Copyright 1997 Federal Information Systems Corporation
Federal News Service
MAY 13, 1997, TUESDAY
PREPARED TESTIMONY OF
MAURA MOYNIHAN
BEFORE THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS MAY 28, 1997
BODY:
TIBETAN REFUGEES IN INDIA AND NEPAL
by Maura Moynihan
In 1950, the Chinese People's Liberation Army launched its first invasion
into Tibet. In May of 1951, a Tibetan delegation in Beijing was coerced
into signing a 17-Point Agreement as a pretext for imposing "democratic
reforms" throughout Tibet, wherein traditional leadership was usurped,
lands and possessions confiscated, Tibetan Buddhism attacked, religious and
lay leaders subject to public torture. The Dalai Lama's efforts to
negotiate with the Chinese leadership failed.
And on March 10, 1959, the citizens of Lhasa rose in popular revolt against
Chinese rule. Fighting erupted, and on the night of March 17, 1959, the
Dalai Lama took flight towards India, hoping to appeal to the international
community to take action against Chinese aggression in Tibet. On March 28,
1959, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai "dissolved" the Tibetan government. While
still on Tibetan soil, the Dalai Lama repudiated the 17-Point Agreement and
all Chinese claims of sovereignty over Tibet. On March 31, 1959, exhausted
and seriously ill, the Dalai Lama crossed onto Indian soil. With the Dalai
Lama forced out, Chairman Mao swiftly consolidated Chinese control of
Tibet. Communications were suspended; borders were sealed. One point two
(1.2) million Tibetans were murdered, thousands were sent to labor camps,
and more than 6,000 monasteries, the repositories of centuries of
scholarship and culture, were looted and razed. All hope for the survival
of Tibet's 2,000-year-old civilization lay in India with the Dalai Lama and
100,000 refugees.
Since the early 1980s, when Tibet opened to trade and tourism, a second
exodus of Tibetan refugees has joined the Tibetan exile community in India
and Nepal, fleeing religious persecution, political repression, aggressive
Sinocization and cultural genocide. From 1986 to 1996, approximately 25,000
Tibetans have taken refuge in India, increasing the exile population by
more than 18 percent. About 44 percent of these new arrivals are Buddhist
monks and nuns, 30 percent are children seeking placement in an exile
school, the remainder are adult lay persons.
Many die in flight. The journey over the Himalayas is the longest and most
perilous escape route on Earth. On foot, the distance from Lhasa to the
Nepal border takes a minimum of one month in favorable conditions. Eighty
percent of escapees are from Kham and Amdo, Tibet's northern and eastern
province. Thus, their journey takes an additional three months. Refugees
must travel for days in waist-deep snow. There is nowhere to find shelter,
food or water in the mountain passes. Many suffer frostbite, injury, death.
In April 1996, the Chinese renewed their assault on Tibetan culture with an
alarming vehemence in a "Strike Hard" anti-crime campaign, which provides a
new pretense for arresting "splittists," any Tibetan who challenges Chinese
rule. The methods and language of the Cultural Revolution have returned in
an angry campaign to vilify His Holiness the Dalai Lama and to purge
Buddhist monasteries of teachers, students and pilgrims.
On August 11, 1996, the Katmandu Post quoted Xinhua, China's official news
service: "Hostile international forces were using ethnic and religious
issues to Westernize and split socialist countries." In August 1996,
Reuters reported that China had posted armed patrols of paramilitary
People's Armed Police contingents along the Tibetan border. Chinese
officials stated: "The anti-splittist situation is still grave, and the
task of ensuring stability of the borders and the region is still very
formidable." The unit will maintain combat readiness to "persist in foiling
plots and disruptive activities by the Dalai clique." The Chinese People's
Daily Newspaper reported that, in 1994, border guards arrested 6,838
"illegal emigrants" attempting to escape from China and Tibet, a 23-percent
increase from 1993. Every day that I was in Tibet, I met Tibetans heading
towards the Nepal border. If not for the risks of arrest, deportation and
death in flight, the refugee influx would be much greater. DEPORTATION
In 1995, U.S. aid for the UNHCR mission for Tibetan refugees transiting
through Katmandu was reduced from an $200,000 to $100,000. The numbers of
Tibetan asylum-seekers had decreased from approximately 3,621 in 1994 to
2,448 in 1995. However, the drop in refugee influx was the result of forced
repatriation, not improved conditions inside Tibet. The American
ambassador, Ms. Sandy Vogelsgang, the British and Australian high
commissions and UNHCR raised the deportation issue at the highest levels of
the Nepali government. Ambassador Vogelsgang has continued to assert that
safe passage of Tibetan refugees is an important feature of the U.S.-Nepal
relationship. Random repatriation continues at checkpoints along the
Tibet-Nepal border, but there is no evidence that Nepali police are
rounding up large numbers of Tibetans, holding them in jails in Katmandu
for several days, and then returning them to Chinese agents, as was the
case in 1995. Deportations became less aggressive when the United
Marxist-Leninist Party (UML) lost power in late 1995, but the communists
are a growing force in Nepal and are extremely hostile to Tibetan refugees.
