Published: Boulder Planet, June 4 - 10, 1997

The Dalai Lama was the 15-year-old leader of Tibet when Chinese armies charged across a shared border and invaded in 1949.

Largely isolated from the rest of the world at the time and without a standing army, Tibet was an easy target for the massive force under orders to take the nation in the name of piecing together China's once-great ancient Asian empire. In reality, China desperately needed the vast and untapped natural resources buried within the Himalayan nation to keep its massive People's Republic going.

On March 10, 1959, the occupying army brutally crushed a national revolt known as the Lhasa Uprising, killing more than 87,000 Tibetans in Central Tibet alone and forcing the Dalai Lama and nearly 80,000 Tibetans into exile around the world.

During the course of the occupation, Chinese forces have destroyed more than 6,000 monasteries, imported 7.5 million ethnic Chinese colonists and embarked on a campaign to wipe out Tibetan culture. Since 1967, the Chinese have conducted nuclear tests including human radiation experiments within Tibetan borders.