Obama on Human Rights
Why the President's Snub of the Dalai Lama Reveals Shocking Inconsistency on Human Rights
Helen Highberger
Last Updated: 12/29/09 Section: Opinion
A caravan of fifty covered military trucks rolls into town. Stations of four or five Chinese soldiers each, one surveying each compass point, stand throughout the streets. Others survey the mixed Tibetan-Chinese crowd from rooftops. All are armed. Still other soldiers scatter across the countryside, crouching behind bushes and on the sides of hills along the road from the airport to town. They shunt all traffic off the road and do not allow anyone to leave the car while more soldiers pass. Back in town, a soldier confiscates a Tibetan man's cell phone and checks through his ringtones for tunes the Chinese government has censored. If they find any, it could mean upwards of 10 years in a Chinese prison. Facebook and blog hosts such as Blogger are banned in the region.
This is Lhasa, Tibet as I saw it in July 2009. Much deeper horrors were also occurring there, as I found out after returning to the U.S. The admission fees to Buddhist sites, far from supporting the monks who live there, are now seized by the Chinese government. Speech and the press are heavily restricted. It is even illegal to display an image of the Dalai Lama, most Tibetans' religious leader.
President Obama is following the Chinese military's lead in keeping the Dalai Lama hidden. In October, Obama became the first president to refuse to meet the Dalai Lama during the Buddhist leader's periodic visits to Washington. The Dalai Lama has spent a lifetime advocating nonviolence, yet the Chinese government thrust him into exile, banned pictures of him, and now goes about trying to keep the world from paying attention to him. The Dalai Lama is the undisputed head of China's largest religion, yet the Chinese government kidnapped and imprisoned his designated Panchen Lama and set up a puppet in his place, continuing to deny the fullness of religious freedom to Chinese Buddhists.
Instead of a meeting with the Buddhist leader, November saw Obama meeting with the Communist government in China and scrupulously avoiding any rebuke of China's human rights violations. Before Obama's arrival, the streets teemed with t-shirts showing his face in Mao's uniform, labeled "Oba-Mao." The government banned the shirts for fear of offending their guest - after all, even people in the People's Republic of China now admit to serious qualms about Mao's legacy. Interesting, then, that they would think to compare him to Obama. While in China, the President only mentioned human rights in general terms, voicing no criticism of China - not even of the measures that put Chinese human rights advocates under arrest, house arrest, or increased surveillance due to his own visit.
This is Lhasa, Tibet as I saw it in July 2009. Much deeper horrors were also occurring there, as I found out after returning to the U.S. The admission fees to Buddhist sites, far from supporting the monks who live there, are now seized by the Chinese government. Speech and the press are heavily restricted. It is even illegal to display an image of the Dalai Lama, most Tibetans' religious leader.
President Obama is following the Chinese military's lead in keeping the Dalai Lama hidden. In October, Obama became the first president to refuse to meet the Dalai Lama during the Buddhist leader's periodic visits to Washington. The Dalai Lama has spent a lifetime advocating nonviolence, yet the Chinese government thrust him into exile, banned pictures of him, and now goes about trying to keep the world from paying attention to him. The Dalai Lama is the undisputed head of China's largest religion, yet the Chinese government kidnapped and imprisoned his designated Panchen Lama and set up a puppet in his place, continuing to deny the fullness of religious freedom to Chinese Buddhists.
Instead of a meeting with the Buddhist leader, November saw Obama meeting with the Communist government in China and scrupulously avoiding any rebuke of China's human rights violations. Before Obama's arrival, the streets teemed with t-shirts showing his face in Mao's uniform, labeled "Oba-Mao." The government banned the shirts for fear of offending their guest - after all, even people in the People's Republic of China now admit to serious qualms about Mao's legacy. Interesting, then, that they would think to compare him to Obama. While in China, the President only mentioned human rights in general terms, voicing no criticism of China - not even of the measures that put Chinese human rights advocates under arrest, house arrest, or increased surveillance due to his own visit.
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