Of special concern is the rise of a Maoist insurgency modeled after the
Peruvian Shining Path, which recently burned an effigy in front of the
United States embassy in Katmandu.
Tibetan escapees report that deportees are conscripted into hard labor on
the Kumbum-Lhasa railway or on road gangs. Some are imprisoned; some are
forcibly returned to their villages and denied permission to travel outside
their districts. Former political prisoners and dissidents evading arrest
are in nearly every case imprisoned and subjected to torture and prolonged
solitary confinement. It is also dangerous for refugees to return; a
Tibetan who has been to India risks interrogation, harassment, and work and
travel restrictions.
The UNHCR mission has done an exemplary job securing safe passage of
refugees from Nepal to India. However, incidents of repatriation, robbery
and sexual assault by Nepali border patrols continue, which furthers the
case for assigning a full-time UNHCR protection officer to the region. A
UNHCR official I spoke with urged that funding for Tibetan refugee
assistance be maintained at the original level, as frequent visits to the
Tibet-Nepal border by a UNHCR protection officer yield immediate results.
Refugees are released from police custody and allowed to continue to
Katmandu, where UNHCR operates a medical clinic, identification processing
and temporary shelter.
SEXUAL ASSAULT
Welfare officers and medical examiners in Katmandu believe that rape of
Tibetan refugee women by Nepali border police is routine. Tibetan women are
easily preyed upon. Their language is wholly different from Nepalis. Their
clothing, manners and features immediately mark them as Tibetans. In
Nepal's strict cast system, Tibetan women are without caste definition or
protection, are often traveling without escort, and are thus extremely
vulnerable to attack. Reception-center nurses have examined many refugee
women who were gang-raped at the border but (who) were afraid of
deportation and (who), therefore, did not press charges.
In 1995, a Buddhist nun was gang-raped at the border, became pregnant, and
is now living in a slum in Katmandu with her infant son, too ashamed to
seek assistance for herself and her child. On the nights of December 15 and
16, 1995, a 22-year-old Tibetan woman was raped 12 times by a group of
Nepali policemen in uniform. The assaults were witnessed by several other
refugees who were threatened with deportation. That Nepali border guards
have, for years, robbed and violated Tibetan women with impunity furthers
the case for assigning a full-time protection officer to the region.
CHILDREN AT RISK
A great many Tibetan refugees are unaccompanied minors. Until they are
registered with UNHCR in Katmandu, these children risk illness,
abandonment, molestation. Child refugees are seriously undernourished when
they reach Katmandu after weeks of walking in snowy mountains, surviving on
"tsampa" (ground barley) and melted snow. I have heard numerous reports of
child refugees abandoned in mountain passes, crippled by frostbite and
exhaustion. European trekkers have found corpses of Tibetan refugees lying
in mountain trails, victims of exposure and starvation. During the winter
of 1996-97, several children died of exposure just after crossing into
Nepal.
In December 1995, a group of European trekkers discovered Tenzin Gelek, age
6, of Lhasa, lying in a pass in the Solokhumbu region of Nepal. Tenzin was
suffering an acute case of frostbite in both feet and had been abandoned by
the guide who had been hired to take Tenzin to India. The trekkers
delivered Tenzin to Kundi Hospital in Solokhumbu, which notified UNHCR.
Tenzin was airlifted to Katmandu, where he had both feet amputated up to
the ankle. He spent five months recuperating in Katmandu before leaving for
Dharamsala in early March 1996. Without emergency care provided by the
UNHCR clinic, he would have died from gangrene.
Amnesty International and Asia Watch have reported an increase in the
detention and torture of juvenile political prisoners in Tibet since 1994.
