By Loretta Tofani

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

The Philadelphia Inquirer - Sunday, December 8, 1996

When it comes to human rights in China, the United States has been backing off, reluctant to risk trade by using it as leverage. To Tibetans, that spells no relief from the routine and ruthless assaults exacted by the Chinese police.

Each time the cattle prod stung her back with an electric current, Lobsang Choedon said, she could feel her skin ``sizzle.''

Then came electric shocks to her face, mouth and arms.

Choedon was 16, a Buddhist nun, and she was being punished for a tiny act of defiance against the Chinese Communist government: On Feb. 3, 1992, Choedon, in her burgundy robes, walked to the Jokhang, Tibet's most sacred temple, with five other young nuns. There, they prayed. Then they chanted these words: ``Long live His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Independence for Tibet. Peace to the world.''

Within minutes, Choedon was arrested. She said police threw her in a van, then beat her and kicked her with metal-toed boots. When she arrived at the jail, she said, police shocked her face, mouth and arms repeatedly with a 7,000-volt cattle prod.

``Then I went numb,'' Choedon recalled last month in an interview in India, where she has lived since 1995. ``Then the next day, all the pain hit me again.''

She was sentenced without trial and served three years in prison. Three other nuns imprisoned with her also were tortured repeatedly, she said. They were not as fortunate as Choedon. They died after their torture - at ages 18, 19 and 24.

In Tibet, a land occupied by China since 1949, torture and intimidation are facts of life for Tibetans caught up in a Chinese campaign to eradicate Tibet's religion, nationality and culture. In hundreds of interviews over the last two years, Tibetans have said Chinese police routinely arrest, jail and torture people who question Chinese authority, even in the most mundane ways.

Tibet, known primarily for its Buddhism and scenic mountains, was invaded by China over a 10-year period beginning in 1949. The Tibetan government - headed by the nation's spiritual and political leader, the Dalai Lama - fled to exile in India in 1959, when China seized control of Lhasa, the capital.

Tibetans interviewed in India, Nepal and Tibet said Chinese police and prison guards beat prisoners with chains, metal rods, and wooden sticks spiked with nails - usually while the victims are shackled or hanging from a ceiling. The most common instrument of torture, the Tibetans said, is the electric cattle prod, used in most countries to herd cows weighing up to 1,200 pounds. The police ram the prods into prisoners' mouths, rectums and vaginas, according to Tibetans who have been imprisoned.

Their accounts have been verified by medical examinations and polygraph tests.

The former prisoners also report that police have held them in water while shocking them, branded their flesh with hot irons, kicked and beat them while they were on the ground, ordered trained dogs to attack and bite them, and locked them in concrete "coffins" for days or months at a time.

Virtually all Tibetans arrested for political reasons are tortured, according to interviews with hundreds of Tibetans, most of whom had been in prison.

China's official response to these findings was given last week by Lu Wen Xiang, first secretary in the press office of the Chinese Embassy in Washington: ``This is not government policy. Chinese law forbids torture in jail. . . . I can't say this never happens. It depends on certain people.''

China regards Tibet as part of China, saying China's activities there are an internal matter.

While atrocities in Bosnia and other countries command world attention, China has managed to keep the struggle in Tibet quiet. As the sole remaining superpower, the United States is the only nation with the political and economic leverage to pressure China into curbing human-rights abuses. It has condemned China's human-rights policies, but has not taken tough measures such as economic sanctions.

For the last 16 years, China has requested - and received - most-favored-nation trade status, which allows it to export goods to the United States with low tariffs. The United States has denied such trade status to eight countries - including North Korea and Cuba - citing human-rights violations and other policy differences.

In 1995, China sold $45.5 billion in goods to the United States. Some of China's profits from exports to America are used, indirectly, to fund China's military and police activities in Tibet - including its suppression of Tibetans. This year, for the first time, China for several months surpassed Japan as the country accounting for the United States' largest trade deficit.

