Maura Moynihan, Consultant to Refugees International
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on Tibet: May 13, 1997
(The testimony was supplemented by blown up photos of recent arrivals from Tibet in Nepal)
I thank the members for the honor of appearing before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. I would like to express special appreciation to you, Senator Helms, for receiving the Dalai Lama last month in the committee room in the Capital. I would ask that the balance of my statement be included in the record as if read.
In 1949 the Chinese People's Liberation Army launched its first invasion into Tibet. In the years that followed the Dalai Lama's efforts to make peace with the Chinese leadership failed. On the night of March 17, 1959, the Dalai Lama took flight towards India, hoping to appeal to the international community to take action against Chinese aggression in Tibet. On March 31, 1959, exhausted and seriously ill, the Dalai Lama crossed onto Indian soil. Chairman Mao swiftly consolidated Chinese control of Tibet. 1.2. million Tibetans were murdered, thousands were sent to labor camps, over 6,000 monasteries, the repositories of centuries of scholarship and culture, were looted and razed. All hope for the survival of Tibet's 2,000 year old civilization lay in India with the Dalai Lama and 100,000 refugees.
Since the early 1980's, when Tibet opened to trade and tourism, a second exodus of Tibetan refugees have joined the Tibetan exile community in India and Nepal, fleeing religious persecution, political repression, aggressive sinocization and cultural genocide. From 1986 to 1996 approximately 25,000 Tibetans have taken refuge in India increasing the exile population by more than 18%. About 44% of these new arrivals are Buddhist monks and nuns. 30% are children seeking placement in an exile school. The remainder are adult lay persons. Many die in flight; the journey over the Himalayas is the longest and most perilous escape route on earth. On foot the distance from Lhasa to the Nepal border takes a minimum of one month, in favorable conditions. 80% of escapees are from Kham and Amdo, Tibet's northern and eastern provinces, thus their journey takes an additional three months. Refugees must travel for days in waist-deep snow, there is nowhere to find shelter, food or water in the mountain passes; many suffer frostbite, injury, death.
In April 1996 the Chinese renewed their assault on Tibetan culture with an alarming vehemence in a "Strike Hard" anti-crime campaign which provides a new pretense for arresting "splittists", any Tibetan who challenges Chinese rule. The methods and language of the Cultural Revolution have returned in an aggressive campaign to vilify His Holiness the Dalai Lama and to purge Buddhist monasteries of teachers, students and pilgrims. On August 11, 1996, the Katmandu Post quoted Xinhua, China's official news service; "hostile international forces were using ethnic and religious issues to 'westernize' and 'split' socialist countries". In August 1996 Reuters reported that China has posted armed patrols of paramilitary People's Armed Police contingents along the Tibetan border . Chinese officials stated; "The anti-splittist situation is still grave and the task of ensuring the stability of the borders and the region is still very formidable." The unit will maintain combat readiness to "persist in foiling plots and disruptive activities by the Dalai clique." The Chinese People's Daily newspaper reported that in 1994 border guards arrested 6,838 "illegal emigrants" attempting to escape from China and Tibet, a 23% increase from 1993. Every day that I was in Tibet I met Tibetans heading towards the Nepal border. If not for the risks of arrest, deportation and death in flight, the refugee influx would be much greater.
Deportation
In 1995 US aid for the UNHCR mission for Tibetan refugees transiting through Kathmandu was reduced from an annual $200,000 to $100,000. The numbers of Tibetan asylum seekers had decreased from aprox. .3,621 in 1994 to 2448 in 1995. However, the drop in refugee influx was the result of forced repatriation, not improved conditions inside Tibet. The American Ambassador Ms. Sandy Vogelsgang, the British and Australian High Commissions and UNHCR raised the deportation issue at the highest levels of the Nepali government. Ambassador Vogelsgang has continued to assert that safe passage of Tibetan refugees is an important feature of the US-Nepal relationship. Random repatriation continues at checkpoints along the 900 km. Tibet-Nepal border, but there is no evidence that Nepali police are rounding up large numbers of Tibetans, holding them in jails in Katmandu for several days and then returning them to Chinese agents, as was the case in 1995. Deportations became less aggressive when the UML, the United Marxist-Leninist Party, lost power in late 1995 , but the communists are a growing force in Nepal and are extremely hostile to Tibetan refugees. Of especial concern is the rise of a Maoist insurgency modeled after the Peruvian Shining Path, which recently burnt an effigy in front of the United States Embassy in Katmandu.
Tibetan escapees report that deportees are conscripted into hard labor on the Kumbum-Lhasa railway or on road gangs, some are imprisoned, some are forcibly returned to their villages and denied permission to travel outside their districts. Former political prisoners and dissidents evading arrest are in nearly every case imprisoned and subjected to torture and prolonged solitary confinement. It is also dangerous for refugees to return; a Tibetan who has been to India risks interrogation, harassment, work and travel restrictions.
