Tibetan Monk Shares Stories, Horror

Author: Caroline Stauffer

Many Americans see torture in prisons as an institution of the past — something that is not relevant to modern society. However, Palden Gyatso, a Tibetan monk who spoke in Bicentennial Hall on Sunday night, insisted that exactly the opposite is true. Gyatso offered stories of his experiences in a moving presentation co-sponsored by Wonnacott Commons and the Center for Institutional Diversity, and organized by Students for a Free Tibet (SFT). Gyatso provided a brief history of Tibet, described the torture he endured in a communist Chinese prison and urged "privileged" students to join in the fight for human rights. Gyatso spoke through a translator and brought with him the torture tools used on him and other prisoners.
Despite his terrible experiences, he was able to convey the peace-loving spirit characteristic of the Tibetan people and embodied in philosophy of the Dalai Lama. Gyatso began his talk with a useful lesson in Tibetan history.
He stressed that Tibet had been a free nation for thousands of years before communist Chinese regimes invaded. According to Gyatso, Tibet's history goes back 6,000 years, with written records dating from 2,029 years ago. Life in Tibet was nomadic and based on farming, but its abundance of natural resources such as oil, timber and uranium made the land attractive to the Chinese government.
In 1949, the newly-founded People's Republic of China invaded the area. Ten years later, the people of Tibet protested in a demonstration that Gyatso emphasized as peaceful. As a result, approximately 100,000 Tibetans, including Gyatso, were arrested and placed in prisons. However, there was not enough space for all the prisoners and so several halls in Tibetan monasteries were converted into prisons. There, Tibetans were kept in suffocating quarters and often starved to death on the meager rations of one bowl of soup a day.
Gyatso was 28 years old when he was imprisoned and spent 23 years of his life in prison. During his lecture, he recalled the words of a dying friend whose final wish was that if Gyatso survived he must "work for Tibet … do something for Tibet." Not only did imprisoned Tibetans live in inhumane conditions, they were also forced to work nine hours a day and often labored during the night. Gyatso described the work as "degrading" tasks. For example, prisoners were made, he said, to "yolk the fields, like animals." Gyatso claimed that this type of forced labor is still in practice today as documented in recent photographs.
In perhaps the most distressing part of his speech, Gyatso described the methods of interrogation the Chinese used and continue to inflict on Tibetan prisoners. Before 1981, methods of torture included the use of handcuffs and the practice of being tied up naked in the cold. Since 1981, Chinese prison guards have used electric cattle prods on prisoners. Gyatso himself experienced such torture. The inside of his mouth was destroyed when a cattle prod was shoved down his throat by Chinese guards. Amnesty International of London provided him with a full set of dentures in 1995. Gyatso also demonstrated for the audience that he is unable to lift his arms fully away from his body due to the torture he endured. He told the students that he stills bears scars all over his body.
Shockingly, Gyatso claimed that conditions in Tibet are actually getting worse and that people are dying of suffocation while locked in solitary confinement. Gyatso insisted that he has no hate for the Chinese people because he believes that they have suffered from the government of the communist regime as well. Gyatso's life story is told in the book "The Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk," with a forward by the Dalai Lama. Gyatso is currently on an east to west lecture tour of colleges in the United States organized by the New York City headquarters of SFT.
He concluded his lecture on Sunday night by urging students to remember how privileged they are, and to recall that 200 years ago others gave their lives so that Americans could have freedom. He asked today's youth to "make sure humans live all over the world without war, that people enjoy human rights as they should." In order to help promote human rights in Tibet, Gyatso encourages students to become involved in the Middlebury branch of SFT. He also urged the audience to write on behalf of Tibet to the United Nations, an organization that Gyatso believes has "turned its back on Tibet when it needed help."
Bringing Gyatso to Middlebury was the SFT's first project of the year, but weekly meetings will soon be held each Thursday. In previous years, the club has concentrated on fighting for the release of former Middlebury visiting student and Fulbright Scholar Ngawang Choephel, who was imprisoned in Tibet from October 1995 until January 2002. This year the club plans to "focus on political prisoners in general," according to the president of Middlebury's SFT, Tenzin Wangyal. Specifically, they hope to help free nuns in Drapchi Prison. The organization also hopes to sponsor a ban on Chinese goods in the near future. Like Gyatso, Wangyal encourages students who wish to help Tibet to write letters to the United Nations and the U.S. government and to participate in SFT activities, including the proposed boycott.