In Exile From the Land of Snows

by John Avedon

  After almost two and a half years of contact, Dharamsala and Peking reached a breakthrough. At the Dalai Lama’s request, China agreed to receive an official fact-finding delegation to examine conditions in Tibet and reestablish contact between the exile government and its people in the homeland. Comprised of two Cabinet ministers, the Vice-Chairman of the Tibetan People’s Deputies, a department secretary and the Dalai Lama’s immediate elder brother, Lobsang Samten, the delegation was, if all went well, to be followed, in time, by three more. Between them, they were to crisscross every region, except the far west, of Tibet’s three original provinces, conducting one of the most extensive inspection tours in the nation’s history. Once their reports were received in India, the next stage in discussions would be considered.

  ON AUGUST 2, 1979, the first delegation left New Delhi for Hong Kong. At their arrival the five men were greeted by Chinese officials at the airport and driven to a guest house in the city. The next day they attended a luncheon at the Hong Kong bureau of the New China News Agency, the motherland’s equivalent of a legation in the Crown Colony. With a glass of mai tai liquor in hand, their host rose to offer a toast. “Welcome,” he began. “We are the great land of China and you are the minority people. For too long you have been separated from your motherland. We two peoples, the Han and the Tibetan—one of the most important minority groups—should never be apart. Now we are very happy that you have come back to visit. Once again you can see your own homes and birthplace. You must understand,” he concluded, “that you have such a good opportunity only because of the enlightened policy and excellent qualities of the Communist Party leadership.”

  “We were very patient,” said Lobsang Samten, recalling the delegation’s reaction to what, over the five months their tour lasted, proved to be a standard speech. “But of course it was infuriating. Everything the man said was a lie. Yet he spoke as though we all agreed. We didn’t return the toast but for the moment there was nothing else we could do.”

  A few days later, the delegation entered China proper. Greeted on the tarmac of the Canton airport by the city’s deputy mayor and a bevy of officials, they were ushered into the terminal, where, beneath a colossal portrait of Mao Zedong and a giant-character slogan, stood clusters of Red Army soldiers. “It was very curious,” continued Lobsang Samten. “The airport was completely empty except for ourselves, customs officials and the troops. This made all of us uneasy. We had fled our country because of the Communist Chinese and here we were right back among them. I couldn’t help thinking, ‘Now I’ve finally fallen into the hands of my enemies.’ ” Issued special permits noting their entry into China, without, however, stamps being affixed to their passports—thereby avoiding a dispute over citizenship—the delegates were driven on a tour of Canton and then returned to the airport for the flight to Peking. On landing in the capital at nine o’clock that evening, they were formally welcomed at the foot of the aircraft by thirty officials, among whom were the highest-ranking members of the Nationalities Affairs Commission of the PRC. Their presence reassured the delegation of its elite status. Nevertheless, the sense of being intentionally isolated soon returned. After a long ride into Peking’s suburbs, they were driven through a locked gate past rifle-bearing sentries to the entrance of a lone twelve-story building. Within, each man was shown to a small room, where a snack of yogurt and biscuits waited by a bed, and then left to what, for most, proved an uneasy sleep. The following morning they were escorted through a ground-floor dining hall to a breakfast room. En route they caught a glimpse of the guest house’s other occupants: hundreds of high-ranking officers and adjutants of the People’s Liberation Army. Having lost so many relatives and friends to the PLA, the delegates could not help but feel that the Chinese were attempting to intimidate them. As Lobsang Samten related, “Of course, army guest houses are among the better residences in China. But in our case, the choice of one to stay in had particular significance. It was meant to let us know who held the power.”

  Two weeks of planning followed. Each day after breakfast—Mr. Kao, a senior official in the Nationalities Affairs Commission, arrived at a conference room in the company of a dozen assistants bearing detailed maps of Tibet. Gradually a three-and-a-half-month itinerary covering roughly 2,500 miles and 50 stops was settled on. Mr. Kao offered a virtual carte blanche, insisting that, except for areas without roads and bridges, the country was open. Between sessions he also sought to persuade the delegation to accede to China’s aims for Tibet. “There’s no use in staying outside any longer,” he repeated throughout their first days together. “You must come back to live in the motherland. We should be friends and work together. Please tell the Dalai that every suitable arrangement will be made for him if he returns.”