The UNHCR mission has done an exemplary job securing safe passage of refugees from Nepal to India. However, incidents of repatriation, robbery and sexual assault by Nepali border patrols continue, which furthers the case for assigning a full time UNHCR protection officer to the region. A UNHCR official I spoke with urged that funding for Tibetan refugee assistance be maintained at the original level, as frequent visits to the Tibet-Nepal border by a UNHCR protection officer yield immediate results; refugees are released from police custody and allowed to continue to Kathmandu, where UNHCR operates a medical clinic, identification processing and temporary shelter.
Sexual Assault
Welfare officers and medical examiners in Kathmandu believe that rape of Tibetan refugee women by Nepali border police is routine. Tibetan women are easily preyed upon; their language is wholly different from Nepali; their clothing, manners and features immediately mark them as Tibetans. In Nepal's strict caste system Tibetan women are without caste definition or protection, are often traveling without escort, and are thus extremely vulnerable to attack. Reception center nurses have examined many refugee women who were gang-raped at the border but were afraid of deportation and therefore did not press charges. In 1995 a Buddhist nun was gang-raped at the border, became pregnant and is now living in a slum in Kathmandu with her infant son, too ashamed to seek assistance for herself and her child. On the nights of December 15th and 16th, 1996, a 22 year old Tibetan woman was raped 12 times by a group of Nepali policeman in uniform. The assaults were witnessed by several other refugees who were threatened with deportation. That Nepali border guards have for years robbed and violated Tibetan women with impunity furthers the case for assigning a full-time protection officer to the region.
Children at Risk
A great many Tibetan refugees are unaccompanied minors. Until they are registered with UNHCR in Kathmandu these children risk illness, abandonment, molestation. Child refugees are seriously undernourished when they reach Kathmandu after weeks of walking in snow mountains, surviving on tsampa (ground barely) and melted snow. I have heard numerous reports of child refugees abandoned in mountains passes, crippled by frostbite and exhaustion. European trekkers have found corpses of Tibetan refugees lying in mountain trails, victims of exposure and starvation. During the winter of 1996-97 several children died of exposure just after crossing into Nepal.
In December 1995 a group of European trekkers discovered Tenzin Gelek, age 6, of Lhasa, lying in a pass in the Solokhumbu region of Nepal. Tenzin was suffering an acute case of frostbite in both feet and had been abandoned by the guide who had been hired to take Tenzin to India. The trekkers delivered Tenzin to Kundi Hospital in Solokhumbu, which notified UNHCR. Tenzin was airlifted to Kathmandu where he had both feet amputated up to the ankle. He spent five months recuperating in Kathmandu before leaving for Dharamsala in early March 1996. Without emergency care provided by the UNHCR clinic he would have died from gangrene.
Amnesty International and Asia Watch have reported an increase in the detention and torture of juvenile political prisoners in Tibet since 1994. In Katmandu, on Sept. 4, 1995, I interviewed two boys, age 9 and age 12, who were arrested in Nepal on April 23, 1995, deported into Chinese custody and detained in Songdu prison in Shigatse for one month. The boys said that they were made to perform menial labor seven days a week and were only fed two small bowls of barley a day. In August 1996, I interviewed two boys aged 13 and 14 from eastern Tibet. They described serving four months in jail in 1994 for taking part in a pro-Dalai Lama demonstration in the Kongpo region. They were beaten and sentenced to hard labor with several other juvenile prisoners of conscience.
Health
Tibetan refugees are malnourished, exhausted and often traumatized by the time they reach Kathmandu. Descending from the Tibetan plateau, these refugees have no immunities to protect them from dysentery, tuberculosis, scabies, worms, typhoid, cholera that are rampant in India and Nepal. New arrivals receive BCG, polio and TB vaccinations in Nepal and Dharamsala, but the dispensaries often run out of supplies. Tuberculosis is widespread in the Tibetan refugee community; over 35,000 third line TB cases have been identified. A significant number of refugees are survivors of torture. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Physicians for Social Responsibility have documented the following torture techniques routinely used on Tibetan political prisoners; beatings with truncheons, iron rods, clubs with nails driven through the ends; electric shocks to the head, genitals and kidneys; suspensions from the ceiling by the feet or hands, often for days; standing naked for hours in sub-zero temperatures; attacks by trained dogs; shackling, prolonged use of self-tightening handcuffs and thumbscrews. Torture victims endure headaches, hallucinations and panic attacks, kidney malfunction, digestive problems, impaired vision. Those who endured lengthy prison sentences suffer from progressive cases of vitamin deficiency, scurvy, cachetic edema and cachexia, conditions resulting from subsisting on meager and filthy prison rations. The US Humanitarian Aid provides funds to a Torture Survivor Program in Dharamsala which at present treats 470 patients.
