Largest international youth group blames China for Tibet burnings

Tsewang Rigzin, President of Tibetan Youth Congress addressing the IUSY World Council in Dortmund, Germany May 8-9.  DHARAMSHALA, May 11: A global meet of youth leaders blamed China for the ongoing wave of self-immolations in Tibet and called on Beijing to allow international fact-finding delegations to visit Tibetan areas. Around 130 delegates, representing over 60 countries, passed a hard-hitting resolution on Tibet at the World Council of the International Union of Socialist Youth held in Dortmund, Germany from May 8-9. The world’s largest political youth group unanimously condemned China’s “continued occupation of Tibet and oppression of the Tibetan people” and cited these as the “root cause” of all the self-immolations. Since 2009, as many as 117 Tibetans living under China’s rule have set themselves on fire demanding freedom and the return of Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama from exile. In the Tibet resolution, delegates demanded People’s Republic of China to “immediately allow an international fact-finding delegation including UN officials, foreign diplomats and media to assess the ground reality in occupied Tibet, immediately stop harassment, arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of family members, relatives and friends of self-immolators, and immediately release all political prisoners including 11th Panchen Lama, Gedun Choekyi Nyima.” Representing Tibet at the international meet, Tsewang Rigzin, President of Tibetan Youth Congress, the largest pro-independence group in exile, presented a detailed report on the unprecedented number of self-immolations inside Tibet. “Political repression, cultural assimilation, environmental destruction, and economic marginalisation of the Tibetan people by the illegal Communist Chinese regime has led the Tibetan people to resort to the only option left for them to defy the continuing occupation of Tibet and oppression of the Tibetan people,” Rigzin said in his address at the World Council. “We have delegates from world over here and I appeal you all to lobby your leaders to pressure the Chinese government to resolve the issue of Tibet.” Rigzin also introduced a resolution on “Regional Cooperation against China’s “Bullying” of its Asian neighbours,” representing the IUSY Asia Pacific Committee. The resolution, while addressing territorial disputes between China, Indonesia, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, and Japan called for “regional cooperation among Asian nations as a sign of solidarity and to end all forms of colonial and imperial adventures by China.” The IUSY World Council is held every two years to determine the organisation’s policies and its implementations. IUSY was founded in 1907 and is the largest political youth organisation in the world with about 150 member organisations from more than 100 countries fighting for change all over the world for over 100 years now.