LOS ANGELES: For the past three weeks, the small Southern California Tibetan community of 200 and their supporters kept up the protests and vigils in front of the Chinese consulate in Los Angeles, to highlight the on-going massive crackdown in Tibet and the resultant suffering of the Tibetan people.On April 25, local Tibetans gathered to commemorate the birthday of the Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, who has spent 16 of his 19 years under Chinese government detention.

In spite of the efforts of many international NGOs and governments, his whereabouts has never been revealed. Local Tibetans shared the same sense of grief as Tibetans all over the world - that the world's youngest political prisoner has spent two thirds of his life being held captive by the Chinese government.

The next day, April 26, Tibetans joined the North Korean-American Association during their protest at the Chinese consulate - to mark the day that the Beijing Olympic Torch passed through Seoul, South Korea and their efforts to call attention to the plight of North Korean refugees in China. On April 28, Tibetans and supporters gathered at Thubten Dhargye Ling Buddhist Center in Long Beach, to pray and to observe the forty ninth day after the death of protesters in Lhasa, Tibet.

Tibetan Buddhists believe that it takes forty nine days for a dead person's spirit to find its way to the next reincarnation and that the prayers of the living will help to guide the dead. From May 1 to May 8, Tibetans held daily vigils in front of the Chinese consulate as the countdown to the Beijing Olympic Torch's ascent up Mount Everest began.

In the days leading up to May 8, the day the Torch summitted, extraordinary measures had been carried out on both the Tibetan and Nepalese side of the mountain to keep all foreign mountaineers away from going anywhere near the Olympic flame. The Tibetan side of the mountain has been completely closed to all other climbers and the Nepalese (yielding to Chinese pressure) posted soldiers on the South side - confiscating cameras, satellite phones and computers of foreign climbers, who were made to wait at Base Camp until the Chinese team had carried the Olympic flame to the top.

The mountain climbing web sites were full of complaints by mountaineers who felt that their turf had been desecrated by the Chinese turning Mount Everest into an armed camp.On May 10, Tibetans gathered again in front of the Chinese consulate to mark the two months since the protests began in Lhasa. Tenzing Chonden, representative of North American Tibetans in the exile government, updated the gathering with the most recent figures resulting from the crackdown in Tibet - 203 confirmed dead, more than 5,000 detained and thousands injured.

He spoke of the numerous eye witness accounts of arbitrary arrests, torture in prisons and of the fear that Tibetans are living under currently. In spite of the severe repression by the Chinese authorities, Tibetans are still continuing their protests, which now number over a hundred different places in Tibet Autonomous Region and surrounding Chinese provinces with Tibetan populations.

Namgyal Kyulo, President of the Tibetan Association of Southern California, thanked everyone present for their dedication. He said, "We must not let the world forget what is going on in Tibet right now. We must not let the sacrifices made by our brave brothers and sisters in Tibet be for naught."

The Tibetan Association of Southern California and Los Angeles Friends of Tibet members plan to hold vigils and protests every 10th day of the month in remembrance of the Tibetan Uprising of 2008.