Woeser has posted a list of Tibetans who have recently been arrested or disappeared in Kham and Amdo. Earlier I mentioned that the last few years have been disastrous for Tibetan writers- authorities here seem to be trying to completely knock out the entire literary elite. After detailing some of the missing, Woeser concludes:
These writers, teachers, have all been detained for documenting, discussing and reflecting on the uprising in Tibet in 2008, the year of the Earth Mouse. Clearly the local authorities’ oppression of Tibetans has already spread from the ordinary masses up to the elite, the number of victims are many, the punishments are cruel and it is difficult for them to receive any legal assistance, nor can they enter into fair judicial proceedings, also, from what is known, the real number of oppressed Tibetan elites is far greater than that made public.
Some of the Tibetan elites’ troubles are a direct result of the authorities’ intentional politicisation of events, that is to say, their actions were to do with protecting Tibetan culture and the environment but they got in the way of corrupt local government officials, hence leading to retaliation. Officials everywhere know the dark art of political tricks very well, they make use of the opportunity to repress “separatists” and make the link with politics to those Tibetans dedicated to social affairs, thereby destroying them.
We must pay attention to the local authorities increasingly cracking down on the Tibetan elite. The crisis we are facing is not just political and economic, a much bigger crisis we are facing is a destruction being carried out, targeting our culture. It is not just the old buildings in Lhasa that have been destroyed, our many talented, and knowledgeable men and women are being intentionally eliminated, this is far more terrible than other forms of destruction.