This group was part of a larger group that was intercepted by Chinese border police in late September. They were shot at and two people were killed. The account comes from a 15-year-old boy who was able to escape to India. All those captured were less than 20-year-old. They were imprisoned, beaten, and subjected to forced labour. Their crime: they wanted to go to India to see the Dalai Lama.

Dharamsala (AsiaNews/Agencies) – More than 30 Tibetans captured by Chinese troops in September 30, 2006, on the Nangpa La Pass, near Mount Everest, were tortured with cattle prods and forced to do hard labour, this according to Jamyang Samten, 15, who arrived on Monday at the Tibetan Reception Centre in Dharmsala after escaping from Tibet through Nepal.

The boy said he was one of 75 Tibetans who were making their way over the 5,800 metre-high Nangpa La Pass on September 30 when Chinese border guards opened fire on them, killing Kelsang Namtso, a 17-year-old Buddhist nun, and a 23-year-old man.

The story was taped by a mountaineering expedition and reported world-wide. Of those trying to escape, 41 made it into Nepal and then India; 32 were instead captured by the police. Jamyang was one of them and the first to tell his story.

According to his account, his group, all young and less than 20, hid in the snow until they ran out of food. When they came out they were arrested by the police, put on a truck and taken to some barracks.

For three days those who were 15 and over were interrogated and often beaten. They were then taken to prison in Shigatse, Tibet’s second largest city, where they were again interrogated, beaten and chained to a wall.

They were held there for 48 days during which they did forced labour, digging ditches, building fences and tilling fields, he said.

Jamyang Samten said he was released and went home. But his desire to see the Dalai Lama was so strong that he tried again to escape into India. This time he was successful, paying two Nepalese men to smuggle him over the Nepali border. He then made it to India.

Every year some three to four thousands Tibetans try to illegally escape their homeland to go to India, paying smugglers in Nepal to get them across the border.

They have to do this because it is nearly impossible for Tibetans to get a regular exit permit from Chinese authorities.

In India Tibetans are free to keep their culture and, above all, they can meet their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who lives in  Dharamsala, home to Tibet’s government-in-exile.

Kelsang Namtso, the 17-year-old nun killed by Chinese police, wanted to do the same thing. At least half of all those who make the perilous journey are children. Their parents want them to attend a school where they can maintain their Tibetan identity, something impossible in China.

According to the Tibetan government-in-exile, there are some 120,000 Tibetan refugees in India, Nepal and Bhutan. (PB)

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• jamyang
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