On Nov. 24, President Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin agreed to exchange state visits over the next two years. That announcement, coupled with the Clinton administration's policy of seeking more engagement with China, suggests that the United States will further de-emphasize human rights in its dealings with China. Human Rights Watch Asia, an international human-rights group, assailed the Clinton strategy, saying: ``Clinton seems to be on the verge of selling out on human rights.''

Winston Lord, assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs, told reporters on Nov. 24 that the Clinton administration is still working hard to protect human rights. He said that was one of many important Asian issues, along with trade and nonproliferation. ``We believe that regular, high-level dialogue is the most effective way to make progress on all these issues, including human rights,'' he said.

The U.S. position on Tibet is divided. Congress passed a 1991 resolution calling Tibet an independent nation occupied by China; the U.S. State Department considers Tibet a part of China.

The United Nations also considers Tibet a part of China. The Dalai Lama has abandoned calls for full Tibetan independence and proposed that Tibet be granted autonomy over its domestic affairs while China controls defense and diplomatic issues. China has rejected the plan, and most Tibetans still insist on total independence.

Human-rights groups have alleged for years that China has oppressed and killed Tibetans. The Inquirer's detailed and verified accounts of the experiences of political prisoners provide documentation of the torture. And Tibetans say China has embarked on a new phase of intimidation intended to eliminate the Buddhist faith and culture that has defined Tibet for centuries - and to extinguish all hopes of Tibetan independence.

``The Chinese are practicing cultural genocide in Tibet,'' the Dalai Lama said in an interview in Dharmsala, India.

Visits to Tibet and interviews with Tibetans show that Chinese oppression has intensified in several ways in recent years.

Tibetans are at times arrested for no stated reason, taken from their homes or places of work by Chinese police.

Authorities have forced teachers in Tibet to teach in Chinese. Usually, only one course is taught in Tibetan - Tibetan language.

They have forced out Tibetan shopkeepers and turned over their shops to Chinese merchants.

They have intensified efforts at ``reeducation'' by sending large contingents of Chinese soldiers into monasteries to interrogate every monk and nun individually about their allegiance to the Dalai Lama.

These interrogations are called ``examinations.'' Those who refuse to renounce the Dalai Lama - which would be similar to a Christian denying Jesus Christ - are not allowed to remain in the monasteries. Some are jailed and tortured, Tibetans say.

According to monks in Lhasa, the Chinese have warned that they intend to one day extend the examinations to all Tibetans.

The Chinese also have forced monks to remove photos of the Dalai Lama from monasteries. When monks at Ganden Monastery resisted on May 7, police opened fire, wounding several and arresting dozens, according to relatives of Ganden monks.

Children in middle schools in Lhasa also were told this year that they must not carry photos of the Dalai Lama or wear red cords that are blessed by a lama.

And thousands of Tibetans, imprisoned without due process, face torture and, in a few cases, death.

Like the Dalai Lama, more than 130,000 Tibetans have fled Tibet. Others continue to leave, most by taking a dangerous, two-week trek through the Himalayas, where the frozen bodies of other Tibetans who had attempted to escape are sometimes found embedded in ice along the trail, according to Tibetans who have made the journey.

China benefits economically and logistically from its control of Tibet.

It takes lumber, gold and uranium; it uses prisoners for mining and logging, according to former political prisoners. China also uses Tibet to test nuclear weapons and bury nuclear waste, despite Tibetans' opposition to nuclear weapons. Tibet is also a tourist attraction - especially for Buddhists and mountaineers - drawing millions of dollars every year, much of it enriching China's government. In addition, Tibet is an important military zone, sharing a border with India, Nepal, Bhutan and Burma.

China has drastically changed Tibet's borders; much of what formerly was considered to be Tibet is now labeled as ``Chinese provinces'' on modern Chinese maps.

China's grip on Tibet is so tight that Lhasa, as well as much of the countryside, is patrolled by hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers and police. Undercover agents - posing as bicyclists, tourists, monks, businessmen - spy on Tibetans and visitors. The Chinese have paid some Tibetans to help spy and torture their countrymen.

