Published by: World Tibet Network News, Thursday, Apr 18, 1996

San Francisco Bay Guardian

BY RICHARD S. EHRLICH

KATHMANDU, NEPAL -- In the latest chapter of a long story of mistreatment, at least a dozen Tibetans who escaped across the Himalayas in an attempt to reach the Dalai Lama's sanctuary in northern India were caught by Chinese security forces and "systematically tortured," a senior U.S. diplomat here said.

"Damning information will be coming out soon," the senior American diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Bay Guardian. "Tibetans were systematically tortured by the Chinese. The descriptions of where it happened and how it happened are consistent. They are credible enough that there's a lot of concern."

According to the diplomat, the torture included the use of electric cattle prods as well as various forms of physical abuse. "It's fair to say a dozen or so people so far" -- both men and women -- were tortured by Chinese security officials, he said. "This is not torture to extract information. This is 'we are sending a message to the Tibetan people' torture."

International human-rights groups have reported that Chinese torture often includes jabbing cattle prods -- which can conduct thousands of volts of electrical current -- into a detainee's mouth, vagina, or anus. The torture can cause intense pain, temporary paralysis, and loss of consciousness.

"In Tibet, torture is the only known method of interrogating and obtaining confessions from prisoners," the Dalai Lama's human-rights officer, Chimey Dollker, told the Bay Guardian. "In winter, prisoners are made to stand on ice for hours, and cold water is poured on them," Dollker said. "In summer, prisoners are locked in heated rooms or suspended in air with a fire burning below. Using such methods of torture prevents the appearance of any torture marks on the prisoner, who may implicate his torturers after being released."

Refugees

In 1959 an estimated 80,000 people fled Tibet along with its spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. He established a government-in-exile in northern India, near the border with Tibet and Nepal. For the past 35 years refugees have continued to escape Tibet, risking arrest, frostbite, snow blindness, and even death to try to reach Dalai Lama-sponsored Tibetan communities in India. Tibetans leave their homeland for a number of reasons: political dissidents fear arrest, and apolitical Tibetans complain of racial discrimination by Chinese employers, education officials, and others.

The new reports on refugee torture date back to the spring of 1995, soon after the April visit of Nepal's then-prime minister, Man Mohan Adhikari, to Beijing. It was his first official visit since his Communist Party had won power in November 1994.

"During that [Nepali communist] period, some Tibetans who came across the border and claimed refugee status were turned back," the American diplomat said. "We got reports that these refugees were being forcibly pushed back. The Nepalese government denied it. But we and other embassies and the United Nations had good reason to believe the denials were not truthful. It was of concern enough that the United States and others did make a dmarche."

The diplomatic dmarche, or petition, included protests by the U.S., Australian, and British embassies in Kathmandu -- and by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. They expressed concern to Nepal over the forcible return of 200 to 400 refugees. The Dalai Lama's official Tibetan Bulletin reported that among the refugees were three former political prisoners who could face particularly harsh reprisals from the Chinese authorities.

Nepal sent the refugees back to Chinese officials at the Friendship Bridge frontier crossing north of Kathmandu. Some of the Tibetans were then tortured by Chinese security officials, the diplomat said. Some of the alleged torture victims later tried to cross into Nepal a second time. Of this group, he said, about a dozen people reached Nepal, where they described how they and others were abused. (The refugees have since traveled through Nepal and are reportedly now in India's Tibetan community.)

"It doesn't sound like a lot of people, but these are people who got here, were sent back, and got here again," the envoy said. The total number of alleged torture cases is not known, perhaps because many Tibetans didn't manage to cross the border the second time, he added.

Robbie Barnett of the London-based Tibetan Information Network also confirmed the reports.

"We have a lot of accounts from people who were not deported by the Nepalese but were caught by the Chinese just before they crossed the border into Nepal," Barnett told the Bay Guardian. "Their accounts are almost identical to those of the Nepal deportees, and we are sure that deportees get treated in the same way as these people attempting to escape."

"The security services are not looking to extract information from these people," he added, echoing the American diplomat's assertion. "They are not spies or activists, merely people running away, usually farm workers, monks, and nuns who have been released from prison, or unemployed youths. The treatment from the guards therefore is not extractive but punitive and is designed to punish, humiliate, or to show lack of respect."

Barnett said that all refugees reported some kind of mistreatment, from beatings and lack of food and water to denial of access to any legal process. Most were held for two to three months without knowing what they were being charged with.

"Technically, by violating border regulations and 'secretly crossing the national boundary' [the refugees] are breaking a law in China -- Article 176 of the Criminal Code -- and liable to a maximum sentence of one year," he said. "But none of these people is even brought before an administrative sentencing committee, let alone a court."

Barnett cited the case of Sherab Dragpa, 25, a monk allegedly deported by Nepalese officials in April 1995. During Dragpa's detention in Tibet's Xigatse prison, the monk claimed, "They asked questions every day, and really ill-treated us, with electric prods, sticks, beating, and kicking each of us." He escaped while in transit to another prison and finally reached Kathmandu in November, according to a recent report from the Tibetan Information Network.

Mixed signals

Interrogations and detentions reportedly occurred in Tibet's main cities, Xigatse (also known as Shigatse) and Lhasa. Bhuchung K. Tsering, communications director at the Washington, D.C.-based International Campaign for Tibet, told the Bay Guardian, "Whatever the American diplomat in Kathmandu has told you appears to be true."

Beijing consistently denies reports of torture, discrimination, or other anti-Tibetan policies. China insists Tibet is an impoverished province in need of rapid economic development and that it has been sending Chinese and foreign engineers, investors, traders, and other developers to the vast, lightly populated region.

"This embassy would agitate for at least a statement, maybe not condemning, but calling the Chinese to account for, these policies," the American envoy said. "This is just a chapter in a long story of mistreatment [of Tibetans by the Chinese]."

He said he was pessimistic that the general public would be concerned about the latest incidents, and he expressed cynicism over Washington's role in the matter. "Our policy toward China swings with the wind. One month we're tough on these guys, and then we've got to give them some slack."

The envoy said that the apparent border crackdown was "contrary to previous governments" in Nepal that either welcomed the refugees or turned a blind eye to their arrival. But he added that since the Nepali Communist Party lost power in September 1995, the new government has ordered a "policy change" to again allow Tibetan refugees.

Richard S. Ehrlich is a Bangkok, Thailand-based reporter.