Author Topic: Liu Xiao Bo - Are the CTA and Rangzen Activists Overplayed His Tragedy?  (Read 5887 times)

michaela

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For weeks now, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) Rangzen activists have covered Liu Xiaobo's illness and death and used that attack China. Whatever they said maybe true and nobody should deny the unfairness that was suffered by the Chinese Noble Laurete during his lifetime.

However, the CTA and the rangzen activists should stop overplaying the tragedy of Mr. Liu's death. The man suffered from a terminal illness and out of the sense of humanity, the Chinese government had released him from prison. The death of Mr. Liu was not the fault of China. And if the CTA is serious about wanting to negotiation with China or achieving any meaningful progress with their Tibetan independent movement, they should stop blaming China for his death.

Liu Xiaobo, Chinese Dissident Who Won Nobel While Jailed, Dies at 61

BEIJING — Liu Xiaobo, the renegade Chinese intellectual who kept vigil at Tiananmen Square in 1989 to protect protesters from encroaching soldiers, promoted a pro-democracy charter that brought him a lengthy prison sentence and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize while locked away, died under guard in a hospital on Thursday. He was 61.

The Bureau of Justice in Shenyang, the city in northeastern China where Mr. Liu was being treated for liver cancer, announced his death on its website.

The Chinese government revealed he had cancer in late June, only after the illness was virtually beyond treatment. Officially, Mr. Liu gained medical parole. But even as he faced death, he was kept silenced in the First Hospital of China Medical University, still a captive of the authoritarian controls that he had fought for decades.

He was the first Nobel Peace Prize laureate to die in state custody since Carl von Ossietzky, the German pacifist and foe of Nazism who won the prize in 1935 and died under guard in 1938 after years of maltreatment.

“After multiple treatments, Liu Xiaobo’s condition continued to deteriorate,” the Shenyang Bureau of Justice said in a statement. “On July 10, he entered a state of rescue and intensive care, and on July 13, he died due to multiple organ failure after attempts to save him failed.”

The police in China have kept Mr. Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, under house arrest and smothering surveillance, preventing her from speaking out about Mr. Liu’s belated treatment for cancer.

“Can’t operate, can’t do radiotherapy, can’t do chemotherapy,” Ms. Liu said in a brief video message to a friend when her husband’s fatal condition was announced. The message quickly spread online.

Mr. Liu’s illness elicited a deluge of sympathy from officials, friends, Chinese rights activists and international groups, who saw him as a fearless advocate of peaceful democratic change.

“The reaction to his illness shows how much he was respected,” said Cui Weiping, a former professor of literature in Beijing who knew Mr. Liu and now lives in Los Angeles. “People from all walks of life — friends, strangers, young people — have been outraged to hear that someone with terminal cancer was kept locked up till he died.”

Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, said on Thursday, “The human rights movement in China and across the world has lost a principled champion who devoted his life to defending and promoting human rights, peacefully and consistently, and who was jailed for standing up for his beliefs.”

Terry E. Branstad, the United States ambassador to China, said in an emailed statement, “China has lost a deeply principled role model who deserved our respect and adulation, not the prison sentences to which he was subjected.”

He added, “We call on China to release all prisoners of conscience and to respect the fundamental freedoms of all.”

Mr. Liu was arrested most recently in 2008, after he helped initiate Charter 08, a bold petition calling for democracy, the rule of law and an end to censorship.

A year later, a court in Beijing tried and convicted Mr. Liu on a charge of inciting subversion. The petition and essays he wrote in which he upbraided and mocked the Chinese government were cited in the verdict. Mr. Liu responded to his trial with a warning about China’s future.

“Hatred can rot a person’s wisdom and conscience,” he said in a statement he prepared for the trial. “An enemy mentality will poison the spirit of a nation and inflame brutal life and death struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and hinder a country’s advance toward freedom and democracy.”

By the time of the trial, Mr. Liu was already China’s best-known dissident, and his fame grew even more when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 while imprisoned in northeast China.

After his death was announced, Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chairwoman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said the Chinese government “bears a heavy responsibility for his premature death.”

“Liu Xiaobo will remain a powerful symbol for all who fight for freedom, democracy and a better world,” Ms. Reiss-Andersen said by email. “He was truly a prisoner of conscience, and he paid the highest possible price for his relentless struggle.”

Mr. Liu could not collect the Nobel Prize himself, and he was represented at the ceremony by an empty chair. His statement for his trial, which he was not allowed to read out, served in his absence as his Nobel lecture.

