Gideon Polya, “US Anti-China Tibet Agenda. Media Ignore Huge US & Australian Human Rights Abuses”, MWC News, 13 April 2008.
US Anti-China Tibet Agenda. Media Ignore Huge US & Australian Human Rights Abuses
The US, UK, France, other Western nations and the Western mainstream media have been castigating China over asserted human rights abuses in Tibet.
Because of the absence of outside reporters it is difficult to assess what is actually happening in Tibet. Thus according to a March 30 News.com report: “Exiled Tibetan leaders have put the death toll from the Chinese crackdown at between 135 and 140 Tibetans, with another 1000 people injured and many detained” (see: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,23454758-23109,00.html ).
The highly respected organization Amnesty International has very properly criticized China over human rights abuses in Tibet in a recent statement to the UN Human Rights Council (see: http://action.amnesty.org.au/news/comments/11342/ ). In short, Amnesty International recognized the right and duty of China to protect all citizens from violence but expressed concern over past abuses (including lethal force and torture of detainees), the exclusion of independent human rights monitors from Tibet and its fears for human rights abuses in Tibet.
The Amnesty International statement said in part, QUOTE: “Amnesty International is deeply concerned at human rights violations during recent events in the Autonomous Region of Tibet and neighbouring regions.
Initial protests by Tibetans in these regions appear to have been peaceful and suppressed in violation of protesters' right to freedom of expression, association and assembly, including through excessive use of force.
Amnesty International is aware that protests later turned violent, with individuals apparently attacked solely for their ethnic identity, resulting in death, injury and damage to property. Amnesty International condemns such attacks unreservedly, and acknowledges the Chinese authorities' right and duty to protect all individuals against violence.
However, Amnesty International is concerned that in restoring order, the Chinese authorities have resorted to measures which violate international human rights law and standards. These have reportedly included excessive use of force, including lethal force and arbitrary detentions.
Amnesty International has previously documented a pattern of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees in Tibet by China's security forces, especially those accused by the Chinese authorities of "separatist" activities. Moreover, China has long banned independent human rights monitors from Tibet, and the region is now virtually sealed. For these reasons AI fears for the safety of those recently detained.
Amnesty International calls on the Human Rights Council to address the human rights situation in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and in the neighbouring provinces which have experienced unrest … Beyond these immediate concerns, Amnesty International calls on the Council to urge the Chinese authorities to address Tibetans' long-term grievances, including restrictions on religious practice, persecution for exercising their freedoms of expression, association and assembly, government policies that have weakened their culture and ethnic identity, and perceived exclusion from the benefits of economic development.” END QUOTE
The actions of highly-respected Amnesty International are proper and considered. However the conduct of the Bush-ite and neo-Bush-ite Western Mainstream media and politicians is hypocritical and dishonest - the hysterical China-bashing quite patently reflects an American anti-China geo-political agenda. The headlines of a recent article in MWC News by Dan Lieberman has described this “Media animosity towards China” as “Spreading hate under the guise of human rights”: http://mwcnews.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21632&Itemid=26 .
For a detailed analysis of the historical and contemporary Bush American anti-China agenda read Larry Chin’s article “Is the CIA behind the China-bashing Olympics protests”: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHI20080411&articleId=8656 . In short, an economically and militarily failing Bush America is prosecuting an anti-China geopolitical agenda aimed at introduction of US and NATO forces to stop China oil and other economic interests in Africa, notably in the Sudan; involvement of India in a US anti-China front; and continuation of longstanding US opposition to China’s very territorial sovereignty in Tibet and Taiwan.
Larry Chin states: “A full-blown superpower conflict is underway. China is being simultaneously used as the labor engine for the world’s capitalist economy, while being geo-strategically and militarily encircled. China is also in the process of being financially seized and gutted by the World Trade Organization. Every move made by the Beijing government, particularly for its own stakes in oil and gas, have been violently contested by the Western powers. China’s attempted rise to the world stage, out of decades of isolation, is headed off by rapacious US-led machinations. Today’s anti-Chinese Olympics protests are simply the latest manifestation.”
The Bush American anti-China campaign is well illustrated by the conduct of its craven lackey Australia in recent months. Since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, resource-rich Australia has been tightly linked to the US. Australia has participated in all post-1950 US Asian Wars and is accordingly complicit in the associated 24 million Indigenous Asian excess deaths. This participation is regarded by mainstream White Australia as an insurance premium – kill Asians “over there” and cravenly support all US wars in the hope that the US will protect us from what are frankly described in racist White Australia (either seriously or jocularly) as the “yellow hordes” or the “yellow peril”.
This primitive view has been ameliorated in recent decades by increasing trade with Asia, and Asian immigration to Australia after the abolition of the notorious White Australia Policy (1901-1973). However the US Alliance is the sine qua non of Australian politics – according to William Blum’s “Rogue State” the US CIA helped oust the reformist but Centrist Whitlam Labor Government in 1975. The right-wing Labor leader Mark Latham was destroyed in the 2004 Australian elections through blatant US intervention for stating that he would take Australia out of Occupied Iraq.
