By BETHE DUFRESNE
New London — Twenty people walking from Boston to New York in a “March for Tibet’s Independence” were spending Wednesday night at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Congregation, where tonight at 7 they will host a public forum.
The walkers did not in fact get as far as New London Wednesday. They stopped in the late afternoon a little north of Kingstown, R.I., said organizer Larry Gerstein, and were driven here in their support van for the night.
But at 9 this morning, he said, they would be driven back to Rhode Island and start walking again right where they left off.
The 240-mile-plus march began July 30 and is set to end Aug. 13 at the United Nations and the Chinese embassy in New York, where there will be a demonstration for Tibetan independence. Tibet has been occupied by the Chinese since 1959.
The march is coordinated by the International Tibet Independence Movement (ITIM), with assistance from the Tibetan Association of Boston and the Regional Tibetan Youth Congress-New York and New Jersey. Supporters include more than 50 Tibetan and non-Tibetan organizations from around the world.
Gerstein said 15 of the 20 marchers are Tibetan, one is Japanese, and four, including himself, are westerners. About half are under 17, and the oldest over 40.
They walk about 15 miles a day, said Gerstein, with the time varying according to the weather and marchers’ endurance. But “we always do our mileage,” he said.
Gerstein lives in Indianapolis, where he got to know the Dalai Lama’s oldest brother in the mid-1980s and became active in the movement for a free Tibet.
Marcher Tsewang Rigzin, an ITIM board member, gave a statement saying, “A nation is on the brink of extinction and a race is being completely wiped out of this planet by the communist Chinese regime that invaded Tibet in 1959. Now more than ever, we need to stand united and fight for Tibet’s independence before it’s too late.”
Gerstein predicted that the marchers would arrive in Stonington, on Route 1, in mid-afternoon, then be driven to All Souls.
Along the way the group has been hosted by churches, Tibetan Buddhist centers and private individuals. The public is invited to tonight’s forum at All Souls, 60 Huntington St., 443-0316.
For information on ITIM, visit the web site at www.rangzen.org.
