10 March 1959 was the day when the Tibetans rose up against the might of China and declared their desire for freedom and independence for the whole Tibet. This movement was initiated by the rank and file of the Tibetan people. China was able to quickly suppress the uprising, but not the spirit of the Tibetan people for freedom from tyranny and injustice.

China invaded Tibet in 1949/1950. Whatever resistance the tiny Tibetan army put up again the battle-hardened People's Liberation Army, flushed with victory over the nationalist Chinese and over the Americans in the Korean peninsula, was no match for China's fighting machine. Tibet appealed for international assistance, but no help was forthcoming. Forced to face China alone, Tibet was compelled to sign the infamous 17-point treaty in which she was coerced by China to sign away her sovereignty in 1951 in Beijing. For a period of nine years Buddhist Tibet and communist China coexisted uneasily.

But increasing Chinese repression in nort-eastern and eastern Tibet forced Tibetans in that region to take to the countryside and take up armed resistance, which soon engulfed the whole Tibet. The cycle of repression and resistance in Amdo and Kham forced thousands of Tibetans to flee to the comparative safety of central Tibet and to Lhasa. The resentment of the Tibetans of China's arrogant treatment of the Tibetan government was fueled by the tales of destruction of monasteries, the killing of Tibetan lamas and monks brought by the refugees from eastern Tibet. Soon the smouldering Tibetan discontent burst into open defiance of China, as tens of thousands of ordinary Tibetans spilled into the streets of Lhasa on 10 March 1959, demanding Tibetan independence.

The 10 March 1959 uprising was a spontaneous movement of the Tibetan people aimed at ridding Tibet of Chinese tyranny and occupation. Angered by the diplomacy of the Tibetan government to appease China in order to avoid further shedding of Tibetan blood, inspired by the Khamba resistance movement to confront China head on, the smouldering resentment of the Tibetan people burst into one last ditch effort to strike for Tibetan freedom. On 12 March the women of Tibet took to the streets of Lhasa.

It took the People's Liberation Army a little over three days to wipe out the uprising in Lhasa, but not the resistance movement which mushroomed all over Tibet. In all, according to China's own estimate, about 87,000 Tibetan were killed in central Tibet alone to re-assert the People's Liberation Army's shaky occupation of Tibet.

The 10 March uprising resulted in the fight of the Dalai Lama, members of his government and about 80,000 Tibetans into India, Nepal and Bhutan. In India the Dalai Lama re-established the Tibetan government, a government not recognised by any nation in the world but regarded as the legitimate government of Tibet by both Tibetans in and outside Tibet. From its base in Dharamsala, a north Indian town in the foothills of the Himalayas, the Tibetan government, under the leadership of the Dalai Lama, has developed an effective, nonviolent resistance to China's continuing occupation of Tibet, a resistance which now encompasses a worldwide movement for the freedom of the Tibetan people.

It only took China three days to suppress the 1959 10 March uprising, but China has not been able to suppress the spirit of that uprising which continues to burn ever more brightly in the hearts of every Tibetan in the world. In 1959, 87,000 Tibetan were killed, and more than 1,2 million Tibetans have died as a direct result of the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

Tibetans commemorate 10 March every year wherever they are, to remind themselves and the world that those Tibetans who have died for the cause of the freedom of the Tibetan people had not died in vain, that their death is a just and worthy sacrifice for the birth of a free and independent Tibet.