“Xiaobo was wedded both psychically and physically to China and its fate,” Geremie R. Barmé, an Australian Sinologist and a close friend of Mr. Liu’s, wrote in a tribute before Mr. Liu’s death. “In the end, his words and deeds may have garnered him a Nobel Prize, yet in an authoritarian system, one that since 1989 has oscillated merely between the poles of the cruel and the pitiless, they sealed his fate.”

Confrontation and detention were nothing new to Mr. Liu.

He was born on Dec. 28, 1955, in Jilin Province, in northeast China. The son of a professor who remained loyal to the Communist Party, Mr. Liu made a vocation out of obdurate opposition to authoritarianism.

“He was a dissident even among dissidents,” Yu Jie, a friend and biographer, said. Mr. Yu now lives in the United States.

He added, “Liu Xiaobo was willing to criticize himself and reflect on his actions in a way that even many activists in the democracy movement can’t.”

Mr. Yu recalled the first time Mr. Liu spoke to him over the phone, in about 1999. “He said, ‘I’ve read your book, and there’s a lot I disagree with,’ ” Mr. Yu said. “He criticized me for about half an hour.”

Mr. Liu started out as a notoriously abrasive literary critic in Beijing in the 1980s. He was called a “dark horse” who bridled at intellectual conformity, even in the name of reform. But he was increasingly drawn into political questions as Deng Xiaoping, the Communist leader, resisted matching economic liberalization with political transformation.

In 1989, he was a visiting scholar at Columbia University when students in Beijing occupied Tiananmen Square to demand democratic changes and an end to party corruption. He returned to Beijing to support the protests. He later described that time as a turning point, one that ended his academic career and set him irrevocably into a life of political opposition.

Mr. Liu’s sympathy for the students was not unreserved; he eventually urged them to leave Tiananmen Square and return to their campuses. As signs grew that the Communist Party leadership would use force to end the protests, Mr. Liu and three friends, including the singer Hou Dejian, held a hunger strike on the square to show solidarity with the students, even as they advised them to leave.

“If we don’t join the students in the square and face the same kind of danger, then we don’t have any right to speak,” Mr. Hou quoted Mr. Liu as saying.

When the army moved in, hundreds of protesters died in the gunfire and the chaos on roads leading to Tiananmen Square. But without Mr. Liu and his friends, the bloodshed might have been worse. On the night of June 3, they stayed in the square with thousands of students as tanks, armored vehicles and soldiers closed in.

Mr. Liu and his friends negotiated with the troops to create a safe passage for the remaining protesters to leave the square, and he coaxed the students to flee without a final showdown.

“I understand what you’re feeling, but haven’t you considered how as soon as the first shot rings out, Tiananmen Square will become a river of blood?” Mr. Liu told the students, as he recounted in a memoir published in 1989.

“If he hadn’t been on the scene, I’m sure people would have died on the square. That was his pacifism in action,” said Liu Suli, a friend of Mr. Liu’s who stayed with him and others on Tiananmen Square on the night of June 3. “Xiaobo had a kind of heroism complex that never left him.”

Mr. Liu was arrested days after the crackdown and spent 21 months in detention for supporting the protests. He lost his university lecturing job, his books were banned and the Communist Party labeled him a “black hand” who had helped foment turmoil. His later support for American government policies, including the invasion of Iraq, also brought scorn.

But he was unbowed. In 1996, he was sent to a labor camp for three years after demanding clemency for those still in prison for joining the demonstrations.

Mr. Liu did not instigate Charter 08. But after he joined activists who were preparing to release it, he worked to make its demands acceptable to as many people as possible, tramping from door to door in Beijing to recruit prominent signers.

The petition at first drew 303 signers, including many prominent Chinese writers, academics, lawyers and former officials who were recruited by Mr. Liu. By May 2009, the number of signers had grown to over 8,600, including supporters living overseas.

“He was able to span people inside and outside the system,” said his friend Ms. Cui, who also signed the charter. “He also linked together opposition movements from different generations. I don’t think anyone other than Liu Xiaobo could have done that.”

Mr. Liu and most other participants dismissed the risk that they could be severely punished. But his wife feared that the government would retaliate harshly. In the statement that Mr. Liu wrote for his trial, he thanked Ms. Liu for her “selfless love.”

“Even if I am crushed into powder, I will embrace you with ashes,” he wrote. “Dearest, with your love, I will calmly face the impending trial, with no regrets for my choices, and will look forward with hope to tomorrow.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/13/world/asia/liu-xiaobo-dead.html

Matibhadra

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Whatever they said maybe true and nobody should deny the unfairness that was suffered by the Chinese Noble Laurete during his lifetime.

