Tibetan women in protest van

Press, 15 January 1988, Page 17

Tibetan women in protest van

By

COLIN MONTEATH

Tears of rage glisten on weatherbeaten faces. Clenched fists pound thin, cold air. “Freedom for Tibet — Freedom!”

It is October 7, and a thousand angry women storm into the main bazaar in Leh, capital of Ladakh in a corner of north-west India.

The crumbling palace on the hill above the city towers over me, with arching lines of red, blue, yellow and white prayer flags snapping out their Buddhist message between ochre-brick turrets. A knot of Indian policemen with British moustaches and Lee Enfield rifles stand indolently on the corner.

Chants and hunger strikers

The dusty street echoes to the high-pitched scream of “Long Live!” as one group of young women clusters round a colourful banner. Another group immediately raises the response “Dalai Lama!” Emotional chanting intensifies, taking on the rhythm of a Buddhist mantra though quavering voices are clearly laced with extreme frustration.

The loudspeaker, mounted on a jeep belonging to the Tibetan Refugee Camp at Choglamsar, on the windblo'wn outskirts of Leh, rallies marchers in front of an old army tent pitched at the far end of the bazaar. The tent is plastered with tattered newspaper cuttings and a giant poster is splashed in red letters dripping with blood — “STOP CHINESE KILLINGS IN TIBET.” Inside, hunger strikers sprawl limply on the ground in sleeping bags under a. framed portrait of the Dalai Lama. They raise themselves on elbows to listen to the speeches starting up outside. Wisps of incense scent the air. A determined looking woman with hair plaited in dozens of tiny braids continues to thump an ancient portable typewriter, scratching out a plaintive letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. She breaks her concentration momentarily to ask me for the address.

The protest has been sparked by killings in Lhasa, only a few days before in early October. Sketchy reports have reached the Indian press from western touAists being thrown atit of Tibet that at least 19 Tibetans have

been killed following a fracas with Chinese police near the sacred Jokhang temple. I find myself caught up in the third day in a series of gatherings all over India by the 180,000-strong Tibetan community, determined to speak out against these recent atrocities as well as the continued subjugation of their homeland. Today is dedicated to speeches by leaders of the Leh branch of the wellorganised Tibetan’s Women’s Association. Dolma Yangzom, association secretary, speaks first in Tibetan, then in perfect English. “Apart from the brutal killings and detention of many innocent Tibetans by the Chinese, we have information that about one hundred monks were freshly arrested on October 6. Many more

killings and detentions are likely to follow without any charges. There are also reports of an uprising in Shigatse, the second largest city of Tibet... the Chinese continue practising demographic aggression of the Tibetan people who have enjoyed total independence for many centuries. We had a separate historical background, language, currency and cultural heritage till the Chinese occupied Tibet illegally and turned it into a human slaughter house.” Mrs Yangzom is interrupted several times by sections of the crowd bursting into loud wails of “Freedom! Freedom!” One old woman close to me sobs uncontrollably, her head reeling in circles with eyes swollen and red. Tears moisten coppercoloured cheeks, dripping on to

her chunky red coral and turquoise necklace. Neighbours try in vain to comfort her.

The speeches end with a reiteration of the Dalai Lama’s five-point proposal for Tibet made during His Holiness’ September visit to the United States. ”... Tibet should be transformed into a zone of peace. We demand the withdrawal of all Chinese settlers. We want the introduction of democracy and human rights for all. We demand a complete ban on all nuclear testing and bases in Tibet. Tibet must be freed at any cost.” Though the Dalai Lama is, perhaps for the first time, openly encouraging civil disobedience among his people, he remains a committed advocate of achieving the goal through non-violent means.

As the crowd disperses, the head lama invites me to a morning tea prepared for the women who have spoken. In a dimly lit cafe, Mrs Yangzom tells me that many of the women present today are between 28 and 30 years of age. “Like the others, I was an infant when 85,000 Tibetans died following the 1959 uprising in Lhasa. Distraught parents thrust babies into the arms of friends who were- fleeing across the Tibetan Plateau to India.”

Meeting with family

Mrs Yangzom met her mother and brother for the first time in 1983 during a planned rendezvous in Katmandu, Nepal. "I pleaded with mother to come and live with me in Ladakh; however, she replied that much as she would like to, if she did not return to Lhasa by the appointed date, the Chinese would take out vicious reprisals on the rest of our family.” Ladakh is a ruptured, snowcapped mountain desert hitmen behind the massive peaks ol‘ the

Indian Himalaya. It was once an autonomous kingdom but is now part of India’s Jammu-Kashmir State. Ladakh reminds me of the parched stone desert of the Dry Valleys in Antarctica, apart from the yellowing ribbon of willow and poplar on the valley floors. The trees’ slender grip on bleached soil is made possible by the slow swirl of the turbid Indus River.

