Tibet: How to stifle the opposition

JUSTICE? Those who wield the most power choose to torture their opponents to the point where the oppressed are driven to voice their dissent and strike back. Gotcha! – «The Terrorist.» Right, released Tibetan nun Phuntsog Nyidron, who visited the Human Rights House in Oslo in December. (16-JAN-07)

This article, written by Truls Lie, was first published in the January 2007 edition of Le Monde diplomatique Norway. Much of Lie´s information on Phuntsog Nyidron and the predicament of Tibet was gathered during the 15 December meeting at the Human Rights House in Oslo with Phuntsog Nyidron. The article, reprinted with Lie´s permission, has been edited for republication here by HRH F / Niels Jacob Harbitz. Truls Lie is editor and publisher of the Le Monde diplomatique Norway.
Photos of Nyidron: HRH F / Niels Jacob Harbitz.
 
Just imagine: You are a nineteen-year-old, uneducated Tibetan woman from a small village. You have already spent a couple of years in a nunnery in Tibet. The year is 1989. You and three other nuns are standing in a square in Lhasa. On hearing the news that the Dalai Lama has been awarded the Nobel peace prize, you cheer: «Long live the Dalai Lama!» Right, Phuntsog Nyidron and interpreter Dechen Pelmo Thargyal of the Norwegian Tibet Committee. 

But before you get to finish off with «…and a free Tibet!» you are carted off by Chinese soldiers. Your arms, twisted up your back, become numb in the excruciating clench. During the subsequent torture in prison your entire face is burnt with cigarettes that are industriously stubbed out on it. And the thick sewing needles that pierce your fingers leave in their wake stabbing pains that last for days. Your new daily routine consists of abuse and beatings. Your rejoicing over the Dalai Lama is an «illegal demonstration» – the sentence is 9 years in prison.

Isolated in the cells during the years that follow, it’s hard enough to hear what’s happening in the next cell, much less in the outside world. The newspaper of the Chinese occupation is available; the Tibetan newspaper is perforated with cut-out holes. And so you spend your twenties in a little cell with some other nuns: the metal pail you relieve yourself into, is constantly overflowing. It stinks. And you are cold. The law safeguarding the equal treatment of prisoners patently doesn’t apply to Tibetans. One day you can’t take it anymore and go on hunger-strike in your cell – the guards come just as your life is at its lowest ebb. And so life goes on in the cell – maybe your pail is emptied a bit more frequently. Another day you hear screams and commotion from the prison courtyard, the prisoners out there are protesting against the hoisting of the Chinese flag – with the result that the soldiers flop down along the rooftops and shoot mercilessly into the crowd. Then the corpses are carried away.

Some years pass. In 1993, you and 13 other nuns manage to make a recording of songs paying homage to a free Tibet – a recording which, incredibly, is distributed throughout the world; the original intention was really only to give the prisoners’ families a «sign of life». You achieve global recognition and become known as the «Drapchi 14 ». But here in prison, it is labelled «counter-revolutionary propaganda» and you are sentenced to a further 8 years in prison. You are still alive. You are prepared to spend the rest of your life in captivity.

But an American delegation gets involved after hearing about the «singing nuns». In the end, the authorities release you. It is 2004, and you spend the following year with your family under house arrest. Then – after further pressure from the USA – you get the chance to leave Chinese-occupied Tibet. First, the Chinese authorities get you to sign an agreement that you will never give political expression to what happened to you – «…or your family here will suffer.» But the Tibetan situation is more important to you than your own family – the family is in accord. You are now 34 years old and you dedicate your life to the Tibetan cause, to bear witness to the world about the abuses you have endured.

Your name is Phuntsog Nyidron, (left, being interviewed by Norwegian media during the 15 December meeting at the Human Rights House in Oslo). You have survived 15 years as a political prisoner in Drapchi prison. Now, you are on a visit to Oslo, the guest of the Human Rights House. The ten of us, who came here to meet you on this blindingly sunny day late December, listen to your nasal and intensely soft-spoken Tibetan voice, supplemented by the interpreter – here in the Nobel committee’s homeland.

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