In Katmandu on September 4, 1995, I interviewed two boys, age 9 and age 12,
who were arrested in Nepal on April 23, 1995, deported into Chinese
custody, and detained in Songdu prison in Shigatse for one month. The boys
said that they were made to perform menial labor seven days a week and were
only fed two small bowls of barley a day. In August 1996, I interviewed two
boys, aged 13 and 14, from eastern Tibet. They described serving four
months in jail in 1994 for taking part in a pro-Dalai Lama demonstration in
the Kongpo region. They were beaten and sentenced to hard labor with
several other juvenile prisoners of conscience.
HEALTH
Tibetan refugees are malnourished, exhausted and often traumatized by the
time they reach Katmandu. Descending from the Tibetan plateau, these
refugees have no immunities to protect them from dysentery, tuberculosis,
scabies, worms, typhoid, cholera that are rampant in India and Nepal. New
arrivals receive BCG, polio and TB vaccinations in Nepal and Dharamsala,
but the dispensaries often run out of supplies. Tuberculosis is widespread
in the Tibetan refugee community; over 35,000 third-line TB cases have been
identified.
A significant number of refugees are survivors of torture. Human Rights
Watch, Amnesty International and Physicians for Social Responsibility have
documented the following torture techniques routinely used on Tibetan
political prisoners: beatings with truncheons, iron rods, clubs with nails
driven through the ends; electric shocks to the head, genitals and kidneys;
suspensions from the ceiling by the feet or hands, often for days; standing
naked for hours in sub-zero temperatures; attacks by trained dogs;
shackling, prolonged use of self-tightening handcuffs and thumbscrews.
Torture victims endure headaches, hallucinations and panic attacks, kidney
malfunction, digestive problems, impaired vision. Those who endured lengthy
prison sentences suffer from progressive cases of vitamin deficiency,
scurvy, cachetic edema and cachexia, conditions resulting from subsisting
on meager and filthy prison rations. The U.S. Humanitarian Aid provides
funds to a Torture Survivor Program in Dharamsala, which at present treats
470 patients.
Ms. Tsering Lhamo (is) director of the Katmandu clinic and deserves special
praise for her service to the refugees. A former Fulbright scholar who
studied in the Washington, DC, area, she embodies the dedication and high
standards of the Dalai Lama's exile culture. The aid mandated by the United
States Congress, which supports her work in Katmandu and the Reception
Center in Dharamsala, has saved lives, healed sick children, rehabilitated
survivors of torture, and should by all means be maintained.
RESETTLEMENT
Today, there are 54 Tibetan settlements throughout India, Bhutan and Nepal;
26 agricultural, 17 agro-industrial and 11 handicraft- based. The Tibetan
refugee population has grown to approximately 121,143. According to a 1994
census, 69,426 Tibetan refugees live in settlements; another 51,715 live in
scattered communities across the Indian subcontinent. The Dalai Lama's
Central Relief Committee, created in 1960, works with the Ministry of Labor
and Rehabilitation of the government of India and various voluntary
organizations to provide assistance to poor, handicapped, unsettled Tibetan
refugees -- (missing text) -- "Without that assistance, we wouldn't even
have a building for the new refugees to sleep in, no bandages, no medicine,
nothing."
One of the singular achievements of His Holiness the Dalai Lama is
establishing a representative government among the Tibetan refugees.
Chinese propaganda declares that he has "restored a feudal serfdom in
exile" and is plotting to do the same in Tibet. To the contrary, on
September 2, 1960, the Dalai Lama created a parliament in exile with
judiciary, executive and legislative branches, and a diverse group of
official and independent news organizations. Members of the Assembly of
Tibetan People's Deputies are elected by ballots cast in all the Tibetan
settlements throughout the subcontinent. The Information Office in
Dharamsala makes a special effort to educate new arrivals about Tibet's's
history, representative democracy and human rights.
The elder Tibetans who created the settlements are the vital link between
the homeland and the exile. Every refugee who was born in Tibet and who
escaped into exile witnessed military invasion. Many lost relatives, many
are survivors of torture, yet most have never had their stories documented
and still have vivid memories of invasion, flight, survival in refugee
camps, adjustment to exile. Those who work for Central Tibetan
Administration are exceptionally dedicated, talented men and women who work
tirelessly on very small salaries. Their empathy and knowledge come from
personal experience. They were once refugees or are the children of
refugees. Said Nyima Samkyar, CTA welfare officer of the Chialsa Tibetan
Settlement in eastern Nepal: "In 1959, there was no one to help; no food,
no doctors, nothing. Hundreds died, especially women and children. Now
there is a place where refugees can stay. There is a nurse, there is some
food, there are people who care."
