Published by: World Tibet Network News, Friday, May 17, 1996

by Lee Moriwaki

Seattle Times Religion Reporter

May 16, 1996

The wisp of a Tibetan monk snapped the miniature handcuff around his left thumb, then slung his arm over his left shoulder. From the opposite side he moved his right arm past the arch of his back, toward the second jaw of the tiny steel thumbcuff.

In this way, Venerable Palden Gyatso demonstrated how Chinese prison guards in occupied Tibet would twist his arms behind him, grab the front of his clothes, shake him and demand to know, "Are you still calling for independence? Isn't Tibet a part of China? Isn't it? Isn't it?"

The interrogations, beatings and torture multiplied. But even after 33 years in Chinese prisons and labor camps in Tibet, even after Gyatso lost all his teeth after a prison official jammed an electric cattle prod into his mouth on Oct. 13, 1990, the Buddhist monk said he harbors no hatred or anger toward his captors.

Instead, he asks the world community to join in urging China to return Tibet to the Tibetan people.

Gyatso, 65, brought his message of peace and human rights to Seattle yesterday as part of a global speaking tour he has embarked on since escaping Tibet in 1992. He spoke last night in Kane Hall at the University of Washington, and in a separate interview at the Tibetan Rights Campaign office in Seattle.

Carrying the tools of torture

Dressed in the traditional maroon and saffron robes of a Tibetan Buddhist monk, Gyatso carefully opened a maroon pouch on the table in front of him. One by one he pulled out some of the tools of torture he said were used on him and that he managed to acquire before fleeing Tibet for Nepal and then India.

He laid out four electric batons used for shocking the body. There were the thumbcuffs and a pair of full-sized handcuffs.

He extracted two sharp knives from his pouch that he said members of China's People's Armed Police use to stab Tibetans who demonstrate for independence.

Chinese authorities have repeatedly denied reports they are torturing and brutalizing Tibetans, but Gyatso said he is living proof that they are.

"China is very strong. It has a very big military. It doesn't pay attention to Tibetans and what we are saying. We need your help, people in America, to tell the Chinese, to impress on them, that they need to listen to what we are saying and to respect our human rights," Gyatso said.

Gyatso is urging the Chinese government to enter into a dialogue over returning Tibet to the Tibetan people. China has occupied Tibet since 1949, claiming the land is critical to its national security.

Gyatso said trade sanctions by the U.S. against China might help. So might world pressure in molding public opinion.

Monk seeks peaceful solution

Kunzang Yuthok, executive director of the Tibetan Rights Campaign, a Seattle-based human-rights organization, said she would like to see President Clinton and other world leaders intercede to bring Chinese and Tibetan leaders to the table, as they did with the Israelis and the Palestinians in the Middle East.

Under no circumstances, however, could Gyatso justify using violence against the Chinese.

"That is not our way," he said simply.

Tibet, on China's southwestern border, was under China's claim from the 13th to 19th centuries. It gained independence in 1911 but was annexed again following an invasion by China in 1949. The Chinese military crushed a Tibetan uprising in 1959, after which the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of all Tibetan Buddhism, fled to India with thousands of followers.

But Gyatso, 28 at the time, was captured and charged with being "a reactionary element." He was sentenced to a seven-year prison term in southern Tibet. In 1962, he escaped from prison with six others, but they were caught. An additional eight years were added to his sentence.

After his prison term ended, he was transferred to a labor camp outside of Lhasa, Tibet's capital, instead of being allowed to return home. One night in 1979, he sneaked away from the camp and put up posters in Lhasa calling for Tibet's independence. It wasn't until 1983 that authorities charged him with putting up the posters. He was sentenced to nine years in prison.

Gyatso fled Tibet after his release from the Drapchi Prison in 1992. He walked three nights and four days through the forests and over the Himalaya Mountains into Nepal. He is now based in Dharamsala, India, where the Dalai Lama lives.

Photo caption: The Venerable Palden Gyatso spent 33 years incarcerated in China.