02 September 2010

IFP MP Mario GR Oriani Ambrosini attended the celebration of 50 years of Tibetan Democracy in-exile being held in Bylakuppe at the request of the Dalai Lama. Speaking before the Dalai Lama and 75 000 Tibetans in exile he stated: “A great deal has to be said to mark the 50th anniversary of Tibetan Democracy in Exile and reflect on China’s unwanted invasion of Tibet. Coming as I do from Africa, I shall limit my remarks to highlight the importance of Tibet for the whole of sub-Saharan Africa.

A new scramble for Africa’s resources has commenced, China is leading it and, alas, is both setting its tone and limiting its goals.

Until China’s intervention in Africa’s marketplaces and internal political dynamics, both European and North American aid programmes, trade negotiations and social, cultural and economic exchanges carried a number of conditions or incentives aimed at promoting democratic consolidation and human rights protection in the sub-Saharan region. It seems as if this luxury can no longer be afforded.

Chinese interests are long-term players. In this age of global depression, the power vacuum in Africa deepens, and the new scramble for Africa witnesses the Chinese’s political and financial upper hand, as Chinese have available long-term high-risk investment funding while the West has none. For instance, while others were escaping Zimbabwe, Chinese interests were buying it up. Such long-term strategies often bank on the downward economic and political spiralling of countries during the investment stage so as to produce subsequent capital gains.

Money is flowing into Africa with no strings attached, especially as those strings relate to promoting human rights protection and curtailing corruption. Money is given directly to African governments and leaders, right there where Western governments laboriously worked for twenty years to by-pass them to reach directly the intended beneficiaries through NGOs. China’s more relaxed selling practices are bound to feed into Africa’s chronic tendencies towards corruption and embezzlement.

Arms are shipped from China into African countries, especially small arms, undermining both African and global efforts in arms control. This is most concerning, considering the setbacks and involutions in the process of democratisation of a continent which this year has marked the 50th anniversary of the commencement of its liberation and the 16th of the completion of such process. China will not change its ways in Africa until it changes its ways in China.

China will not change its ways in China until it rights the wrongs in Tibet. Tibet has indeed become the possible turning point in history. Unless China democratises, Africa will be gravely harmed, and Tibet stands as the crucible in which China’s democratic transformation is to be forged.

This realization underpinned the Declaration of the 5th World Parliamentarian’s Convention on Tibet which not only supported Tibetan autonomy but also, peculiarly, went to great lengths in stressing that its aim was that of supporting rather than antagonizing China

As western governments have relinquished this mission or placed it on a remote back burner, mounting pressures towards the democratic of China must now be expressed and applied directly by politicians, opinion makers, businessmen, academics and all institutions of civil society in their full range of their interactions with their Chinese counterparts. And they must become both militant and radical in this engagement.

From the turning point of this 50th anniversary, we must now turn the cause of Tibet into a mass mobilization of parliamentarians, churches, NGOs, governments and other relevant institutions across the world to help China to walk the path of democratic transformation.

History will recall how a group of peaceful monks has pursued its decades-long struggle exclusively through the methods of nonviolence, negotiations and moral high ground, along the methodology used by Gandhi, Pannella and Buthelezi. The Rome convention received reports of evidence of extensive Chinese human rights violations and atrocities in Tibet. We heard of the desire of many to abandon the nonviolent method to embrace other forms of struggle, including an armed struggle.

By granting Tibet the limited and reasonable autonomy it seeks, China would bequeath to the world the legacy of a successful nonviolent struggle, which will undoubtedly inform how the conflicts of the present and the unavoidable future ones may be resolved. Conversely, the failure of the Tibetan cause may discredit the method of nonviolence.

From this point on, we must seize the possibility of turning the Tibetan issue into a new unifying cause which can again bring together democrats from across the world, as it happen in the worldwide rejection of South African apartheid. This battle may significantly move forward the cause of mankind and enable China to become the great international partner and leader which we all sincerely hope it may rise to be, for its own sake and that of mankind. If we fail, sub-Saharan Africa will be amongst the most adversely affected.”

Contact: Ms Liezl van der Merwe, 082 729 2510