  On a tour of the Peking Institute of National Minorities, the delegates met their first compatriots. As they strolled across the campus in the company of a few young Tibetans, free, temporarily, of surveillance, each man gingerly broached the topic of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. “It was very revealing,” said Lobsang Samten. “All the students we spoke with were extremely nationalistic. They had been born under alien rule. They had never known an independent Tibet. Yet every one was against the Chinese. We were amazed. These students, after all, are being trained as cadres.” A second encounter with Tibetans came after leaving Peking, once more at a Minorities Institute, this time in Langzhou, capital of Gansu Province, the last stop before entering northeast Tibet. Again breaking into small, unobtrusive groups, the delegates managed to speak with prominent Tibetans from adjacent Amdo, now called Chinghai Province. Walking through the tall fir trees and buildings of the campus, Lobsang Samten was told by one man, just released after nineteen years in prison: “Whatever the Chinese say or do, don’t trust them. Whatever they say about us Tibetans, don’t believe it. We are all united against them. There are underground groups across the whole country and even in the prisons. The young people in particular are very committed.”

  Early on the morning of August 28 the delegation left Langzhou in two white Toyota minibuses. Escorted by six army jeeps containing twenty local officials plus ten who had accompanied them from Peking, they drove due west toward the foothills of the Hsi-ching Mountains. At the edge of the plain of China, the column paused for lunch in a small Moslem village. Afterwards, it began the two-hour ascent to the first pass, which, at an altitude of 10,000 feet, gave onto the far eastern rim of the Tibetan Plateau. Their mood increasingly expectant, the delegation stared at the countryside until a swarthy middle-aged nomad, dressed in a thick sheepskin robe, his single braid topped by a bright blue piece of turquoise, came into view by the side of the road. But it was the black-and-white animal standing next to him that brought forth an immediate outburst. “There’s a yak! A yak!” cried Lobsang Samten. “Stop the car!”

  The column came to an abrupt halt and the delegates ran out, calling to the perplexed nomad who returned a polite but vacanat smile. Once informed that the men had been sent by the Dalai Lama, his face fell into a look of utter disbelief, whereupon he clasped both hands in prayer, bowed his head and said simply, “Thank you.” From a nearby field a group of women and children raced over. Sharing apples with them, the delegates insisted on taking their picture again and again with the yak. “We didn’t care what the Chinese thought about us,” said Lobsang Samten, laughing. “It might seem silly, but you can’t imagine how it felt just to see a yak after all those years.” Before returning to the buses, the men learned that their destination was now close by: Labrang Tashikhiel, the largest city in Amdo, renowned, since the eighteenth century, for its resplendent monastery of over 5,000 monks.

  Yaks, fields and haystacks passed in increasing numbers. The sun began to dip behind the mountains and then, once more, the cars stopped. A group of Chinese officials stood in the center of the road, their jeep parked to one side. After a hurried conference, one of the cadres approached the delegation and, speaking through their interpreter, said, “You are two kilomet
ers from Tashikhiel now. We are concerned, though, about your safety. There are thousands of people waiting up ahead. We don’t know how they heard that you were coming. Please don’t stop your bus, don’t open the door or windows, don’t put your hands out, keep everything closed. Whatever happens, you must not talk to the people.”

  “We were very surprised,” recounted Lobsang Samten. “But at that juncture, we tried to compromise. Later, we learned that Tibetans in Langzhou had sent word to Tashikhiel saying that a delegation from the Dalai Lama was coming and that even a brother of His Holiness, myself, was in the group.”