Nothing to compare to the unfairness Edward Snowden or Julian Assange would suffer if only US managed to have them deported, or actually do suffer being forced as they are in exile, or to Chelsea Manning's torturous solitary confinement in a US prison.

There is a high number of political prisoners in US totally unknown to mass media consumers. Who has ever heard about Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Veronza Bowers, Ed Poindexter, Herman Bell, Robert Seth Hayes, Simon Trinidad, Mutulu Shakur, Omaira Rojas Cabrera, David Gilbert, Russell 'Maroon' Shoatz, Sundiata Acoli, Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, and so many others imprisoned for defending human rights and oppressed minorities in US?

Talking about torture in prisons, what about the ugly Tibetan records before its liberation in 1959? CTA and “rangzenpas” just miss “good old times” where amputating the limbs and plucking the eyes of their enemies, if not skinning them alive in front of the Potala, was a favorite method. The current exiled Tibetan leadership are the very children and grandchildren if this barbaric scum, and just what they want is to be able again to do what their parents and grandparents did.

They are no different from gruesome Islamic State terrorists. By no coincidence, both Islamic State terrorists and Tibetan exiled leadership are a bunch theocratic tyrants supported by Western self-styled “democratic countries”.

And Western corporate mass media, actually the mere propaganda outlets of oppressive regimes transvestite as “democracies”, keep non-stop talking about China!

PrajNa

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The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein stated that Liu "devoted his life to defending and promoting human rights, peacefully and consistently, and who was jailed for standing up for his beliefs," while Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that the UNHCR chief "should respect the judicial sovereignty of China and not interfering in China's internal affairs. He should fulfil his duties in objective and fair manner".

If we respect rights, law and order, then we should respect China's internal affairs, although it may seem too controlling. What does everyone else think?

Matibhadra

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The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein stated that Liu "devoted his life to defending and promoting human rights, peacefully and consistently, and who was jailed for standing up for his beliefs,

The “UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein” is a Jordanian “prince”, Jordania itself being known for its records of unconscionable human rights violations, from lack of freedom of speech to torture of political enemies of the ruling mafia.

By the way, the same “prince” recently acquired infamous notoriety following his unconditional support to the ongoing, relentless massacres of Yemeni innocent civilians by Saudi Arabia, as you can see here https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2015/9/28/jordan-rejects-damning-un-human-rights-report-on-yemen

Besides, as everyone knows, Jordania is a brazen supporter of Islamic Stated terrrorists, and just a US-Israeli puppet state, whereby its representative is just supposed to parrot what his mass-murderous puppet masters tell him to.

Therefore, his contrived opinions about a sovereign country such as China are thoroughly irrelevant.

michaela

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I do think that we should respect the law of every country. Through the Western point of view, the cause that Liu Xiao Bo fought for may be good, and that was the reason that he won a Noble prize for it.

What people failed to mention is China had also practiced some compassion toward Liu Xiao Bo. They released him and gave him proper medical care towards the end of his life although they must have known that their opponents like the CTA and Rangzen people will be using him as a symbol of their movements and to attack China. It would have been just easier for China to keep Liu Xiao Bo in jail until the end of his life and did not announce his illness at all.

We need to examine both sides of the story.

dsnowlion

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I do think that we should respect the law of every country. Through the Western point of view, the cause that Liu Xiao Bo fought for may be good, and that was the reason that he won a Noble prize for it.

What people failed to mention is China had also practised some compassion toward Liu Xiao Bo. They released him and gave him proper medical care towards the end of his life although they must have known that their opponents like the CTA and Rangzen people will be using him as a symbol of their movements and to attack China. It would have been just easier for China to keep Liu Xiao Bo in jail until the end of his life and did not announce his illness at all.

We need to examine both sides of the story.

I like what you said michaela We need to examine both sides of the story.

The world is VERY QUICK to condemn CHINA because well China is definitely known to be very "CONTROLLING" but so does the CTA! YES aren't all the Tibetans in exile being controlled by the CTA/Dalai Lama? Hell... see what they did to Mr Lukar Jam for trying to run for Sikyong. Look what he got himself into for writing a poem!

So yes it although it is easy to point the finger and highlight how horrible and cruel China is, those who complain really need to take a good look in the mirror. Somehow I do not think that their accusations to China are going to affect China much. They are probably used to it by now. And yes at least they did release him and tried. If it was the USA, and people start making such criticism, I am sure Trump would probably say "mind your own business" too in a "Trumpy" way and tweet it out too!

