|
Internet and cellphone text messaging services in the area have been cut. Only telephone calls are allowed, and many believe that most calls are tapped. Describing a code he uses to ask friends in Aba about trouble with authorities, the teacher said: "Sometimes I ask them,
'Is the wind over at your end strong?' If they say it's strong, then there is a problem." The authorities have dragooned Tibetans working in the governments of neighboring counties to serve as surveillance staff in Aba
-- putting them in the awkward position of policing their ethnic brethren, said another Tibetan teacher, from Hongyuan, who stayed for three days in Aba last week. The Tibetans have been deployed with red armbands at shop and hotel entrances, said the teacher, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. "When ordered to, they don't dare to say 'I won't go,'" he said. "Once they get there, the people in Aba look at them accusingly, as if to say:
'You're a Tibetan and you're also coming here to treat us this way?'" By nightfall, the street turns quiet and most security forces retire to hotels, while four or five military trucks patrol until morning, the teacher said. "The locals are definitely feeling very heavy-hearted, very frustrated, all day. The soldiers are everywhere," said the teacher. "At every moment, people wonder what will happen to the person next to them, what the soldiers will do to them." Security appeared to be tightening ahead of March, a month of sensitive anniversaries including that of the deadly anti-government riot among Tibetans in Lhasa in 2008, when frustration about Beijing's constant vilification of the exiled Dalai Lama boiled over. The period also marks the anniversary of the Dalai Lama's flight from the region in 1959 after an abortive uprising. While the Chinese government has sought to win over the region by boosting economic growth, Tibetans worry about the gradual erosion of their culture and religion amid an influx of majority Han Chinese. "In the people's hearts, what they probably can't stand the most is that the authorities scold our living Buddha, the Dalai Lama. We cannot stand it when they scold him," the teacher said. "He's the person we are most loyal to." Dozens of security vehicles poured into the Aba area throughout the first few days of the week, lights flashing. They drove past a school where a red painted slogan on a wall reminded students: "Without the Communist Party, Tibetan areas would not be where they are today."
[Associated
Press;
Copyright 2012 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
News | Sports | Business | Rural Review | Teaching & Learning | Home and Family | Tourism | Obituaries
Community |
Perspectives
|
Law & Courts |
Leisure Time
|
Spiritual Life |
Health & Fitness |
Teen Scene
Calendar
|
Letters to the Editor