Tibetans have not taken up arms. A pacifist people who practice Buddhism, Tibetans believe all living things are sacred. They do not believe in swatting flies, much less in attacking their enemies.

``We feel that our national struggle using the nonviolence principle is almost a new experiment on this planet,'' the Dalai Lama, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, said in the interview this year in Dharmsala. ``Of all the countries with problems in the world, only Tibet is responding with nonviolence, because life is sacred to Tibetans - even one life is important. The basic human nature is to have gentleness and compassion.''

The Dalai Lama has become a thorn to the Chinese by traveling the world - from Hollywood to Paris - to focus attention on China's actions in Tibet.

While China has destroyed thousands of Tibetan monasteries, businesses and villages, it has built at least 89 jails, detention centers and other facilities where Tibetan dissidents are tortured. Today, there are 2,000 political prisoners in Tibet, according to various estimates. Virtually all of them have been tortured, former prisoners say.

Tibetans are being stunned with electricity, starved and - occasionally - beaten to death, according to former prisoners. Since 1990, Amnesty International has documented the deaths of 24 Tibetans through torture. Between 1949 and 1979, Chinese authorities killed 1.2 million Tibetans, according to the Tibetan government in exile. Tibet's population before 1949 was six million.

The U.S. State Department says that ``tens of thousands'' of Tibetans were killed by the Chinese, ``and close to 100,000 were imprisoned'' during the 1950s.

``First they want to eliminate the monks and the nuns because we're politically active,'' said Jamphel Tsering, 28, a monk interviewed while trekking out of Tibet who said he was tortured repeatedly over five years. ``Then they want to grind down the rest of the population. They're trying to destroy our whole culture and our belief system.''

In interviews, Tibetans explained why they willingly took actions that would lead to certain torture.

``I feel angry,'' said Dawa Kyizom, a Tibetan student, now in India, who said she was tortured in jail after helping to make a Tibetan flag that was raised at a monastery. ``The anger makes me have no fear. Most Tibetans have no fear. This is what makes us speak out for Tibetan independence and go to prison.''

Lobsang Gyatso, a monk who has numerous wide scars on his stomach from torture, expressed a common sentiment - one steeped in Tibetan Buddhist religion and culture, which accepts suffering as part of life. When the police placed a burning hot shovel on his stomach, Gyatso said, "I thought, 'Whatever I'm suffering, I'm suffering for a cause. I have to suffer for the Tibetan people.' "

After a Chinese police officer repeatedly shocked Gyatso with an electric cattle prod, Gyatso felt another emotion typical of Tibetan Buddhists: compassion.

``I felt very sorry for the Chinese man,'' Gyatso said. ``He had orders from the Chinese government to torture me. He would have lost his job if he didn't do it. The Chinese people are not so bad, but the government is very evil.''

China has relocated 7.5 million Chinese to Tibet, according to studies commissioned by the Tibetan government in exile.

The country now houses more Chinese than Tibetans, who number 4.6 million. China offers economic incentives for working-class Chinese to emigrate to Tibet, while making it more difficult for ordinary Tibetans to earn a living.

Human-rights groups say that Tibetans own 25 percent of businesses in Lhasa, down from nearly 100 percent 40 years ago.

In May 1993, Chinese officials said that massive Chinese migration into Tibet was successful. They termed it ``the final solution.''

``We are a minority in our own country,'' said Sonam Dolkar, 25, a seamstress. ``We are in our own country speaking a foreign language. It makes me very angry. There is no inner peace among Tibetans now.''

Dolkar fled Tibet in 1992 with her daughter. They now live in India.

Over the years, China demolished virtually all of Tibet's 6,000 ancient monasteries and nunneries. At those that have been rebuilt, the number of monks and nuns continues to decline because of intensified enforcement of a quota imposed by the Chinese government.

At Drepung Monastery, the number of monks has fallen to about 500 - from about 7,000 before the Chinese occupation.