Ladakh has rocketed from an all-but-forgotten medieval Buddhist society to one of considerable strategic importance in the turmoil of Central Asian politics. Leh, once a major trading link for the ancient Silk Route, is now a garrison town, supporting Indian regiments entrenched behind Ladakh’s mountainous borders with Tibet, China’s Sinkiang Province and Pakistan. The futility of the power play among these nations is baffling, seemingly fuelled by military avarice as much as Hindu-Muslim differences and communist zeal. Since the Partition of India and the gruesome massacres of 1947, India has had two major conflicts with Pakistan (1965 and 1971) over disputed Kashmiri territory. However, none perhaps have been so ludicrous as the ongoing high altitude skimish on the uninhabitable 6000-metre Siachen glacier fringing both the Ladakhi section of the Karakoram range and Pakistain’s mountain realm, Baltistan. The logistic support necessary to keep this constant high level of military preparedness, particularly during the severe winter months when all road access to Ladakh is cut by snowfall, must be a significant drain on the Indian economy.

Since 1974, during the brief summer months from June to October, there have been 13,000 tourists attracted to the rugged grandeur of Ladakh. The impact of tourism on the simple Buddhist lifestyle (there is a growing number of Muslims) is not as great as that imposed year-round by the Indian troops. They have occupied Ladakh since the Chinese incursion across the northern border in 1962. This aggression caught the Indians by surprise and resulted in almost a third of

Ladakh’s territory being seized by the Red Army. If nothing else, Ladakh has not been abused by the physical bullying, let alone wholesale invasion, that Tibet has suffered since 1950 when the Red Army swept across the vast grasslands of the highest plateau on Earth. During three months in Tibet in 1984, I had been saddened by the feeble attempts of the Chinese to bolster the growth of tourism at the expense of continuing to culturally suffocate a once proud independent people. The facade was particularly noticeable with attempts to instil a vital force again in the monasteries around Lhasa and Shigatse. Despite actively pushing propaganda that huge amounts of money are being spent on “restoration work,” the ruins of the Rongbuk monastery speak for themselves, smashed beyond recognition under the peaceful backdrop of Mt Everest. The once graceful Shegar monastery, peppered by zealous artillery of the Cultural Revolution, is unlikely to return to its former glory in spite of an attempt to rebuild it. Two decades later, hideous concentration camps still persist. The list goes 0n... China

has not won any friends round the world by its action and policy in the so-called “autonomous” region of Tibet. By comparison, despite Indian military presence, everywhere I went in Ladakh seemed spiritually alive: a climate of genuine openness and warm hospitality with free-thinking people who can at least influence their own religious and economic destiny.

Festival and raft trip

The day after the protest march, I attend a two-day harvest festival at Tikse monastery, standing aloof above the Indus some 30 kilometres from Leh. Still smarting from the recent events in Lhasa, I am told this year’s gathering of Ladakhis and exiled Tibetans will offer prayers both for downtrodden relatives over the border and for world peace. My sojourn with World Expeditions in Ladakh is all too brief, ending with a helter-skelter raft

trip down the Indus from Hemis monastery back to Tikse. The traditional Buddhist prayer, “Om Mane Padme Hum” soon becomes “Oh Man Paddle Home” as I get chilled in the icy breeze. The rhythmical swoosh of paddles is replaced by the pitterpatter of snowflakes. Winter has arrived in Ladakh. Three metres of snow are dumped overnight on the mountainous passes between Leh and Srinagar, capital of Kashmir. A thousand trucks are stranded. Closing of the road is a serious matter in Ladakh, and locals blame the army for not acting soon enough in October, 1986, resulting in many trucks being avalanched with the loss of a hundred lives. As I ride to Leh airport in the back of a Jeep, icy slush sprays over a roadside slogan: “India is a bouquet — Ladakh a beautiful flower.” Thoughts return to my final visit to the hunger strike tent. Wet blobs of snow hang heavily from tree branches in the bazaar, and the palace overhead is backlit by weak morning sun and brooding black cloud. Mud spatters the tent walls. Grinning faces peer out at me from the grimy depths of their lonely vigil as I pick up a bedraggled banner lying in a puddle and hand it in the door: “No matter how strong the wind of evil may blow, the flame of truth cannot be extinguished.” — H. H. Dalai Lama.