Lily Kuo - 'They took everyone from me': anger lingers 60 years after Tibet crackdown
Every year on 10 March,
Nyarong Atti spends the day praying for Tibetans around the world. He
offers pujas, or prayers, to those who, like him, fled to
India after the People’s Liberation Army crushed protesters in Lhasa. The
crackdown ended a fledgling rebellion against Chinese rule and sent the Dalai
Lama into exile. Thousands of Tibetans
surrounded the Dalai Lama’s palace in Lhasa 60 years ago on Sunday, fearing a
Chinese plot to kidnap or assassinate the leader. Chinese forces had occupied
the Himalayan region nine years earlier and formed an uneasy alliance with the
Dalai Lama, but tensions had been building.
By 17 March 1959
Chinese artillery was aimed at the palace, and a few days later troops opened
fire, killing thousands. By the end of the month, Chinahad dissolved the
Tibetan government and the Dalai Lama had escaped, smuggled out of the city
disguised as a Chinese soldier. For Atti, 87, who was
among those fighting against Chinese rule, the anniversary brings a mix of
emotions, chief among them anger and sadness. “Tibet was completely taken over
by China and many people died,” he says. Hundreds of supporters
of the 14th Dalai Lama surrounded his temple in Dharamsala in India on Sunday,
home to his government in exile since 1959. Supporters elsewhere planned
marches to commemorate the failed uprising and call attention to what they
describe as a brutal campaign of suppression.
Chinese authorities
have tightened their hold on Tibet, which Beijing claims
has always been part of China. Local officials have instituted a “grid” system
of security through a vast network of “convenient police stations”, checkpoints
and the use of mass surveillance. Tibetans often cannot travel freely in and
out of the region and their communication is often monitored. “Tibet today is
effectively run as a huge open-air prison,” said John Jones, a campaigns
manager at Free Tibet, an advocacy group. “Any sign of dissent, from flying the
Tibetan flag to possessing pictures of the Dalai Lama … is treated as a state
security crime. The level of state control has been stepped up to the point of
being suffocating.”.. read more:
