'Hands off' isn't enough for Tibet

Tibetan filmmaker Pema Dhondup's first feature film, "We're No Monks, " opens with a young Tibetan protagonist speaking to the audience, after he has jokingly straightened his shirt collar and asked his camcorder-wielding mute friend if the film is rolling: "Tha yin Pe?" (Are you ready?)

"It's been 46 years in exile now. What have we gained? People are still being killed in Tibet. More refugees come out every year. Destruction continues even today. What has the world given us?"

A long pause follows, and actor Sonam Wangdue's face contorts into a grim resignation. "Only empty sympathy. Every person, every nation, lives for his own, its own. This is a selfish world, my friend. If you want something, you have to struggle for it yourself. Even if it means putting your life on the line."

This monologue sets the tone for the film, which revolves around the aspirations of four young Tibetans in Dharamsala, India, the seat of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan exile community.

As they go about their lives in the small, hillside town, smoking marijuana and courting American women, a common frustration over the apathy surrounding their political struggle gradually drives the four friends toward the Tibetan freedom movement to relieve their youthful angst.

The film, shot in the Tibetan language and seeking a distributor, is fictional, of course, as is a suicide-bombing scene at the Chinese embassy in India. But the frustration and the anger are real. They resonate with Tibetan exile communities across the subcontinent and beyond.

"Of course, this film is also the story of my life and that of my friends, " says Sonam Wangdue, 26.

"Whenever we talk about China spurning all efforts by the Dalai Lama toward achieving a peaceful solution to the Tibet issue, about the larger world's indifference to Tibet's ongoing tragedy, we can't help but find ourselves mulling over violence as a possible option."

The actor, an activist with the Tibetan Youth Congress, the largest political Tibetan NGO, almost lost his left hand when he was caught between the iron-grilled gates of the Chinese embassy in Delhi during a stampede caused by police during a Free Tibet protest last year. Today, the tip of his thumb is missing from his left hand. "Talk about life imitating art, eh?" he joked.

Through the years, Tibet watchers have seen China growing more manipulative of the Tibet stalemate, despite the Dalai Lama's increasing concessions in hope of clinching a deal for genuine autonomy.

Critics were further dismayed in March, when the Tibetan leader, who escaped to India in 1959 after China's People's Liberation Army crushed a popular Tibetan uprising, relinquished any bid for independence. On March 10, in the annual policy blueprint of the government in exile on the Sino- Tibetan conflict, the 69-year-old Tibetan leader said: "I once again want to reassure the Chinese authorities that as long as I am responsible for the affairs of Tibet, we remain fully committed to the middle way approach of not seeking independence for Tibet and are willing to remain within the People's Republic of China."

The Dalai Lama's policy switch from independence to autonomy took root in the early 1980s, as a desperate bid to save Tibet's culture from China's attempt to destroy it.

The new policy, along the lines of Hong Kong's "One China, two systems," envisions securing all three Tibetan provinces of U-tsang, Kham and Amdo within Tibet's political boundary. A democratic Tibetan government would exercise internal administration but cede all foreign and defense powers to China.

After its occupation of Tibet in 1959, China incorporated large swatches of two eastern Tibetan provinces, Kham and Amdo, into the Chinese provinces Sichuan, Yunnan and Qinghai.

That reduced Tibet to a Tibet Autonomous Region governed through a Han Chinese party secretary. Exiled Tibetans say Chinese outnumber Tibetans in Lhasa and other major cities, marginalizing the native population linguistically, culturally and economically.

Rights groups put the number of Tibetan political prisoners at more than 1,000. Their incarceration in Chinese jails is characterized by severe physical and mental torture. Inside Tibet, people found in possession of the Dalai Lama's picture face arrest, imprisonment and torture.

Among critics of the Dalai Lama's policy is Jamyang Norbu, a 51-year-old Tibetan novelist, playwright and activist who is widely seen as the enduring voice of Tibetan independence.

As a teenager, Norbu ran away from home in Kalimpong, India, to join the CIA-backed Tibetan guerrilla resistance operating from the Mustang region of Nepal, which ambushed Chinese garrisons inside Tibet.

The guerrilla resistance was cut short in the early 1970s after the CIA dropped its support because Henry Kissinger was intent on buttering up Beijing.

"The Dalai Lama and the exile government's hope that the Chinese will concede something if they keep on surrendering to Beijing's will is the height of naivete," said Jamyang Norbu.

"Because of such craven policies, they have strengthened China's hold on Tibet, weakened support and activism for Tibet in the West, and even undermined the legitimacy of the Tibetan cause."

The Dalai Lama's dealings with China have been checkered with frustration. From 1979 to 1984, four exile exploratory missions have visited Tibet, only to be foiled after China sidetracked the process into the question of the Tibetan leader's "personal homecoming to the mainland."

Since then, Beijing has asked the Tibetan leader to accept both Tibet and Taiwan as an inalienable part of China. Hopes resurfaced three years ago when China and Dharamsala started another round of exploratory talks.

Skepticism remains on both sides of the Tibetan border.

"Certainly, there is frustration among a section of Tibetans regarding our current situation. However, the core policy of the Central Tibetan administration is to work on negotiation with the Chinese leadership regarding the future status of Tibet," said Thupten Samphel, spokesman for the exile Tibetan government and secretary of its Department of Information and International Relations.

"The timing is impeccable," said Tenzin Wangchuk, general secretary of San Francisco's Chapter of Tibetan Youth Congress, referring to exile delegations that have been allowed to visit China.

"In 2001, China won the bid for the 2008 Olympics. And it works in their favor to keep up an appearance of doing something about the Tibet issue, while actually not doing anything.

"... The truth is that China is just buying time, hoping the Tibetan struggle will die once the Dalai Lama passes away."

In the Tibetan film "We're No Monks," the mute friend carries out the suicide bombing, which the director says was inspired by Tibet's first exile martyr. In 1998, Pawo Thupten Ngodup, 60, burned himself to death in Delhi at a Tibetan hunger strike site to protest China's continued occupation of Tibet.

The exiles' anger and frustration are felt just as strongly inside Tibet. Recently, for the exiled Tibetans' Long Life Ceremony for the Dalai Lama, a message was secretly sent from Tibet to Dharamsala.

The "pure hearts" of Tibetans inside Tibet were at the ceremony, it said, even though they were physically unable to participate in it.

Sent in the name of representatives of 40 organizations from the three provinces, the letter, written in Tibetan, praised the exiled leader's initiatives toward resolving the Tibet issue.

"However, in the event of this approach becoming hopeless, there will be only one final option left for us," the smuggled message continued. "To the extent that history will have presented this option to us, there is no way we can shy away from our duty. Of this, we are certain, just as our determination is firm."

Topden Tsering is a writer based in Berkeley and an activist for a free Tibet. Contact us at insight@sfchronicle.com.