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This time last year I made my own pilgrimage of a lifetime. I traveled with the Tibetan Nuns Project to Dharamsala, India. It was a soul-changing experience. The dust-filled Delhi days whirled by giving way to the molasses slow Dharamsala mountains. Oh, how I miss them. And the sky, the blue awning stretching wide overhead.
Adam Zilinskas passed away around this time last year. It was sudden, it was unexpected, but in away it was beautiful. Even the butterflies said so.
I remember Adam and his gentle words and his caring being. I light a candle in his name this day and many days after… I remember the sweet, kind nuns and their words to me, “When Tibet is free, you’ll have a home there with us.”
KUALA LUMPUR: The Olympic torch arrived in Malaysia on Sunday ahead of a relay that is expected to take place under heavy security, while other countries in the region tried to minimize the potential for conflict when the torch is scheduled to arrive in their respective countries.
The flame arrived at Kuala Lumpur International Airport early Sunday on a plane from Bangkok, where the relay had been greeted by a few small protests. Some 300 Chinese students studying in Malaysia greeted the flame at the airport, as did representatives from the Malaysian National Sports Council and the police. Separately, a Buddhist group held special prayers at a temple in Kuala Lumpur, calling for a trouble-free torch run and for peaceful Olympics Games in August.
The Malaysian part of the relay is expected to begin Monday at Independence Square in central Kuala Lumpur.
The global torch relay, the longest in Olympic history, has become a magnet for protests by critics of China’s human rights record and its handling of recent protests in Tibet.
In Malaysia, some 1,000 police and security officers will be deployed on Monday, even though the police have not received reports of any planned protests, said a police spokesman who declined to reveal his identity, citing protocol. Roads along the 16-kilometer, or 10-mile, course will be closed to traffic.
In Nepal, soldiers and police officers guarding the slopes of Mount Everest have been given authorization to use “whatever means” required in the event of protests during the Olympic torch’s run to the summit of the mountain in early May.
The police and soldiers “have been given orders to stop any protest on the mountain using whatever means necessary, including use of weapons,” said Modraj Dotel, a spokesman for the Nepalese Home Ministry. He added that such force was to be used as a last resort, and that officers would first try to persuade protesters to leave and would arrest those who refused to do so.
Twenty-five soldiers and police officers have already established camps on the mountain, Dotel said, adding that more troops would be sent if required.
In Australia, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith appealed on television Sunday for restraint from those who planned to come to see the flame’s run in Canberra on Thursday.
“I urge people if they do turn up,” Smith said, “that whatever point of view they want to put, they put that point of view peacefully and do it in a way in which Australians would regard as appropriate,” Smith said.
“I’m very concerned that unless people turn up with that attitude we’ll have the Olympic torch equivalent of football hooliganism.”
The police in Canberra have erected steel fences along the relay route to keep demonstrators at bay. Separately, Australian war veterans have pleaded that the country respect a “peace precinct” on Thursday, which is one day before memorial day in Australia that honors veterans of World War I.
In Japan, Zenkoji Temple, a major Buddhist temple in Nagano, was sprayed with graffiti just days after the city withdrew a plan to host the torch relay there, the police said. The graffiti – consisting of white circular patterns and lines – was found Sunday morning in six spots of the main hall at the temple, the Japanese broadcaster NHK reported.
Zenkoji Temple was originally intended to be the starting point for the Japan leg of the Olympic torch relay next Saturday. But officials at the temple withdrew from the plan on Friday, citing security concerns and sympathy for Tibetan protesters.
AFP[Sunday, April 20, 2008 11:20] An ancient Japanese Buddhist temple, which cancelled its role in the protest-marred Olympic torch relay, has been vandalised with white spray paint, police said Sunday.
The Zenkoji Temple in Nagano, the host city of the 1998 Winter Olympics, on Friday withdrew from plans to be the start point for the Japanese leg of the relay on April 26 because of China’s crackdown in Tibet.
