY OTHER WAY EXCEPT ON THE   
   BODIES OF MANY TIBETANS   
      
     And then there is the Potala Palace, which must date from Tibet's   
     days of greatness.  No one today would think of erecting such a   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)