  In a few more minutes the outskirts of Tashikhiel came into view with more than 6,000 people lining the road on either side. As the first jeep slowed, the crowd began to clap and shout. Then, seeing the delegation, it closed in on the column. “We opened our windows,” continued Lobsang Samten. “It was unbelievable. Everywhere people were shouting, throwing scarves, apples and flowers. They were dying to see us. They broke the windows of all the cars. They climbed on the roofs and pushed inside, stretching out their hands to touch us. The Chinese were screaming, ‘Don’t go out! Don’t go out! They’ll kill you! They’ll kill you!” All of the Tibetans were weeping, calling, ‘How is the Dalai Lama? How is His Holiness?” We yelled back, ‘He is fine. How are you?’ Then, when we saw how poor they were, it was so sad, we all started crying, too.

  With freedom of assembly banned for over twenty years, the demonstration was almost inconceivable to the Chinese. “Mr. Kao was sitting next to me in the bus,” Lobsang Samten related. “He was terrified. ‘You are the representative of the Dalai Lama,’ he shouted, ‘and the people are trying to get blessings even from you. What would happen if the Dalai himself came? We cannot control it. We cannot be responsible. These people are just crazy!’ I had to talk to him like a child. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘We are used to it. They love the Dalai Lama. They’ve missed him for so many years, and when his people visit, they like it.’ ”

  As Tashikhiel’s few electric lights came on an hour and a half later, the column, immersed in a sea of people, reached the gates of a PLA guest house. There, a troop of white-jacketed police held the Tibetans back until, disembarking inside the tall iron fence surrounding the complex, the delegates calmed the crowd by promising to see them in the morning. Hundreds, however, refused to depart and instead camped before the gates. Inside, the Chinese officials were in an uproar. The delegation tried to appease them, but at the moment their own feelings took precedence. As Lobsang Samten explained, “That night we were all very upset. We were so proud of our people. The way they received us—their strength—was so encouraging. But it was also very sad. Their poverty was extreme. Most were just in rags, like beggars. And then, too, the situation was very difficult. We Tibetans were back together again, but we weren’t free. The Chinese were still there between us.”

  The next morning, Lobsang Samten was disturbed soon after rising, by a knock on his door. One of the two doctors traveling with the group, accompanied by a translator, stepped into his room. “How are you feeling?” the doctor asked. “I expect you are not feeling well at all.” “I feel fine,” Lobsang Samten replied. “You must take care of yourself,” the physician continued. “Please do not exert yourself unduly and don’t become overexcited. The altitude can be very dangerous.” After taking blood pressure and temperature, the doctor departed, leaving Lobsang Samten laughing in spite of himself. “The Chinese are so careful when they go up to Tibet,” he reflected. “During the entire trip we Tibetans felt well, but the people from Peking constantly suffered headaches, nausea and nosebleeds. Their faces swelled up and every day they were forced to stop once or twice to vomit by the roadside.” Each jeep was equipped with four three-foot-long sausage-shaped rubber oxygen pillows with a tube protruding from one end. These were primarily used by the officials from Peking, who were soon breathing from them, slumped in their seats throughout the day. In some cases altitude sickness because so severe that the pillows had to be carried continually. The sight of the Chinese walking slowly about at rest stops, a long tube stuck in one nostril, an ungainly pillow tucked under an arm, more than offset the delegates’ own informal behavior.

  After breakfast a meeting of forty of the cadres was convened. “It is our duty to protect you,” said the local party secretary to the delegation. “We don’t know who these people are and we can’t control them. To avoid being troubled, you must visit Tashikhiel Monastery by car today. You must stay together and not separate or mix with the people.” Lobsang Samten replied on the delegation’s behalf. “We are Tibetan,” he said. “The people greeting us are also Tibetan. Thus there is no problem. Whatever occurs, we will assume full responsibility.” The assurance, though, proved unsatisfactory. The party secretary replied, “Now, it is impossible for you to go out—unless you do so in the manner I’ve said.” Lobsang Samten paused before answering and then stated, “The Dalai Lama has informed the authorities in Peking that he has sent his people for the express purpose of discovering the feelings and conditions of the Tibetans in Tibet. This was agreed upon by the Peking government and the Dalai Lama. Therefore, we will not avoid the crowd but are going to walk directly through it and meet the people.” To diffuse the confrontation Mr. Kao intervened. “It is true,” he said. “This was agreed between Peking and the Dalai. Whatever they want we must let them do it.” “At that point everyone fell silent,” said Lobsang Samten. “We won this argument, but the same fight came up at every single stop. In general, the officials who traveled with us from Peking were patient, polite and diplomatic. On the other hand, the local authorities were terrible—short-tempered and narrow-minded. They behaved crudely, ordering and pushing us here and there. This is one thing we learned, that has made life very difficult for our people over the years.”

