Posted on 10/11/2006 8:08:23 AM PDT by dead
An Australian mountaineer was among dozens of climbers at a Himalayan base camp who watched in horror as Chinese soldiers shot Tibetan refugees "like rats, dogs [and] rabbits", leaving at least one teenage nun lying dead in the snow.
The incident, witnessed by international climbers and Sherpas at a camp on Mount Cho Oyu - about 20 kilometres west of Mount Everest - occurred on September 30 as a group of refugees, including many children, made their way across the 5700-metre-high Nangpa La Pass from Tibet to Nepal and then on to Dharamsala in India - the home of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
Detailed accounts of the attack are beginning to filter through despite what the British newspaper, The Independent, described as an attempt by Chinese authorities to silence the many Western climbers and Sherpas who witnessed the shooting.
A Tibetan monk who managed to reach Nepal was quoted in the paper as saying: "We started walking early through the Nangpa La Pass. Then the soldiers arrived. They started shooting and we ran; there were 15 children from eight to 10; only one escaped arrest.
"I just ran to save my life by praying to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I think the soldiers fired for 15 minutes."
"They were shouting, but I did not hear them ... I just heard gunshots passing my ears. I don't remember how many people were shot."
Another said: "When the Chinese started shooting, it was terrifying. We could only hear the gunfire and our friends screaming. We tried to take care of the seven-year-old girl with us."
Steve Lawes, a British police officer and mountaineer who was about 300 metres from the soldiers, told The Independent: "One person fell, got up, but then fell again."
An Australian climber, who did not give his name, told Reuters: "I looked through the telescope. I saw two objects - the first one looked like it was a backpack and the second one was definitely a body."
The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) said a young Tibetan nun was confirmed dead while there were unconfirmed reports that a young refugee boy was killed.
The organisation said it also had fears for the safety of about 10 Tibetan refugee children who were arrested by the Chinese soldiers after fleeing from the gunshots.
Mr Lawes told The Independent that the children were marched single file through the base camp.
"The children were in single file, about six feet away from me. They didn't see us - they weren't looking around the way kids normally would, they were too frightened. By that time, advance base camp was crawling with soldiers. We were doing our best not to do anything that might spark off more violence."
Another climber, Sergiu Matei from Romania, gave his account of the incident at a mountaineering website, MountEverest.net.
"I heard machine-gun bursts - I was having my black tea in the chicken tent," Mr Matei said.
"It was actually the Chinese militias hunting Tibetans on to the glacier ... They were shooting Tibetans like rats, dogs, rabbits - you name it."
He said he gave one refugee boy, who was found hiding in the climbers' base camp toilet, food and clothing before the boy continued on his way across the pass towards Nepal.
Some staff at mountaineering companies operating in the area were reportedly keeping quiet about the incident for fear that commenting might jeopardise their permits to enter the Tibetan region.
"Most of them won't go on record and give their names because they are working for international organisations that want to keep their rights to climb in the region," the executive officer of the Australia Tibet Council, Paul Bourke, told smh.com.au.
Mr Bourke said he was "stunned" by the shootings.
"It's quite common for Tibetans to use this path back and forth and this seems like it wasn't an accident. It seems like they were deliberately fired upon."
At least 43 of the refugees managed to reach Nepal but the whereabouts of about 30 others was not known, the ICT said.
Hundreds of Tibetans cross the Himalayas every year to Nepal, many making their way to Dharamsala, a town in northern India where their exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, has been living since 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule.
Nepal is home to more than 20,000 Tibetan refugees. But recent arrivals are not allowed to stay in Nepal and must travel to neighbouring India.
Communist troops entered Tibet in 1950 and overthrew the Buddhist theocracy.
The U.N.'s silence on this is deafening.
So all of the buffoons on the left think the U.S. is the root of all evil in the world...hah...God help us all if the Chinese ever attain a preponderant position in world affairs.
But business is business.
I sure hope I'm interpreting that sentence wrong because if I'm not...Well, they got their priorities straight...man-o-man, what a world-what a world.
Screw the refugees right to climb to freedom, we want to keep our rights to climb for fun!
If not, there is nothing to deter the Chinese at all, and only a rare few will ever tell the tale.
The situation is an old one, but the information is seldom taken up by the media. If climbers from those organizations can be there, there is a chance it will get more exposure.
Many years ago, I wrote a letter to the editor at the New York Times asking why their maps always showed the lands won by Israel after it was attacked by Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in the Six Days War as "Occupied Territory," yet only a few days after China invaded Tibet their maps labeled the conquered land of Tibet simply as "China."
I got two anxious letters back from the editors, but neither offered a real explanation. Clearly it was a sore point for them at the time.
Their presence didn't deter the chicoms one iota though, did it? They wouldn't care who was there to witness their murdering ways. Perhaps they'll(chicoms)see it as a way of spreading the word---come this way and we'll kill ya.
That is sick!
I would forward this to my Chinese coworkers but I would just get the usual response: "It's all lies."
A "Teen-age" Nun? The AHEM men the the Peoples' Republic Army must be really proud. Running over students with tanks, shooting Nuns in the back. What are they Muslims or something?
Well, I hope they don't start shooting refugees within sight of the Olympics in 2012. That might prove to be distracting.
Also from Steyn is this bumper sticker:
Free Iraq: Done. Free Afghanistan: Done.
How's your Free Tibet campaign going?
Where's Richard Gere? He's been awfully silent. (Insert Gerbil joke here)
2008 Beijing.
Not that there is anything wrong with that...
In the Northeast, the "Free Tibet" sticker is equivalent to a parking sticker at a liberal campus. It usually means that you have either personally attended or know someone who has attended or would like to attend a meeting with the Dalai Lama.
Therefore your "enlightenment" is somewhat higher than, "Edwina, back in bowl."
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