Pretoria, South Africa: The Office of Tibet, South Africa in collaboration with various Tibet Support Groups including Tibet Rescue Initiative in Africa, the Tibet Society in South Africa, and the Tibet Support Group, Cape Town organised a Webinar titled Why Tibet Matters?,- on the 24th of February 2022. It was live-streamed by Tibet TV through its Facebook account.
The webinar was addressed by two prominent speakers- Michael Buckley, a well-known Canadian journalist, travel writer and author of a number of books including Meltdown In Tibet and Kelsang Gyaltsen, a senior Tibetan diplomat and former Special Envoy of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. They shared their insights gained over many decades of first-hand experiences in dealing with the Chinese Communist Party’s government which now exercised total control over the entire Tibetan Plateau.
Michael expressed the environmental importance of Tibet to the Asian subcontinent and how China is exploiting Tibet’s freshwater resources and mineral deposits without any long consideration to ecological sustainability.
Former Special Envoy Kelsang Gyaltsen highlighted that historically, Tibet had never been a part of China although it came under varying degrees of political influences under Mongol and Manchu empires. The Chinese occupation of Tibet is, therefore, a clear violation of international laws and the international community has a huge responsibility in resolving the Tibetan issue through Middle Way Policy advocated by the Tibetans.
It is to be highlighted that almost half an hour into the webinar, the proceeding of the webinar was blatantly disrupted by some malicious and ill will people hacking into webinar proceeding and disturbing it with loud noises, splashing pornographic photos on the presentation. We have no doubt in our minds who were behind these nonsenses but we will not be intimated by such sickening acts and mentality of the perpetrators.
The webinar continued after around five minutes with a new zoom link and successfully completed it with a lively Q & A session. Ngodup Dorjee, Representative Ngodup Dorjee made short opening and closing remarks.
-Report filed by OOT South Africa