EDUCATION
The Dalai Lama's Central Tibetan Administration does a remarkable job with
refugee children. Every child is given a place in a school. In 1959, Pandit
Nehru created the Society for Tibetan Education within the Indian Ministry
of Education. Today, there are 85 Tibetan schools in India, Nepal and
Bhutan with a current enrollment of 27,230 students. The 45,550 children
who have attended these schools are the first Tibetans in history to have a
modern multilingual education. Many have earned university degrees in India
and abroad. Many have studied in America as Fulbright Scholars. Tibetan
students in Chinese-occupied Tibet receive substandard education, if any.
Since 1990, about 5,000 Tibetan children have escaped from Tibet, without
family, to seek education in these Tibetan exile schools. The schools are
seriously overcrowded. They need textbooks, supplies, additional
dormitories and classrooms to accommodate the increasing number of refugee
children escaping from Tibet. Most new arrivals from Tibet are young, aged
15 to 28. They have been given no education, no vocational training, no
employment, no freedom of worship, speech and assembly. Although they know
little about their country's history, they are reverently devoted to His
Holiness the Dalai Lama. They know that he was forced into exile in India,
where he has established schools, monasteries and a rule of law. Despite
the illness, disorientation and privation intrinsic to the refugee
experience, every new arrival I have interviewed has expressed relief to
have, for the first time in their lives, freedom of worship, assembly and
expression. Said a 25(-year-old) refugee from Kanze: "The people in Tibet
are given no education. They are kept ignorant and poor. I think all the
new arrivals will improve in India. They'll get education, they'll be free,
they will see Buddhism without guns. They'll change for the better because
they'll get guidance and respect.
"
The U.S. Humanitarian Aid funds the Bir School, which has 700 new-arrival
students between ages 13-17, and the Transit School, which has 550 students
between ages 18-30. Both have long waiting lists. Teachers report that new
arrivals are diligent and eager to learn. Some have mastered English and/or
Hindi. Some have started successful businesses; nevertheless, many live on
the fringes of the exile community, performing menial jobs at best. The CTA
hopes to build a vocational training center for new arrivals near Katmandu.
They had hoped to purchase land in northern India, but funding could not be
secured in time. Integrating the new arrivals into the exile world is
essential to maintain community cohesion and good relations with the host
countries.
CONCLUSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS
His Holiness the Dalai Lama's innumerable attempts to meet with Chinese
leaders to negotiate a settlement have been rejected outright. Beijing
launches vociferous protest whenever His Holiness meets with heads of state
and goes to great length to block support for Tibetan exiles and refugees.
China claims to have "liberated" Tibet from a "feudal serfdom," but after
nearly four decades of Chinese Communist rule, the Tibetans are hardly
willing or contented Chinese subjects. China claims to have modernized
Tibet, but the Tibetan exiles in India have access to both modern and
traditional education, in addition to freedom of expression and worship.
With the support of democratic India, the Dalai Lama's exile community
shows how successfully Tibetans have adapted to representative government
and democratic, liberal values, while retaining their Tibetan Buddhist
traditions. Unless the Politburo is pressured to accept His Holiness's
offer to negotiate in good faith, and as long as Tibet remains in bondage
to the People's Republic of China, Tibetans will continue their exodus to
India.
I would make the following recommendations:
1) Exhort China's leaders to meet with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
2)
Continue aid to the UNHCR mission in Katmandu. Assign a full- time
protection officer to supervise the Tibet-Nepal border.
3) New arrivals
from Tibet provide vital information about conditions inside Tibet. The
U.S. embassy in Nepal and UNHCR have urged that a U.S. monitor employed by
the State Department, interview and record refugee testimony for the State
Department's "Country Reports on Human Rights" Tibet section.
4) Secure
official refugee status and identity cards for new arrivals.
5) Continue to
provide financial and technical assistance to the Central Tibetan
Administration until such time that the Tibetan refugees can return to
their homeland without fear or persecution.
6) Ensure the health and safety
of unaccompanied Tibetan minors entering Nepal and India. Find sponsors for
child refugees whose parents remain in Tibet and those with refugee parents
who cannot work or cannot afford school tuition.
7) Provide special care to
victims of torture.
I thank the chairman and the members of the committee for accepting this
testimony.
_ 1998, Congressional Information Service, Inc. All Rights Reserved.