Jul 9, 2011

Democratic Development in the Tibetan Exile Community: Progress, Opportunity, and Chinese-Tibetan Understanding

By Louisa Coan Greve

Remarks at the conference "Democratic China and the Future of Tibet"

Washington, DC

Read these remarks in Chinese :: VISIT

Thank you.  I'm very honored to be here.  [In Chinese: My name is Louisa Greve, of the National Endowment for Democracy. The NED is happy to be able to support various organizations, not only Tibetan, but also those working on East Turkistan, Southern Mongolia or öbör Mongolia, as well as Han Chinese organizations, that are part of the democracy movement.] 

I will now give a brief listing of the important democratic institutions that the Tibetans have established in exile, and then I'd like to invite a little participation from our audience.

But first just to cover the basics: what institutions do the Tibetans in exile have? That's important so that we can understand what it means when we say that Tibetans are engaged in a democratic experiment and gaining democratic experience.

• A constitution. They have both a future constitution for Tibet, from 1963, and also a Charter for Tibetans in exile, from 1991.

• They have a representative government in the parliamentary function – the Chitue – the Tibetan word for the parliament in exile, which is directly elected.  Hu Ping told us in his remarks this morning about observing one election.

• A judiciary, call the Supreme Justice Commission.  Established in 1991.

• There's also a democratic Executive Branch, which has gradually become more and more democratic, accountable, transparent and now chosen by election. The Kalon Tripa institution was chosen by the parliament twice, and now since 2001, has been directly elected. This year was the third direct elections for the Kalon Tripa, and Lobsang Sangay was elected, who I believe will be appearing later in the conference, with a vigorous electoral campaign. So the institutions of Tibetan exile democracy include political campaigns. This executive Kalon Tripa also appoints his own Cabinet, and for those who may not be familiar with it, this government in exile, Central Tibetan Administration, under the direction of a cabinet has numerous functioning departments: Finance, Health, Education – with over 80 schools, an Interior department administering over 50 settlements, Foreign Affairs, and a department of Religion. The CTA has well over 3,000 employees.

• There are also several independent commissions: a Central Election Commission and an Audit Commission, to name two.

And finally, two other important elements of a democratic political life.

• A fourth estate: A free press – publications in Tibetan and English.

• And the other institutions of civil society, NGOs: the Tibetan Youth Congress, the Tibetan Women's Association, think tanks, human rights groups.

Now what is still missing in this democratic universe of political life among the exiled Tibetans?  

• Political parties are still not active. There is one political party but it is not active in elections.

• There are few watchdog NGOs. There are civil society NGOs, but they mainly  pay attention to Tibet, the situation in their homeland, and they also try to increase civic life among Tibetans in exile.  But they are not quite at the stage of acting like a watchdog and to mandate accountability from the parliament and government. So that's coming in the future, I think.

• Election monitoring.  I'm proud to say that NED helped support an international election monitoring effort during the March elections. There is a very interesting report from the International Network of Parliamentarians on Tibet, declaring that this election was free and fair, despite having to overcome the problems that Hu Ping pointed out, and there are very useful recommendations for further improvements. But there is so far no organized, local Tibetan effort to monitor elections.

So these are some of the democratic institutions, and I believe that, as Carl Gershman said and Lobsang Sangay has said, it's very important and admirable for Chinese to study this experiment and approach it in a spirit of learning from the practice and the experience.

So in that spirit, I will end by making four suggestions – in the spirit of friendship and learning and solidarity between Chinese and Tibetans, for all those hoping to experience real democracy in their political lives.

First, I would like to request that every Chinese who is here – and by the way congratulations for being here. It's really not a normal thing to expect everyone to spend a weekend talking about a very difficult political subject. But to go further I'd like to ask everyone to learn how to say "Hello" in Tibetan. Who can tell us how to say hello in Tibetan? Tashi Delek! [Everyone: “Tashi Delek!”] Thank you. Don't forget all weekend, please say this whenever you say hello to your Tibetan friends and Tibetans: please correct all of us when we don't say it correctly.

My second suggestion: Please follow Hu Ping's example and study the Tibetan democratic experience. Hu Ping has been to Dharamsala. Yang Jianli has been there.  I hope that many of you will look for more opportunities to do the same.

Thirdly, I hope that there can be more translation. Many of the documents from the Tibetan democratic experiment are available in Tibetan and English. If there are more that need to be available in Chinese, I hope some of you will take this on, on a voluntary basis.

And finally, my fourth suggestion is that I hope many of you – in your publications, your think tanks, your own professional work – will find a way to celebrate the 51st anniversary of Tibetan Democracy Day, which is September 2nd. Last year, the Tibetans celebrated 50 years since the first election after exile. And in that sense it's a sad thing; remembering that you can only start Tibetan democracy in exile, away from your homeland, fleeing violence and repression, missing your homeland, understanding that the conditions in your homeland are still terrible.  But on the other hand, let's use it as a chance to celebrate the determination and commitment that the Tibetans have, to turn this time away from home into an opportunity to learn something new in the history of Tibetan civilization: that is, how to practice democracy.

I hope that all of you will find a way to mark this and celebrate with the Tibetans.

Thank you.