#free tibet

Tsewang Norbu
(1996-2022)

Tsewang Norbu was a singer/pop star in Tibet. He self-immolated in front of the Potala Palace last February and succumbed to his injuries a few days later. He is the 156th Tibetan to commit this most final act of protest against the Chinese occupation of their country.

soldiers of the Tibetan army in Shigatse, 1938

The Tibetan Army was established in 1913 by the 13th Dalai Lama, who had fled Tibet during the 1904 British invasion of Tibet and returned only after the fall of the Qing power in Tibet in 1911. During the revolutionary turmoil, the Dalai Lama had attempted to raise a volunteer army to expel all the ethnic Chinese from Lhasa, but failed, in large part because of the opposition of pro-Chinese monks, especially from the Drepung Monastery. The Dalai Lama proceeded to raise a professional army, led by his trusted advisor Tsarong

The Tibetan Army held the dominant military strength within political Tibet from 1912, owing to Chinese weakness during the Japanese occupation of China. With the assistance of British training, it aimed to conquer territories inhabited by ethnic Tibetans but controlled by Chinese warlords, and it successfully captured western Kham from the Chinese in 1917

Tibet’s military control was located in Qamdo from 1918. During this time, the Sichuan warlords were busy fighting the Yunnan warlords, allowing the Tibetan army to defeat the Sichuan forces and conquer the region. The Tibetan Army was involved in numerous border battles against the Guomindang (KMT) and Ma Clique forces of the Republic of China. In 1932, the KMT defeated the Tibetan army, driving them out of Kham. 

Their first encounter with the People’s Liberation Army was in 1950, when they took over Dengo, and after failed negotiations initiated the Battle of Qamdo, marking the Chinese occupation of Tibet that continues to this day.

photos of ChushiGangdruk, Tibet’s volunteer guerilla army in 1959. They were made up of young males from Amdo and Kham (eastern Tibet) regions that border China. 

initially, the US State Department refused to support Chushi Gangdruk,  and they were forced to organize their own army and buy their weapons with their own money as well as meager donations from farmers sympathetic to the liberation struggle. After they formed, the CIA provided training and weapons to the troops for a short period, and Taiwan under Chiang Kai-shek funded them temporarily. 

Chushi Gangdruk disbanded in 1974, effectively ending the Tibetan liberation movement, after Richard Nixon’s famous olive branch to Mao in 1973 that revived Sino-American relations, thus cutting all funding for the Tibetan freedom cause.

Pemanagpo Jewellery
YakSo pendants
made of teeth of Tibetan yak and natural pearls with sterling silver
available @ pemanagpo storenow

Please read!!! yak teeth are the side product left in the skeleton of animal and taken only after the animal’s death; in other words: not a single animal was killed for the sake of taking teeth or bones. nomadic yak herding has been a vital part of Tibetan ecosystem for thousands of years. however nowadays nomadic way of living and the ecosystem of Tibetan Plateau is in danger because of Chinese policy of inhumane resettling and displacing the nomads, killing hundreds of animals, illegally stripping the nomads off their lands and traditional way of living to build their factories and bury radioactive garbage.
we would like anybody who wears this yak tooth or shares this post to remember about what’s happening in Tibet, to speak out and to stand for justice, human rights and environmental protection.

kaajoo:

“There is a saying in Tibetan, ‘Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.’ No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster.”
~ Dalai Lama