``The Chinese have made my country into rags,'' said Tashi Lhundrup, 29, a monk who was jailed during a freedom demonstration. With scars on his ankles and wrists, he fled to Nepal two months ago, after being released from jail.

The torture victims said that police sought ``confessions'' in which prisoners admitted they had written or said they wanted independence for Tibet. Police also demanded answers to questions like these: Isn't Tibet better off under Chinese rule? Don't you think you were wrong to challenge Chinese rule? Haven't you changed your mind about independence for Tibet?

Tibetans who had been arrested said that because of their strong beliefs, they answered the Chinese honestly, saying they wanted freedom for Tibet.

The result, they said, was usually hours of torture every day.

Relatively few political prisoners have trials or appear in courtrooms before judges. Most say they were simply handed a document in prison stating their sentence and crime - often ``saying counterrevolutionary words.'' Some say they were simply released after being tortured for months, without being charged.

Because police are in charge of the prisons in Tibet, there is no separation of powers. The police and army officers who arrest citizens are the same people who deal with them in prison.

Nuns and monks are expelled from their nunneries and monasteries after they are arrested. When they get out of prison, they are forbidden by Chinese policy from rejoining their religious orders. As a result, many choose to leave their country and their families so they can practice their religion. Most of them have settled in India.

Laypeople who were political prisoners said they were unable to get jobs after being released from jail; they said their telephones are tapped by police; they and their families often are visited by police; and they are constantly followed by police. Therefore, many leave their country.

The United States has been aware of China's actions in Tibet since the occupation began in 1949.

From 1959 until 1974, the Central Intelligence Agency trained Tibetan soldiers in guerrilla warfare to fight the Chinese. Most of those soldiers were killed by the Chinese People's Liberation Army.

That covert CIA effort was the last known action by the United States to oppose directly China's activities in Tibet.

In his first year in office, President Clinton granted China most-favored-nation trade status, but conditioned renewal on China's improving its human-rights record and allowing Tibet more religious and cultural freedom. If anything, the Chinese oppression in Tibet has become more severe since then. Nevertheless, the President has granted China favorable trade status in each of the last three years - and in 1994 he ``de-linked'' trade status and human-rights issues.

This year's State Department report on human rights said: ``Chinese government authorities continued to commit widespread human-rights abuses in Tibet, including instances of torture, arbitrary arrest, detention without public trial . . . and intensified controls on freedom of speech and the press.''

China and scores of multinational corporations with factories utilizing cheap labor in China spend millions of dollars a year lobbying in Washington to secure the lucrative trade status. And American firms eager to cash in on China's huge, emerging consumer market have shown more interest in trade than human rights.

Tibet relies on the Dalai Lama, who has traveled the world and disseminates his views widely through the news media. The International Campaign for Tibet, in Washington, also advocates the Tibetan cause.

``Economically, Tibet is not of much importance,'' the Dalai Lama said. ``It's not like Kuwait. Kuwait has oil.

``It is important to make clear to the Chinese government that there must be change,'' he added. ``These activities are very bad for China's image. More pressure should be brought to bear.''

In May, a U.N. committee meeting in Geneva called on China to bar torture in prisons. Peter Burns of Canada, a member of the U.N. Committee Against Torture, said the committee was concerned by unconfirmed reports of deaths from mistreatment by police in prisons in Tibet.

Although China signed a 1988 U.N. treaty outlawing torture, it did not ban torture in its prisons, as the U.N. committee requested. China's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Wu Jianmin, told the committee in May that the reports of torture were based largely on information from nongovernment organizations, some of which are biased.

China says that Tibet has always been a part of China, and that the 1949 occupation of Tibet was not illegal.

From 1908 to 1912, Tibet was under the influence of China. It also had been under the influence of Mongolia, Nepal and Britain. There were also times in history in which Tibet had taken control of parts of China.

From 1913 to 1949, Tibet was an independent country. And for 2,000 years despite the influence of outside forces at times - Tibet maintained its own government, its own small army, its own laws, its own currency, its own language and its own culture. That started changing in 1949.

