Monks lead protest for civil rights in Tibet

I've written before about the beating Buddhist monks have taken while opposing oppression in Myanmar - and now they are opposing oppression in Tibet.

They hope to draw attention to the problem due to the fact that the Olympics were awarded to China this year.

Here's Canada's John Fraser's harrowing but instructive take on why the Chinese government has such a problem with civil rights.

Each of the condemned men also had an armed PSB officer beside them, holding on to them either by the shoulder or at the neck. The prisoners' hands were tied behind their backs and they clearly had been beaten up. For the passengers on the right side of the bus, there was only a window glass and less than a foot distance between them and the condemned men. Never before and never again, probably, would they have such a close encounter with the Chinese justice system. One of the condemned looked up, almost disinterestedly. One eye was so bloodied it was completely shut, but with the other eye he and I made contact for a couple of seconds. As I write this on Good Friday, I can see his face so clearly that it unshrouds him and makes my soul shiver.

"They are about to be executed, aren't they?" a passenger asked after the truck finally made it past us and we were rolling again.

[ ... ]

The rest of the trip to Beijing was very quiet, but less than 24 hours later they were all back to shopping their brains out.

I excerpt this just so you know what you are going to read.

I sometimes run into Western Christians who think we invented taking a stand against tyranny, but there are many brave people in the world, including these monks.

And China is a materialist tyranny. Fraser writes,

When you have a gruesome gauleiter like Zhang Qingli, first secretary of the Communist party in the "Autonomous Region of Tibet," telling the Tibetan people that the Communist party is "like a parent" to them and that "it is always considerate about what the children need," and then segues into a studiously inflammatory claim that the "Central Party Committee is the real Buddha for Tibetans," you get a wee glimpse into the sick spiritual territory the party has always staked out for itself along with all its dubious claims of its "inalienable rights" to guide the masses.

By the way, Maclean's, which published John Fraser, is our century-old Canadian magazine that is standing up to the tyranny of Canada s misnamed "human rights" commissions, under which it has been recently charged.

Monk-led protest against Myanmar generals' regime now under heavy assault

Last week, Buddhist monks led a protest against the dictatorial regime of Myanmar's generals.

But, according to Canada's Globe and Mail:

RANGOON -- Protesters who have crowded the streets of Myanmar's major city of Rangoon for days began to flinch in the face of a harsh military crackdown yesterday, turning out in smaller numbers - unaccompanied by the country's Buddhist monks, who have been barricaded in their monasteries or taken into custody.

Also

The organization said that all cyber-cafés in Rangoon (also known as Yangon) were closed and that the military was persecuting journalists who continued to work despite the difficult conditions.

The regime has also ordered Christians to be wiped out, apparently.

Further to the "Goons in Rangoon" news, David Warren offers context in the Ottawa Citizen,

Looking, through the dusk screen of the media, at the events in Burma, one
feels a cold and pointless rage. The vicious regime that has long enslaved that country is again winning a struggle in which they have all the weapons.

With the "subtle, malign cunning" (I am quoting Kenneth Denby, writing bravely for the Times of London, from Rangoon) that is possible only to a cat with a cornered mouse, the regime has watched the nation's Buddhist monks lead the people onto the streets. It allowed them nine days to vent their grievances, and is now cutting them down.

But the cutting down has been done with much greater efficiency than after the last demonstrations on this scale, that began August 8, 1988. Perhaps 3,000 were massacred in the course of snuffing out the flame of liberty on that occasion. In this latest reprisal of government against people, it seems only a few dozen have been killed -- including the Japanese press photographer, Kenji Nagai, shot down in cold blood to send a message to the other foreign reporters.

In recent history, however, the "monks" tend to win.

BUT this shows us that victory is a long way off.