  At ten o’clock, the delegation left the guest house and walked to the gate. The Tibetans who had slept the night beside it were waiting. Behind them, lining the road to Ashikhile Monastery a mile and a quarter away, stood almost 10,000 people. While a Chinese official filmed and took notes (a task he performed every day of the trip), the delegates walked eagerly through the gates to greet the crowd. As they did a nearby police officer ordered his waiting detachment to surround them. Simultaneously, the officials from the meeting converged on the five men hoping as well to block them off. The attempt lasted no more than a moment. Like a wave, the Tibetans surged in from all sides straining to reach the delegation. “It all happened just like before,” said Lobsang Samten. “Everyone rushed at us, weeping and calling for His Holiness. People were crying hysterically. There were some who just collapsed in tears on the ground. The others pulled our hair and tore our clothes for mementos—blessings in fact. From that time on, I lost so much hair, my hands were always cut and my voice was constantly hoarse from shouting to crowds. Altogether one overcoat, a raincoat, two shirts and a cap were torn off my back during the trip.”

  The delegation had brought a few hundred small photos of the Dalai Lama, as well as a number of red protection cords personally blessed by him. After the second stop on their tour, the supply of both was exhausted, compelling the men to distribute their own rosaries, a bead at a time. On this first morning, the forty pictures they carried disappeared well before reaching the entrance to Tashikhiel Monastery. Lobsang Samten had seen the cloister in 1955, while returning with the Dalai Lama from his trip to China. Then, its massive gold-roofed assembly hall had presided over a city of whitewashed hostels and shrines, whose streets were filled with a cavalcade of monks and pilgrims. Now 90 percent of the monastery was gone, razed to the ground, with only a few fenced-in buildings remaining. On a vacant field, newly created before the surviving structures, a few hundred elderly Tibetans had arranged themselves into a long line. Holding white scarves and flowers, they wept profusely as the delegation walked by. “God! They were crying so much,” recounted Samten. “ ‘Now we have nothing left,’ they kept saying. ‘Everything has been destroyed!’ Wh
at could we say? Once Tashikhiel was a fantastic, a beautiful place. Now everything is finished. The Chinese just tore it all down.”

  Eleven aged monks, dressed in brand-new robes, welcomed the delegates before the main building. Shown within, the men were surprised to find butter lamps burning, religious paintings neatly arranged on the walls and fresh offerings before the images. Then, over tea and biscuits in a reception room, a well-dressed cadre who had been waiting at the monastery stood up and made a speech. “You can see from these temples how the Communist Party ensures freedom of religion,” he began. “In the old society there was no such freedom. The monks never worked. They only exploited the people. But now, after land reform and the Party’s rule, all of that has been abolished. Conditions have become extremely good.” One of the Cabinet ministers in the delegation asked, “What happened to all the buildings?” “Unfortunately, under the left-deviationist policies of the Gang of Four, some excesses occurred,” replied the cadre. “And where are the five thousands monks?” inquired the minister. “Following the 1959 uprising, they voluntarily chose to leave and take up new lives as farmers. Today none wish to return.”

  In reality, as Lobsang Samten knew from talking quietly to a monk during the tour, Labrang Tashikhiel had been destroyed a full decade before the Cultural Revolution. Prior to the 1959 revolt its riches had been shipped to China, its scholars, physicians and artists sent to prison camps, from which only a handful returned alive. Only the empty buildings had been demolished during the Cultural Revolution. A month earlier, the eleven monks present had been collected from various communes in the neighboring countryside, along with images, scriptures and butter lamps scavenged from other ruins. Brought to the abandoned monastery, they had been ordered to create a facsimile of its previous state in time for the exiles’ visit.