Officials in Tibet are Punished for Leniency

By Wendhe Choetsoe / February 4, 2015;

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

China has punished 15 Communist Party officials serving in Tibet for aiding the Dalai Lama. The officials, suspected to be Tibetans, were put under the scrutiny of the Commission for Discipline Inspection last year and were given unspecified punishments for violating party discipline and endangering national security. They were accused of joining underground Tibetan independence organisations and providing information to the Dalai Lama and his supporters.

It is not new for China to condemn any kind of support or loyalty to the Dalai Lama. However, the recent publicising of the punishments given to these party officials is highly unusual.

Qiangba Puncog, chairman of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of the Tibet Autonomous Region and Padma Choling, Tibet government chief at the 18th Communist Party Congress in Beijing, 2012.
Photo: AP/Vincent Yu

The Global Times, a Chinese state-run newspaper, said in an editorial “if there are officials who take an ambiguous attitude on the Tibetan independence question, colluding with separatist organisations and providing them with intelligence, they must be investigated and prosecuted regardless of their ethnicity”.

The article continued “Party officials in Tibet won’t receive favourable treatment for their support of separatists and they will pay the price for this. This must be made known to all Tibetan officials.”

Speaking to the Associated Press, Kate Saunders, the International Campaign for Tibet’s communications director, said “The announcement follows warnings of stiff punishments for those who offer support to the Dalai Lama or Tibetan separatism, and shows that the government has failed to eradicate support for the spiritual leader, even among party officials.”

Ye Dongsong

In November last year, Ye Dongsong, head of a Communist Party discipline inspection team warned the Tibet authorities to focus on “neutralising separatists and maintaining social stability” as “some officials in Tibet still sympathise with the Dalai Lama” because of their religious beliefs.

The Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace laureate, is called a “splittist” by Beijing, who says he is seeking independence for Tibet under the guise of his proposed “genuine autonomy”. The Dalai Lama and representatives of the Central Tibetan Administration in exile have repeatedly explained that they are willing to live under the Chinese constitution if China gives Tibetans genuine autonomy.