In the Apr. 5th Daily, Xiangdong Li said that the claim of 1.2 million Tibetans killed by the Chinese government was “ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE.” Well, I’m sorry to have to be the one to break it to Mr. Li, but it is. I know it’s hard to have to accept the wrongs of your own government, but saying nothing is as good as acceptance, and this is something everyone is going to have to deal with. Lets look at the facts, shall we?

According to one Chinese source, the PLA “exterminated” more than 5,700 Tibetan “soldiers,” and imprisoned more than 2,000 in different areas of eastern Tibet between October 7 and 25, 1950. [A Survey of Tibet Autonomous Region, Tibet People’s Publishing House, 1984].

According to a secret Chinese military document, the PLA crushed 996 rebellions in Kanlho, Amdo, over the period 1952-58, killing over 10,000 Tibetans. [Work Report of the 11th PLA Division, 1952-1958] Similarly, the population of another Amdo area of Golok had its population reduced from about 130,000 in 1956 to about 60,000 in 1963. [China Spring, June 1986] Speaking about the same area, the Panchen Lama said, “If there was a film made on all the atrocities perpetrated in Qinghai Province, it would shock the viewers. In Golok area, many people were killed and their dead bodies rolled down the hill into a big ditch. The soldiers told the family members and relatives of the dead people that they should celebrate since the rebels have been wiped out. They were even forced to dance on the dead bodies. Soon after, they were also massacred with machine guns.” [Speech by the Panchen Lama at a meeting of the Sub-Committee of the National People’s Congress in Peking on situation in Tibet, March 28, 1987].

In a crackdown operation launched in the wake of the National Uprising of 10 March 1959 in Lhasa, 10,000 to 15,000 Tibetans were killed within three days. According to a secret 1960 PLA Tibet Military District Political Department report, between March 1959 and October 1960, 87,000 Tibetans were killed in Central Tibet alone. [Xizang Xingshi he Renwu Jiaoyu de Jiben Jiaocai, 1960].

A compilation of figures based on testimonies of survivors of prisons and labor camps shows that throughout Tibet about 70 percent of the inmates died. For example, in the wilderness of the northern Tibetan plains at Jhang Tsalakha more than 10,000 prisoners were kept in five prisons and forced to mine and transport borax. According to some of the survivors of these camps, every day 10 to 30 died from hunger, beating and overwork; in a year more than 8,000 had died. Likewise, in the construction of Lhasa Ngachen Hydroelectric Power Station, now falsely claimed to have been built by the PLA, every day at least three or four dead prisoners were seen being thrown into the nearby river or burned. To cite an example from eastern Tibet, from 1960 to 1962, 12,019 inmates died at a lead mine in Dartsedo district, according to a former inmate, Mrs. Adhi Tap from Nyarong, Kham.

On September 27, 1987, more than 200 Tibetans staged a demonstration in Lhasa. In the clamp- down which followed on successive demonstrations — including the ones on October 1, 1987 and March 5, 1988 — Chinese police opened fire, killing and critically wounding many on the spot and imprisoning at least 2,500.

In July 1988, China’s security chief, Qiao Shi, while on a tour of the “TAR” announced “merciless repression” of all forms of protest against Chinese rule in Tibet. [UPI, 20 July 1988] The policy was implemented at once. The crackdown on the December 10, 1988 demonstration at Jokhang, the most sacred Tibetan shrine in Lhasa, was witnessed by a Dutch tourist, Christa Meindersma (26 at the time), who recalled: “… without any warning, the police opened fire, shooting quite indiscriminately into the crowd. They didn’t seem to mind who they hit. … as I turned to run I was shot in the shoulder.” According to a western journalist who happened to be there, at least one officer was heard ordering his men to “kill the Tibetans.” The toll on that day was at least 15 killed, over 150 seriously wounded, and many others arrested.

These are just a handful of the documented accounts of oppression and Cultural genocide the Tibetan people have been forced to endure in the name of “liberation” and “progress.” In closing I will quote the late Panchen Llama who said, “The price Tibet paid for this development was higher than the gains.”

Ryan Bergman

Senior

Community and Regional

Planning

ISU Students For A Free Tibet