Ms. Tsering Lhamo, director of the Kathmandu clinic and deserves special praise for her service to the refugees. A former Fulbright scholar who studied in the Washington DC area, she embodies the dedication and high standards of the Dalai Lama's exile culture. The aid mandated by the United States congress which supports her work in Kathmandu and the Reception Center in Dharamsala has saved lives, healed sick children, rehabilitated survivors of torture and should by all means be maintained.
Resettlement
Today there are 54 Tibetan settlements throughout India, Bhutan and Nepal, 26 agricultural, 17 agro-industrial and 11 handicraft-based. The Tibetan refugee population has grown to approximately 121,143. According to a 1994 census 69,426 Tibetan refugees live in settlements, another 51,715 live in scattered communities across the Indian subcontinent. The Dalai Lama's Central Tibetan Relief Committee, created in 1960, works with the Ministry of Labor and Rehabilitation of the Government of India and various voluntary organizations to provide assistance to poor, handicapped, unsettled Tibetan refugees.
The Tibetan settlements are a stellar example of refugee self-help; with extremely limited resources, coping with the trauma of loss of nation and family, adjusting to a vastly different cultures and climates in through widely varied geographical zones in Nepal and India, the refugees cleared jungles, started businesses, created farms, homes, schools and monasteries, an achievement comparable to the Israeli kibbutzim who transformed a desert into a thriving habitat. In 38 years the Tibetan settlements have grown from primitive campsites into unified, economically self-sufficient communities. Refugees often suffer abnormally high rates of suicide, drug abuse, crime and prostitution, thus the achievements of the Tibetan refugees in India are remarkable. Literacy is 96% among the generation born in exile. The Central Tibetan administration established a Department of Health in 1981, which operates six hospitals, 60 Public Health centers and 36 clinics offering traditional Tibetan medicine. All of these facilities serve the Indian community, in some of these clinics 85% of the patients are Indian. Relations between the Tibetan refugees and their Indian hosts are as fine an example of peaceful co-existence of two distinct ethnic and cultural groups as can be found anywhere in the world. Many Indians regard the Dalai Lama as a mahasiddhi, a living saint, his Buddhist teachings are frequently attended by Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. The Tibetans are deeply grateful to their Indian hosts, at a 1993 conference in New Delhi the Dalai Lama said "India has been the saviour our nation".
Although the Tibetans have achieved an impressive measure of self-sufficiency, Tibetans in India are still refugees, live at subsistence levels in remote communities with no tax base, holding together in a fragile diaspora. A recent study conducted by a team of Indian sociologists put the average annual income of a Tibetan in India at aprox. USD $150, whereas the average annual income for an Indian is USD $350. Of the total arable land of the 26,000 acres allotted to the refugees only 5% is irrigated, 24 settlements have no wells or ponds, thus most ago-based settlements yield only one crop annually. The economy of the settlements is based on cooperative societies so the economies are self-contained and prices are kept low, thus any investment in these communities goes a very long way.
Raising funds for the Tibetan refugees is difficult; in several cases the Chinese have intimidated donors from providing assistance to the Dalai Lama and the refugees he leads. The largest aid donor remains the Government of India, but it does not recognize any Tibetan who arrived in India after 1963 as a refugee. Despite numerous appeals, the Tibetan refugee community has never received any funding from UNICEF or UNDP. To this day neither the United Nations, India, nor any sovereign state recognizes the legitimacy of the Dalai Lama's Tibetan Government in Exile. Few aid agencies have recognized how the he growing numbers of refugees newly escaped from Tibet has put an enormous strain on the exile communities resources, thus The present US Humanitarian Aid is of vital importance in maintaining the stability and survival of the Tibetan exile community. Mr. Tempa Tsering of the Dharamsala Information office, reiterated the importance of the present US. humanitarian aid; "Without that assistance we wouldn't even have a building for the new refugees to sleep in, no bandages, no medicine, nothing."
One of the singular achievements of His Holiness the Dalai Lama is establishing a representative government among the Tibetan refugees. Chinese propaganda declares that he has "restored a feudal serfdom in exile" and is plotting to do the same in Tibet. To the contrary, On September 2, 1960, the Dalai Lama created a parliament-in-exile with judiciary, executive and legislative branches and a diverse group of official and independent news organizations. Members of the Assembly of Tibetan People's Deputies are elected by ballots cast in all the Tibetan settlements throughout the subcontinent. The Information Office in Dharamsala makes a special effort to educate new arrivals about Tibet's history, representative democracy and human rights.
