Contradictory accounts of the Tibetan self-immolations—now numbering over 35—reveal rival conceptions of Tibet’s borders by the Chinese state and the Dalai Lama’s exile government, with control of critical resources in the background.
Two Tibetan monks set themselves on fire in Sichuan province—bringing the total of protest self-immolations in little more than a year to over 30. Days earlier, a Tibetan exile self-immolated a protest in New Delhi.
Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov was sworn in as Turkmenistan’s president, having won by a predictable 97%. His personalistic dictatorship mirrors that of his autocratic predecessor “Turkmenbashi”—and is the lynchpin of the planned trans-Afghan pipeline.
Chinese authorities agreed to halt a mining project on Mount Kawagebo, which is sacred to Tibetans, after local villagers, their pleas rebuffed, pushed some $300,000 worth of mining equipment into the Salween River.
Two Tibetan protesters were killed in Sichuan province, and protests were also reported from Qinghai. The new violence comes as the number of Tibetans who have set themselves on fire in acts of protest since the wave began in February 2009 reached 22.
Although the details and even the death toll are disputed by Chinese authorities and Tibetan exile and support groups, a wave of protest and repression has left several dead in the Tibetan ethnic areas of Sichuan province this week.
Kazakh interior ministry troops fired on striking oil workers in the Caspian Basin city Zhanaozen, leaving at least 10 dead. The violence came in a move to oust hundreds of workers from a square they had been occupying for six months.
Following 13 self-immolations by Tibetan monks since 2009, principally in Sichuan province, one was reported for the first from within the Tibet Autonomous Region itself. The monk is said to have survived and is hospitalized.
In a move initiated by the Obama administration, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to waive Bush-era human rights restrictions on military aid to the Islam Karimov dictatorship in Uzbekistan.
Kyrgyzstan’s newly elected president, Almazbek Atambayev, announced upon his victory that he will close Manas air base, which has been critical to the US campaign in Afghanistan, after the lease expires in 2014.
Courts in China’s Xinjiang province sentenced to death four members of the Uighur minority in connection with attacks this July that left 40 dead. The exiled World Uyghur Congress believes the “confessions were extracted through torture.”
The indigenous Telengit people in Russia’s Altai Republic are turning to the international community to help stop a new gas pipeline to China that would cut through their sacred lands and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