The global tour of the torch for August’s Beijing Olympics has been dogged by protests since it was lit in Greece last month.
Six white spray paint graffiti patterns were found on pillars and sliding doors at the main sanctuary of the 1,400-year-old temple early Sunday, a spokesman for the Nagano prefectural police said.
“We have yet to ascertain if the act was related to the torch relay. It could possibly be a malicious practical joke,” he told AFP by telephone. “We are investigating the case.”
The wooden sanctuary, designated as a national treasure by the government, is the main feature of the temple.
“We really deplore what has happened. We are angry at the damage done to the cultural asset,” Shinsho Wakaomi, the temple’s director of general affairs, told the public broadcaster NHK.
“We will step up our guard in the run-up to the torch relay.”
The temple rang bells for the opening ceremonies for the 1998 Winter Games.
The graffiti patterns, as large as 60 centimetres (24 inches) by 80 centimetres (31 inches), did not contain written messages, the police spokesman added.
Zenkoji, which was built in the seventh century and draws six million visitors every year, said it had received about 100 phone calls, mostly supportive, about the cancelled ceremony.
The global relay has turned into a public relations headache for Beijing as a crackdown on unrest in Tibet has provoked concern about China’s human rights record and triggered protests at many of the torch’s worldwide stops, most notably in London and Paris.
The Chinese authorities have stepped up an unprecedented repression in Rong Gonchen Monastery in Rebkong County (Ch: Tongren Xian), after yesterday’s protest, according to confirmed information received by the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD).
Rong Gonchen Monastery is an important Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Rebkong County, Malho (Ch: Huangnan) “Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture”, Qinghai Province.
In light of the peaceful protest on 17 April by a group of 22 monks from Rong Gonchen in Rebkong County market, and arrests of over one hundred protesters in the afternoon, the situation has been tense and volatile following the crackdown by the Chinese security forces.
According to fresh development of situation in Rong Gonchen Monastery in Rebkong, the Chinese authorities are not allowing anyone to meet the arrested Tibetans in detention centres. Multiple sources confirm that 80-year-old Alak Khasutsang, a former chief of Rong Gonchen Monastery, who tried to diffuse the tension between the Tibetan demonstrators and the Chinese security forces on 17 April has reportedly sustained severe head injury during the police crackdown and was said to be in a critical condition. He was also known to be suffering from a high blood pressure. One source reported that he was taken to a hospital in Xining City for treatment. However, there was no exact information about his current whereabouts.
Another monk, Geshe Tenzin Choephel, 50 years old resident of Xining City and teacher of Qinghai University for Nationalities, who was in Rong Gonchen Monastery at the time of raid in the monastery on 17 April was known to have been arrested for unknown reason. There is no information on his whereabouts at the moment.
Moreover, on 17 April, around 6 PM (Beijing Standard Time), scores of Chinese armed security forces raided monks’ houses in Rong Gonchen Monastery. During the raid, the Chinese armed security forces forcibly flushed out the monks from their houses to the monastery’s courtyard and were made to kneel down with hands behind their head. The Chinese security forces threatened the monks at gunpoint. In the raids, the Chinese security forces seized all photos of the Dalai Lama found in the monks’ rooms.
The sources also told TCHRD that a dozen of the Chinese security forces in full combat gear were armed with guns. The Rong Gonchen Monastery has been under a severe restriction, and the monks were isolated from each other without any form of interaction amongst them. Since yesterday, armed Chinese security forces have been keeping a close vigil in the monks’ rooms.
Sources say that at present, a severe restriction on the movement of monks is still continuing in Rong Gonchen Monastery. There is no information about exact number of monks arrested by the Chinese security forces.
The Chinese authorities have issued terse warning to the monks about leaking the information to the outside world following the severe crackdown by the Chinese authorities. TCHRD expresses serious concern over the condition of the arrested monks and calls upon the authorities to immediately lift the restriction imposed in Rong Monastery.