The elder Tibetans who created the settlements are the vital link between the homeland and the exile. Every refugee who was born in Tibet and who escaped into exile witnessed military invasion, many lost relatives, many are survivors of torture, yet most have never had their stories documented, and still have vivid memories of invasion, flight, survival in refugee camps, adjustment to exile. Those who work for Central Tibetan Administration are exceptionally dedicated, talented men and women who work tirelessly on very small salaries. Their empathy and knowledge comes from personal experience; they were once refugees, or are the children of refugees. Said Nyima Samkyar, CTA Welfare officer of the Chialsa Tibetan Settlement in Eastern Nepal; "In 1959, there was no one to help, no food, no doctors, nothing. Hundreds died, especially women and children. Now there is a place where refugees can stay, there is a nurse, there is some food, there are people who care."
Education
The Dalai Lama's Central Tibetan Administration does a remarkable job with refugee children; every child is given a place in a school. In 1959 Pandit Nehru created the Society for Tibetan Education within the Indian Ministry of Education. Today there are 85 Tibetan schools in India, Nepal and Bhutan with a current enrollment of 27,230 students. The 45,550 children who have attended these schools are the first Tibetans in history to have a modern, multi-lingual education. Many have earned university degrees in India and abroad. About 107 Tibetans have studied in America as Fulbright Scholars. Tibetan students in Chinese-occupied Tibet receive substandard education, if any, and cultural and linguistic sinofication. Since 1990 over 5,000 Tibetan children have escaped from Tibet, without family, to seek education in these Tibetan exile schools. The schools are seriously overcrowded, they need textbooks, supplies, additional dormitories and classrooms to accommodate the increasing numbers of refugee children escaping from Tibet.
Most new arrivals from Tibet are young, aged 15 to 28, they have been given no education, no vocational training, no employment, no freedom of worship, speech and assembly. Although they know little about their country's history, they are reverently devoted to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. They know that he was forced into exile in India where he has established schools, monasteries, and a rule of law. Despite the illness, disorientation and privation intrinsic to the refugee experience, every new arrival I have interviewed has expressed relief to have, for the first time in their lives, freedom of worship, assembly and expression. Said a 25 refugee from Kanze; "The people in Tibet are given no education, they are kept ignorant and poor. I think all the new arrivals will improve in India, they'll get education, they'll be free, they will see Buddhism without guns. They'll change for the better, because they'll get guidance and respect."
The US Humanitarian Aid funds the Bir School, which has 700 new arrival students between ages 13-17, and the Transit School, which has 550 student between ages 18-30. Both have long waiting lists. Teachers report that new arrivals are diligent and eager to learn. Some have mastered English and/or Hindi, some have started successful businesses, nevertheless, many live on the fringes of the exile community performing menial jobs at best. The CTA hopes to build a vocational training center for new arrivals near Kathmandu. They had hoped to purchase land in northern India but funding could not be secured in time. Integrating the new arrivals into the exile world is essential to maintain community cohesion and good relations with the host countries.
Conclusions, Recommendations
The Dalai Lama's innumerable attempts to meet with Chinese leaders to negotiate a settlement have bee rejected outright. Beijing launches vociferous protest whenever the Dalai Lama meets with heads of state and goes to great length to block support for Tibetan exiles and refugees. China claims to have "liberated" Tibet from a "feudal serfdom", but after nearly four decades of Chinese Communist rule the Tibetans are hardly willing or contented Chinese subjects. China claims to have modernized Tibet, but the Tibetan exiles in India have access to both modern and traditional education in addition to freedom of expression and worship. With the support of democratic India, the Dalai Lama's exile community shows how successfully Tibetans have adapted to representative government and democratic, liberal values while retaining their Tibetan Buddhist traditions. Unless the Politburo is pressured to accept the Dalai Lama's offer to negotiate in good faith, and as long as Tibet remains in bondage to the People's Republic of China, Tibetans will continue their exodus to India.
I would make the following recommendations;
- Exhort China's leaders to meet with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
- Continue aid to the UNHCR mission in Kathmandu and assign a full time protection officer to supervise the Tibet-Nepal border.
- New arrivals from Tibet provide vital information about conditions inside Tibet. The US Embassy in Nepal and UNHCR have urged that a US monitor, employed by the State Department, interview and record refugee testimony for the State Department's "Country Reports on Human Rights" Tibet section.
- Secure official refugee status and identity cards for new arrivals.
- Continue to provide financial and technical assistance to the Central Tibetan Administration until such time that the Tibetan refugees can return to their homeland without fear or persecution.
- Ensure the health and safety of unaccompanied Tibetan minors entering Nepal and India. Find sponsors for child refugees whose parents remain in Tibet and those with refugee parents who cannot work or cannot afford school tuition.
- Provide special care to victims of torture.
I thank the Chairman and the members of the committee for accepting this testimony.
