[Continued] Chinese Soldiers Killing Tibetan Pilgrims

Pipe · Feb 10, 2007

Decided not to bump the old thread

http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=118919

From today's Chronicle:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/4541888.html

Tibetans pay harsh toll to escape China
Teen overcomes hunger, cold, bullets and a 19,000-foot mountain pass during a five-month odyssey to reach Nepal

By ASHWINI BHATIA
Associated Press

DHARMSALA, INDIA — Struggling through knee-deep snow at the roof of the world, Jamyang Samten scrambled behind a boulder when he heard gunshots. Who was shooting? Who had been shot? He had no idea.

But foreign mountaineers camped nearby could see what was happening, and the video they made of Chinese border guards firing at a single-file line of 75 Tibetans wading through a snow-filled Himalayan pass provoked international anger.

While more than half the Tibetans managed to scramble away Sept. 30 and reach Nepal, a 25-year-old Buddhist nun and a man were killed, and 31 people were detained.

Samten, 15, was among the detainees. He had expected an arduous two- to- three-week trek to escape Chinese-ruled Tibet. Instead he endured a five-month odyssey and was threatened with execution should he try to escape again.

The teenager ignored the warning on the advice of a Buddhist holy man, who told him a second attempt would succeed.

His story, while nearly impossible to verify, echoes other accounts that have filtered out of Tibet, where each year thousands of people who are unable to get passports try to flee Chinese rule and reach Dharmsala, the Indian city that is home to the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibet's Buddhists and the Tibetan government-in-exile.

China has exercised an often harsh, intrusive rule over Tibet since communist troops marched into the region in 1950.

Beijing has attacked the foundations of Tibetans' identity, their Buddhist faith. It shut down religious institutions in the 1960s and '70s, and, though some have reopened, religion is still controlled. The Dalai Lama, who fled in 1959 following a failed uprising, is vilified.

Samten was one of the Tibetans left on the margins.

Six years of saving

Raised in a middle-class family, he was 9 when he was kicked out of school for cutting class and sent by his parents to work on an uncle's farm. There, he heard of a relative who had escaped to India, and he began saving money he earned collecting Yarchagumba, a fungus prized as an aphrodisiac in traditional Chinese medicine.

After six years, Samten had about 5,000 yuan ($650). He made his way to the home of another uncle in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa. The uncle put him in touch with a guide who could lead him through the mountain passes to Nepal.

He met the guide on a clear day in mid-September and climbed into a truck with 75 other people. He had money, clothes and a small bag of yak meat and other food.

They drove for two days, then began a 125-mile trek to the border.

The group walked for 11 nights, and Samten's cotton trousers and old sneakers did little to keep him warm. During the day, they slept.

As they climbed toward the 19,028-foot Nangpa La Pass on Sept. 30, they encountered deep snow. And they stumbled into Chinese border guards. Half the group fled when they heard shooting. That group, including Samten, hid behind boulders while their guide went ahead.

They waited for three days until their food ran out. Finally, they made another attempt.

"As we went across, the Chinese guards started shooting near us to frighten us," Samten said. They surrendered and were arrested.

Over the next two months, Samten said he was regularly beaten, shocked and made to do hard labor.

One day, "the policeman told me that I was being released because it was my first arrest for escaping," Samten said. "If I tried again to escape and was caught, I could face execution."

So he returned home.

Escape divined

When he went to see a Buddhist high lama, the holy man told him that his escape was divined and that he would succeed if he tried again. His uncle then put Samten in touch with smugglers who knew a shorter route to freedom.

The next journey was even more physically punishing — by the final night, as they traversed a snow-filled pass, the smugglers threw away Samten's only food, a bag of apples, saying it would slow them down.

When they made it across the border into Nepal, Samten was bundled into a car and taken to the Nepalese capital, Katmandu. A month later, he reached Dharmsala, joining the Dalai Lama and tens of thousands of other Tibetans in exile.
Click to expand...

whats up · Feb 10, 2007

Where in the article YOU POSTED does it say that the Chinese soldiers are killing Tibetan pilgrims???

Very misleading title!

Major · Feb 10, 2007

whats up said:

Where in the article YOU POSTED does it say that the Chinese soldiers are killing Tibetan pilgrims???

Very misleading title!
Click to expand...

It's in the 2nd and 3rd lines:

But foreign mountaineers camped nearby could see what was happening, and the video they made of Chinese border guards firing at a single-file line of 75 Tibetans wading through a snow-filled Himalayan pass provoked international anger.

While more than half the Tibetans managed to scramble away Sept. 30 and reach Nepal, a 25-year-old Buddhist nun and a man were killed, and 31 people were detained.

whats up · Feb 10, 2007

Oooops! Thanks! Somehow I missed that and this line stuck with me... "As we went across, the Chinese guards started shooting near us to frighten us," Samten said.

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[Continued] Chinese Soldiers Killing Tibetan Pilgrims

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