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gee this could compromise climbing in the area 19-Feb-2009 At 2:16:16 PM billk

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Losar (Tibetan New Year) observances begin this weekend. Normally Losar is time for some serious partying but this year it will only involve solemn observances, unless the Chinese can force Tibetans to put on the required front of jolliness.

Here's an excerpt from Time:

A Silent Start to the New Year for Many Tibetans

Time[Wednesday, February 18, 2009 17:07]
By Simon Elegant / TONGREN, Qinghai Province
....
Not surprisingly, the boycott has apparently angered Chinese authorities, who exile sources allege have been engaged in a security crackdown code named "Strike Hard" since January 18th in an attempt to head off trouble. "They have conducted house-to-house searches. They have military in plain clothes everywhere and snipers on the roofs," says Tsewang Rigzen, president of the Dharmsala-based Tibetan Youth Council. According to one nomadic herdsman I met at the Longwu Monastery in Tongren, one of the most important outside the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), the attempt by the authorities to force celebrations — and the Tibetan resistance that followed — has extended even into some remote areas. The 53-year-old, dressed in a traditional fleece-lined long coat and fingering his prayer beads, recounts how security forces came in January to his village in neighboring Gansu province and tried to enforce celebrations by a system of collective responsibility. "Ten days before new year, the police came and divided us into groups of twenty families and put one or two people in charge. They were given a few thousand yuan and told they were responsible, that would be punished if there were no celebrations," he explained. "Later they came and arrested nine people who they said were ringleaders in the refusal campaign, even though they had nothing to do with it."
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