Sorry for Liu who had to face death, eventually we all do... but what is worst is those who condemn him are causing human right violation as well! Amazing world we live in!

Matibhadra

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I do think that we should respect the law of every country.

Sure, which is the opposite of the Western interventionist ideology wishing to impose their corrupt corporate “democracy” on sovereign countries.

The ultimate root of such interventionist ideology is the Jewish belief that all countries and peoples are obliged to accept the Jewish “god”, which is the god of profit, and therefore that the local gods and laws should not be respected. “Globalization” is an old ideology, more than 2000 years old.

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Through the Western point of view,

Which means, from the viewpoint of Western interventionist ideology which disrespects the law of sovereign countries.

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the cause that Liu Xiao Bo fought for may be good,

“Good” indeed for the Western attempted intervention in China's internal affairs.

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and that was the reason that he won a Noble prize for it.

Right. The only reason why someone wins a Nobel Peace Prize is serving Western interventionism, such as disrespecting the law of sovereign countries.

Western interventionists associate with local bandits such as the evil dalie in order to bring havoc to their respective countries, thus facilitating Western intervention.

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What people failed to mention is China had also practiced some compassion toward Liu Xiao Bo.

Right, a compassion by the way never shown by Nobel Peace Prize recipients, war criminals such as Henry Kissinger, Barack Obama, Shimon Peres, or Itzhak Rabin, let alone by the evil dalie, towards their respective victims.

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It would have been just easier for China to keep Liu Xiao Bo in jail until the end of his life and did not announce his illness at all.

Still, Nobel Peace Prize recipients and admirers would not wait so much, because they are used simply to eliminate their political opponents while saying that they “suicided”, as they did with Yugoslavian hero Slobodan Milosevic, or with the British weapons inspector David Kelly.

Pema8

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It is very sad what happened to Lui Xiao Bo. Yet, we all need to follow the law in the country we live in.

On what basis can we believe the CTA and Rangzen Activists if they themselves do not apply human rights and attack people for their religious choice? Even in politics the CTA does not protect the Tibetans, their own people and only values their own opinions for selfish reasons. Political opponents like Lukar Jam are being threatened and not allowed political power. Dorjeshugden.com has published about it. "Lukar Jam Fiasco Reveals Nature of Tibetan Democracy" http://www.dorjeshugden.com/all-articles/news/lukar-jam-fiasco-reveals-nature-of-tibetan-democracy/

So, it is not so easy to point fingers at others!

christine V

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As usual, CTA to "blind" their ruling subject in Dharamsala and to numb other people in the world who are still believed in them, to cover their failure of even talking to the China, this is a golden opportunity to play out loud about how China bullied Liu Xiao Bao.  Conveniently, CTA forget how they use the donation fund to bullied own refugees, to cause hundred of families to seperate.

I wonder how long can CTA play this out. I guess as long as peoples are still blindly believe that CTA is the victim of China, the CTA could still play.

michaela

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As usual, CTA to "blind" their ruling subject in Dharamsala and to numb other people in the world who are still believed in them, to cover their failure of even talking to the China, this is a golden opportunity to play out loud about how China bullied Liu Xiao Bao.  Conveniently, CTA forget how they use the donation fund to bullied own refugees, to cause hundred of families to seperate.

I wonder how long can CTA play this out. I guess as long as peoples are still blindly believe that CTA is the victim of China, the CTA could still play.

After 60 years, the CTA will be losing its leverage as China's victims. Who can play the word victims over and over again for such a long time? The more they became irrelevant, the more the CTA tries to play the victim cards. But they forget, how can an institution who have received international help for almost 60 years is still calling itself a victim?

At the turn of the 20th century, British damaged China severely with opium, but instead of playing the victim card over and over again, China chose to recover, and today China is one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

If the CTA members are smart, they should know that the CTA's political leverages are waning. The only hope for them right now is to make peace with China and resume negotiation.

michaela

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The most important think for Liu Xiao Bo is to get a positive rebirth. None of his activism, Noble Prze and all are just things to just transitorry. I hope Mr. Liu Ciao Bo will concentrate on his career.



michaela

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The most important think for Liu Xiao Bo is to get a positive rebirth. None of his activism, Noble Prze and all are just things to just transitorry. I hope Mr. Liu Ciao Bo will concentrate on his career.

Correction:

I hope Mr. Liu Xiao Bo will have a good rebirth