DANGEROUS CROSSING: - International Campaign for Tibet

DANGEROUS CROSSINGS: CONDITIONS IMPACTING THE FLIGHT OF TIBETAN REFUGEES, 2011
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date to represent Beijing’s interests in Kathmandu. Yang previously served as ambassador
for Korean Peninsula Affairs and is a recognized security specialist.) 23
By the end of March, Tibetans in Nepal were forced to look on as Tibetans living in
exile around the world geared up to participate in democratic elections for the Chief
Minister of the Tibetan exile government or Kalon Tripa and for their representatives
to the Tibetan exile parliament or the Chitue. When the Tibetan community
in Nepal had attempted to participate in the primary round of elections on October
3, 2010, Nepal police in riot gear stormed three separate polling centers and seized
ballot boxes, disenfranchising thousands of Tibetans in the process. According to
prominent Nepali human rights advocates, the Chinese embassy in Kathmandu had
instructed the Nepali Home Ministry to stop the election, resulting in the raid. 24
Despite international support, including a resolution of the European Parliament, 25
Tibetans in Nepal were left to forego participating in the March election and were
left disenfranchised and without say in the administration of the Tibetan government-in-exile.
April
On April 18 and 19, 2011, a group of some 30 Tibetans, undeterred by the events
of March, carried forward in making their voices until plain-clothed and uniformed
Nepal police broke up their private gathering at a community center in Kathmandu’s
Boudha neighborhood. The Tibetans were staging a 24-hour hunger strike in solidarity
with those Tibetans experiencing the crackdown at Kirti monastery in eastern
Tibet, which had been placed under tight security after a monk named Phuntsog
self-immolated on March 16 and died on March 17, 2011.
One of the Nepal police demanded that a 42-year old Tibetan woman named Sonam
Choedron remove her tee-shirt that bore the message “‘Save Tibet and stop the
killing in Tibet.” When she refused, she was told that if she did not comply, all of
the Tibetan hunger strikers would be taken to prison. Sonam Choedron told ICT: “I
felt absolutely humiliated. The police action hurt me a lot. It is not fair but it shows
how badly Nepalese police are treating Tibetans. It is surely against Nepalese law.
This was not a political rally, but prayers in solidarity - and in private - with the Kirti
monk who lost his life.”
The hunger strike, under the presence of police, was able to continue until its peaceful
conclusion on April 19 morning. According to eyewitness sources, there was
an unusually high number of what were thought to be Nepali intelligence officials
present with the police. 26