China is a major destination for Australian iron ore and coal. Currently Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter and the Developed World’s worst annual per capita greenhouse gas polluter. However despite the electoral ousting of the of Bush-ite, climate sceptic Coalition Government in 2007 and Rudd Labor Australia’s subsequent signing of the Kyoto Protocol (leaving the US as a notorious stand-out non-signatory), Australia helped the US and Canada wreck the Bali Climate Change Conference, resolutely refuses to act substantively on its world-leading greenhouse gas pollution and remains firmly committed to its Planet-threatening coal industry.
In a remarkable testament to entrenched media lying in Australia, public debate in Australia largely ignores the reality that on a per capita basis Australia is vastly worse than China in greenhouse gas pollution. Thus for Australia the “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 production” is 19.2 tonnes but Australia is also the world’s biggest coal exporter. If we include the CO2 from Australian coal exports in the picture, then the figure for Australia (2004 US Energy Information Administration data) becomes 40.3 tonnes per person per year as compared to 20 (the US), 20 (Canada), 4.2 (the World), 3.7 (China), 1.0 (India), 0.7 (Pakistan) and 0.25 (Bangladesh) (see MWC News: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/13576/26/ ).
Under the new neo-Bush-ite Rudd Labor Government’s terracidal CO2 pollution policy of “60% reduction by 2050”, Australia’s per capita CO2 pollution figure will reach 65 tonnes per person per year by 2050 – 18 times the 2004 China figure.
In 1947 the Australia Labor politician Arthur Calwell notoriously stated “Two Wongs do not make a White” (Wong being a common Chinese name) – but the Rudd Australian Government climate change policies mean that the current 40.3/3.7 = 11 “Wongs don’t make a White” will INCREASE by 2050 to 65/3.7 = 18 “Wongs don’t make a White”. Ironically, Australia’s Climate Change Minister – recently introduced to China’s President Hu Jintao in Beijing by Mandarin-speaking Australian PM Kevin Rudd – is Senator Penny Wong.
Australia’s neo-Bush-ite PM Rudd has been legitimately described by outstanding Australian expatriate writer John Pilger as America’s “Asia Sheriff”. On his first world tour as PM of Australia, US lackey Rudd (aka Religious Right Rudd or R3) has spent 17 days touring the world and spreading 2 key US Alliance messages: (1) support for US militarism and (2) condemnation of asserted but not explicitly substantiated China human rights abuses in Tibet.
Australian PM Rudd has acknowledged China’s sovereignty over Tibet – as has the Dalai Lama – but has been touring the world criticizing Chinese human rights abuses. Addressing more than 500 students students at Peking University, Rudd stated (in Mandarin): "Australia like most other countries, recognises China's sovereignty over Tibet. But we also believe it is necessary to recognise there are significant human rights problems in Tibet … the current situation in Tibet is of concern to Australians”. The Chinese response has been an official rebuke delivered while PM Rudd was visiting China : “"Tibet is purely an internal affair and none of the foreign countries or other groups has any right to interfere."
NOT reported by Western or Australian Mainstream media or by Rudd are the ACTUALITIES acutely relevant to these 2 key US policies of PM Rudd: (1) the post-invasion excess deaths in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories now total about 2 million and 3-7 million, respectively; and (2) while infant deaths rates in Tibet and China are about the same, infant death rates in China’s neighbour US- and Australia-occupied Occupied Afghanistan are 51 times greater than in Occupier Australia and 38 times greater than in Occupier United States, making Australia the world’s worst human rights abuser on the basis of this measure.
For those who believe in the core American Declaration of Independence dictum that “all Men are created equal and have an unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit if happiness”, one key, fundamental measure of societal human rights observance is “under-5 year old infant deaths per 1,000 births” among a Subject population.
The UN ESCAP (UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific) has used data from the China Population Information and Research Centre (CPIRC) to estimate infant death rates in Tibet (see: http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/population/database/chinadata/tibet.htm ).According to the UN ESCAP the overall mortality rate has fallen from 28 per 1,000 in the 1950s to 6.60 per 1,000 in 2000; there was a wide gap between urban and rural people in the death rates; mortality at all ages in Tibet was much higher than the national average; and in 1990, life expectancy in Tibet had reached 59.64 years, 57.64 for male and 61.57 for female. The life expectancy for China as a whole was 67.5 in 1990 and is now (2005-2010) about 73 years as compared to 67 for Tibet.