Physically, Tibetans and Chinese do not look alike; the Chinese recognized Tibetans in the past as a separate ethnic group. And while Tibet is an intensely religious country, most Chinese are atheists. (The government prefers atheism, and controls officially recognized religions.)

Before 1949, Tibet had conducted business with China and other nearby countries such as India, Nepal and Japan.

The International Commission of Jurists, a Geneva-based association of judges and lawyers, ruled in 1960 that Tibet was an independent country before China invaded. The International Lawyers' Committee, another group of lawyers, reached the same conclusion in 1993.

The U.S. Congress also concluded, in a 1991 resolution, that Tibet is ``an occupied country, under the established principles of international law.''

The resolution, which was part of an authorization bill signed into law by President George Bush, said the legitimate representatives of Tibet are the Tibetan government in exile and the Dalai Lama.

Despite the resolution, the State Department has consistently said ``U.S. policy is that Tibet is a part of China, and that recognition goes back historically.''

China argues that it did not ``invade'' Tibet, but ``liberated'' it. In a ``white paper,'' a government publication explaining its position, issued by China in 1992, China said that its intent has always been to bring ``democratic reform'' to Tibet. China said that before the ``liberation,'' Tibetans lived in a ``dark, feudal, exploitive society.''

China said that Tibetan monks had been the ``oppressors'' who treated the rest of the Tibetan population as ``serfs.''

The Communist Chinese leader at the time of the invasion, Mao Tse-tung, called the religious culture of Tibet a ``poison,'' a term he applied to all religions.

The Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile say China's depiction of Tibet before 1949 is false, although they agree that the Tibetan government and society in 1949 needed reforms. However, they say, it was up to Tibet to decide on reforms, not China.

Historically, Tibet's government - never a democracy - was a strange mix of Buddhist principles and brutality. Tibet was, and remains, a land where monasteries formed their own armies and where oracles were consulted on everything from rainfall to safe pilgrimages.

Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian who spent much of the 1940s in Tibet and wrote Seven Years in Tibet, found that all was calm and peaceful there, except for the treatment of convicted criminals.

Construction of buildings was often canceled because ``worms and insects might easily be killed.'' But Tibet dealt with its criminals more harshly. Although the death penalty was forbidden, Harrer wrote, ``theft and various minor offenses are punished with public whipping. . . . When highwaymen or robbers are caught they are usually condemned to have a hand or foot cut off.''

Under China, Tibet has become a land of paradox: The children of nomads and city dwellers alike are expected to follow Communist doctrine; Tibetan language and math are being replaced by the Chinese system, even in the most remote villages. And the white scarves Tibetans give one another as a blessing are sold by Chinese merchants.

In Lhasa, where two cultures collide, rural pilgrims, dressed in sheepskin and fur hats, spin brass prayer wheels as they circumambulate the Potala, the former palace of the Dalai Lama. Across the street, Chinese soldiers in olive uniforms pose for pictures in front of a jet fighter. A mile away, Chinese prostitutes troll the front of the Dalai Lama's former summer gardens. On the grounds, weeds are thick and the once splendid bamboo and stone residences have crumbled.

Some of the major religious and tourist areas of Lhasa, such as the Barkhor area, are constantly under the surveillance of video cameras attached to walls and columns. The Barkhor is the Tiananmen Square of Lhasa. In March of 1988, 18 demonstrating Tibetans were killed and 150 were wounded by Chinese officers. Some Tibetans had hurled rocks. The Dalai Lama subsequently renewed his pleas for nonviolence, and there have been few demonstrations since then in which Tibetans have done more than chant slogans.

Nagwang Rinchen, a 36-year-old monk, spent 6 ¼ years in prison for carrying the Tibetan flag at a demonstration. He said he was tortured much of the time he was in jail; he was released earlier this year.

``If things don't change, all that will be left of my country is the name, Tibet,'' Rinchen said. ``The Chinese hold everything else. They've come into our country and now they're pushing us out from the middle.''