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"T I B E T:   E Y E W I T N E S S   A C C O U N T S"
(By Tenzin Sangmo, Phayul.com, July 28, 2008)

From left: Tenzin Tsundue, Kunsang Sonam and Serta Tsultrim. (Photos: Tenzin Dasel/Phayul)

New Delhi: Kunsang Sonam was in the middle of the Lhasa uprising when it happened on March 10 this year. He managed to escape over into Nepal and live to tell of the terror that had gripped his homeland. A first person account of a protestor and eyewitness in Lhasa was organized by the Friends of Tibet on Tuesday at the India International Centre, New Delhi. The talk was moderated by Tenzin Tsundue, Tibetan activist and poet.

Hailing from a nomadic family in Kham, Kunsang Sonam made a living selling Tibetan thankas and second hand clothes in Lhasa. He spoke of the tension that was already in the air before March 10 which is observed annually as the Tibetan Uprising Day. An usually large number of policemen were patrolling the streets of Lhasa and this left the Tibetans clueless aggravating the deep rooted psyche of the past uprisings among them. Freedom of movement was already restricted and monitored by authorities. The protest started from Drepung Monastery and spread like wild fire in the region. In retaliation the Chinese authorities came down hard on unarmed Tibetans with tear gas and firearms.

"There were gun shots and mass chaos while the streets were filled with smoke. I saw people around me fall down and my friend Nyima, was shot in the chest. A nun died in front of my eyes as did six others during the course of the demonstrations. The Army tanks were quick to come and clear up those who were either wounded or dead to dispose of any physical evidence."

Lhasa had come to a complete standstill affecting normal life. People were ordered to stay indoors and random door to door checks were carried out by the Army.

Kunsang Sonam said he managed to escape Lhasa in a vehicle on March 26 which took him to Nepal border. Two days later he crossed over into Nepal and remained there for a month. He then made his way towards Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan Government in Exile to seek His Holiness's blessings.

"The Chinese raided our houses and confiscated our belongings. I had some 30-40,000 Chinese Yuan from my small business which the officials took away. My family in my native village later told me they had confiscated our ancestral property after they learned I had escaped into India," he further added.

Serta Tsultrim, Member of the TGIE and editor of Tibet Express also spoke on the occassion saying that Lhasa was not the only place hit by civilian unrest. There was massive participation from ethnic Tibetans from the regions of Kham and Amdo as well.

"Chinese officials torture Tibetan prisoners and extract false confessions out of them. They would only release Tibetans when there is no hope of the victims surviving from the wounds inflicted on them. Needless to say, they die in a day or two after being released from Chinese prisons."

Tibetans inside Tibet demand that the Dalai Lama return to his homeland and the freedom of religion, expression, education and movement which they are denied of in their very own country.

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"A   R E L U C T A N T   R E V O L U T I O N A R Y"
(By Amitava Sanyal, The Hindustan Times, August 01, 2008)

Kunsang Sonam at India International Centre, New Delhi on July 27, 2008. (Photo: Ronjoy Gogoi/HT)

This March was the bloodiest month for Lhasa in two decades. Kunsang Sonam was there in the middle, and he is one of the few Tibetans who escaped to India with his tale of death and defiance

New Delhi: Kunsang Sonam caught a whiff of what was brewing in early March. The 38-year-old, who used to sell old clothes and jewellery from his stall near the centre of Lhasa, saw the police presence rising daily, perceptibly. "It seems they knew something that we didn't," Kunsang says through the interpreter. When this migrant from the nomadic Kham tribe heard hushed rumours of troubles ahead, he told himself he had seen it before. He had, after all, witnessed the bloody Lhasa uprisings of 1987 and 1988 from close quarters.

But nothing really prepared him for what was to follow.

Tension had been coiling up since last September, when the Dalai Lama was awarded the US Congressional gold medal. Monks at the Drepung monastery, the largest in Tibet situated in northwestern Lhasa, started celebrating by whitewashing the 15-th century structure and decking it up. The Chinese authorities took this as a sign of defiance, and in October, asked the monks to stay in. Supplies were cut off, arrests were made, and as the weeks went by, stories of suffering started seeping into the city's thin air.

This February around Lhosar, the Tibetan New Year, the cordon was relaxed. When on March 10, some of them – 300, by Kunsang's count – marched towards city centre, they were turned back. Kunsang heard that the monasteries' phone lines had been jammed. The next day he found that all lines had been restricted to in-city calls. And from March 12, all the lines in Lhasa were cut off.

The Tibetan Capital was a tight-lid tinderbox awaiting a spark.

Kunsang began the Friday of March 14 with a winding walk. He went towards the Sera monastery in the north with a friend. By the time they started towards city centre, the spark had been lit near Ramoche, another big monastery that had been surrounded by police trucks. The monks came out in protest, the people joined in and the fire spread.

Kunsang got engulfed in the frenzy near the city masjid, where a crowd of 300-400 were chanting 'We want free Tibet' and 'Rise, all eaters of tsampa (a Tibetan staple of roasted barley)'.

He says haltingly: "Some 30-40 policemen started firing from the back. I saw bodies falling, but do not know whether they died. Then I saw a middle-aged guy shot in the chest." His friend got a yarn of cloth from a Chinese store and wrapped the bleeding man. Holding out his hands, Kunsang says, "As we ran holding him, he died in our arms." A different set of armed personnel, kitted out in seemingly more professional gear, moved in. They started picking up all the bodies lying around, dead or injured. "Only pools of blood marked where the bodies were," says Kunsang.

The twosome headed for Barkhor, a busy street encircling the city's holiest temple. There was fire bellowing all around and all they could see along one of the radials leading up to the circle was a mass of people holding aloft two dead bodies as martyrs. The protests went on till about 9 in the night.

The history of the day is spitefully contested between the Chinese and Tibetan authorities. The former claims that only 22 died in Lhasa that day, and that too at the hands of Tibetans. The other side claims the Chinese massacred at least 100 people that day. Some claim they can prove the identities of 218 people who have died in Lhasa and in the neighbouring provinces where the fire spread over the next few days. What's undeniable is that there was a full-scale riot in which Tibetans vandalised properties owned by the Han Chinese, and were in turn brutally crushed by an overwhelming display of Chinese authority.

Kunsang holed up for the night with a few friends near Sera. At 2 am, an army patrol came in and warned: "Do not move out. We are counting your number. Anyone missing at the next count would implicate all of you." They stayed in for two days. When they came out, the city was a maze of checkposts.

By April 26, Kunsang's visitor's permit for Nepal – something he had applied for a year back – came through. He fled to Kathmandu and then reached Dharamshala by the 28th. Now he wants to make it his mission to tell the tale of March 14 to the world.

The picture that emerges through his account may not be all that clear. But one thing is certain – this freedom struggle is changing and it's moving towards more violence.

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Friends of Tibet, PO Box 16674, Bombay 400050, India.

Friends of Tibet is a people's movement to keep alive the issue of Tibet through direct action. Our activities are aimed at ending China's occupation of Tibet and the suffering of the Tibetan people. Friends of Tibet supports the continued struggle of the Tibetan people for independence.