Consulting the “World Population Prospects: the 2006 Revision Population Database” of the UN Population Division (see: http://esa.un.org/unpp/ ) we find that for 2007 (2005-2010) the “under-5 year old infant deaths per 1,000 births” is 29 (for China, and a SIMILAR value for Tibet as indicated by UN ESCAP data) as compared to values in China’s “good outcome” neighbours of Russia (21), Vietnam (23) and Kazakhstan (29) and in its “poor outcome neighbours” of Mongolia (54), Kyrgyzstan (64), North Korea (65), Bhutan (65), Laos (67), Nepal (72), Tajikistan (78), India (79), Myanmar (97) and US Alliance-occupied Afghanistan (235).
By way of comparison, for 2007 the “under-5 year old infant deaths per 1,000 births” were in the range 5 - 8 for the US (8), Australia (6) and other Western Occupiers of Afghanistan.
These infant mortality statistics can also be presented as “annual under-5 year old death rate percentage” (the percentage of under-5 year olds dying each year) which for 2007 was 0.61% for China (and SIMILAR to this for Tibet according to UN ESCAP data) as compared to values in China’s “good outcome” neighbours of Russia (0.44%), Vietnam (0.47%) and Kazakhstan (0.66%) and in its “poor outcome neighbours” of Mongolia (1.14%), Kyrgyzstan (1.43%), North Korea (1.28%), Bhutan (1.28%), Laos (1.46%), Nepal (1.56%), Tajikistan (1.68%), India (1.69%), Myanmar (2.09%) and US Alliance-occupied Afghanistan (6.15%).
By way of comparison, for 2007 the “annual under-5 year old death rate percentage” was in the range 0.10% - 0.16% for the US (0.16%), Australia (0.12%) and other Western Occupiers of China’s neighbour Occupied Afghanistan (the UK, France, Germany, Canada and the Netherlands) .
There is an inescapable moral obligation of a Ruler to do everything possible to preserve the health and lives of subject citizens. However International Law via Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (see: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm ) is quite explicit in demanding that the “Occupying Power” does everything it can “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” to ensure food, medical supplies, and health of the population.
Australia, the US, the UK and their allies have been patently FAILING to meet these obligations in Occupied Afghanistan and indeed in Occupied Iraq as reflected in huge post-invasion under-5 infant deaths totalling 2.3 million and 0.6 million, respectively; post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths) totalling 3-7 million and about 2 million, respectively; and refugees totalling 4 million and 4.5 million, respectively (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/21138/42/ ).
Key evidence of this sustained, remorseless, war criminal US Alliance failure to provide life-sustaining requisites is given by the World Health Organization (WHO). Consult WHO (see: http://www.who.int/en/ ) and you will discover that the “annual total per capita medical expenditure” permitted in Occupied Iraq by the US Coalition is $135 (2004) as compared to $19 (Occupied Afghanistan), $2,560 (UK), $3,123 (Australia) and $6,096 (the US) (see MWC News: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17139/42/ ).
If we want to reliably quantify “human rights abuses” we could use the ratio of “annual infant death rate” in the Occupied Country to that in the Occupier country. In relation to Occupied Afghanistan and its Occupier White Australia this “Occupied/Occupier infant death ratio” is 6.15%/0.12% = 51.3 and in relation to Occupied Iraq and Occupier Australia the ratio is 2.32%/0.12% = 19.3 – whereas the ratio for Tibet infant death rate /China infant death rate is roughly 1 (i.e. equality).
For the US, the world’s worst terrorist state, the Occupied/Occupier infant death rate ratio for Occupied Afghanistan/Occupier US is 6.15%/0.16% = 38.4 and 2.32%/0.16% = 14.5 in relation to Occupied Iraq.
On this Subject/Ruler infant death rate ratio measure – 51 for Occupied Afghanistan/Occupier Australia and 38 for Occupied Afghanistan/Occupier US versus 1 for Tibet/China - war criminal White Australia is currently the World’s WORST human rights abuser by far.
ALL human rights abuses great and small should be condemned and addressed. But responses should be proportionate and appropriate. Thus according to Tibetan exiles about 150 Tibetans have been killed (China says 20) and about 1,000 detained in the present Tibet riots. By way of comparison, in the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles in 6 days 34 people died, 1,032 were injured, and 3,952 were arrested. There is just no comparison with the horrendous (and Mainstream media NON-REPORTED) upper estimate of 9 million post-invasion excess deaths in the US- and Australia-occupied Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories.
I have recently made a formal complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC) (see: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/2008/02/formal-complaint-to-international.html ) over Australian involvement in Aboriginal Genocide (90,000 excess deaths in the last 11 years; Indigenous population now 0.5 million); Iraqi Genocide (post-invasion excess deaths 1.7-2.2 million; 4.5 million refugees); Afghan Genocide (post-invasion excess deaths 3.3-6.6 million; 4 million refugees); and Climate Genocide (16 million people die avoidably from deprivation annually and this is increasingly climate change impacted; Australia is one of the world’s worst greenhouse gas polluters; over 6 billion are predicted by Professor James Lovelock FRS to perish this century from unaddressed global warming).
Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Please inform everyone you can.