Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, Sain baitsagaanuu? Dashi Delek!
It is great to be here today to stand in solidarity with our Tibetan, Uyghur, Taiwanese and Chinese friends to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Tibetan National Uprising to show our strongest protest to the Chinese Government and the Chinese colonial regimes in our three occupied nations: Tibet, Southern Mongolia and East Turkistan.
Here, I would like to stress that I use “nations” or “occupied nations” when referring to Tibet, Southern Mongolia and East Turkistan. I refuse to call us “ethnic minorities” or “ethnic groups” which is a terminology aimed to de-politicize our national identity and wipe out our national and historical memory of an independent nation.
As we gathered here to mark the 60th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising, let us look back to the history of Chinese colonial occupation in our three nations.
70 years ago, in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party took over China proper. Soon after, our nations were reduced to the so-called “Nationality Minority Autonomous Region”. Our peoples have quickly been reduced to “national minorities” and later even downgraded to “ethnic minorities” on our own lands.
60 years ago, the people of Tibet rose up against the Chinese colonial occupation and demanded their freedom and human rights. The Chinese government carried out a brutal crackdown, and His Holiness and hundreds of thousands of Tibetans went into exile;
50 years ago, the Chinese Government launched a large-scale genocide campaign in Southern Mongolia. Hundreds of thousands of Mongolians were killed; nearly a half million Mongolians persecuted;
Today, this extreme brutality is still continuing. Crime against humanity is committed by the Chinese Government on a daily basis in front of the eyes of international community and the democratic world.
Millions of Uyghurs are locked up in concentration camps for just being who they are. Entire populations of Mongolian and Tibetan herders are forced to leave their land and give up their way of life.
Despite these brutal occupation and bloody repression, we Tibetans, Uyghur and Southern Mongolians have never given up our hope and optimism. We believe that “if a nation and people make up their mind to free themselves, nothing on earth can stop them,” as Desmond Tutu eloquently put it.
We believe, one day, Tibet will be free, East Turkistan will be free, Southern Mongolia will be free. Hong Kong and Taiwan will be free from Chinese interference to determine their own future.
Thank you!
