Kent Green (Staff Writer)
MONTROSE-The old man remembers the date clearly: Sept. 13, 1990. That was the day when two of his captors grabbed his arms and another shoved a red-hot cattle prod into his mouth. He went numb with pain and came to later to find some of his teeth missing. In the following weeks, they all fell out.
This is the sort of harrowing experience that the Venerable Palden Gyatso discussed in his presentation at Tibet Today, held Saturday at the Montrose Pavilion. Gyatso, a Tibetan monk, was held for 33 years as a political prisoner in Tibet, a formerly independent nation that has been under Chinese control since the 1950s. (See related story).
Gyatso is in the midst of a four-month tour through the U.S. and Canada, raising awareness of what he says are human rights violations against the Tibetan people by the Chinese government.
Paula Marlatt, a realtor from Montrose, has been a follower of the Tibetan freedom movement since college. She said she’d seen other monks and even the Dalai Lama, but Gyatso’s description of his captivity moved her.
“To hear what happened to him in prison and to see him Š he’s the most amazing person I’ve ever seen in my life. It made me cry.”
Tibet Today was hosted by Western Colorado Friends of Tibet, a Montrose organization pushing for the Tibetan Freedom movement. The day included Gyatso’s talk, a lunch of Tibetan food and discussions with other Tibetan independence leaders, most notably Thubten “Sam” Samdup.
Samdup was head of the Canada Tibet Committee for 17 years, and worked with several world leaders raising their awareness of Tibet’s plight.
It happened to be a lucky coincidence that Samdup and Gyatso happened to come to Montrose at the same time, said Bill Duckworth, founder of WCFOT. He’d been trying to get Samdup to come speak for some time and it finally worked out that he could come at the time of Gyatso’s tour.
Gyatso, Samdup, Duckworth and fellow activists Gonpo Dorjee and Rigdzin Tingkhye spoke with the Daily Press Friday night about the tour, what it was like in prison and Tibetan freedom.
Bringing the message to the Midwest
Montrose doesn’t seem to fit on an itinerary that includes places such as Seattle, Vancouver and a walk from Boston to New York. But Gyatso said that’s crucial to spreading the word about Tibetan freedom to places in the heartland.
“It’s important to reach rural places such as Montrose,” he said through his translator, Tingkhye. “In big cities, a lot of people already know (about Tibet).”
Duckworth agreed.
“What we do for Tibet in smaller towns is more important than Boston or New York. Not that the Boston to New York walk doesn’t matter, but it has more meaning to this community. Here, it’s an event,” Duckworth said.
Unfortunately for Duckworth, the event didn’t bring in as many people as they’d hoped, with only about 50 to 60 for Gyatso’s morning talk.
Fred Schmidt, president of the WCFOT, said he figured those in attendance came to see Tibet personified.
“They know about the issue but wanted to hear this Tibetan monk who came all the way from Dharamsala,” Schmidt said. “If you can reach one person, you can make a difference.”
Gyatso told the crowd about other experiences from his time as a prisoner, including having to wear a large steel yoke; seeing passed out prisoners left for dead; and being tied up naked, hung from the ceiling by ropes and beaten. He was not released because the Chinese freely let him go, but rather because groups such as Amnesty International pressured the government into it.
He was able to endure this all, he said, thanks to his training in Buddhism.
“The reason (I) survived was (my) training as a monk,” he said. “It teaches you how to accept your situation Š to make space when there is no room.
“The most difficult thing was the terrible fear that I was going to lose patience (with my captors).”
Tingkhye explained that staying patient is crucial to Buddhist philosophy; anger and hostility are seen as the roots of evil, and that one will be punished through karma for being cruel.
“As they were beating (Gyatso), he was thinking, if they kill him, he will die and they don’t have to hit him again,” Tingkhye said. “He was more concerned about the (karmic) results for his imprisoners than himself.
“It says a lot about the human capacity to forgive.”
Keeping the cause alive
Gyatso is not a young man; he was born in 1933. He sits quietly hunched, swathed in his maroon monk’s robe, studying his hands. Wisps of gray whiskers dot his chin, the only outposts of hair on his head. Touring, while not on par with state torture, takes its toll on him, Tingkhye said. But the Tibetan cause is too important.
“It is his passion,” Tingkhye said. “Other political prisoners did not get this opportunity Š Many of them died.”
Gyatso sprung to life when he spoke about his fellow inmates, large eyes gleaming and arms waving as he explained how his fellow inmates told him, “Please, if you live, do something, whenever you get out of here, for cause of Tibet. Their last words were not about family.”
“Once you lose your nation, you lose all your rights with it,” Gyatso said.
Samdup said he was not concerned about Tibet’s sociopolitical readiness if it were to become a sovereign state. The Government in Exile has plans laid out for a democratic government, and although infrastructure would certainly be a problem, he left that many nations would be willing to help.
“We are very much ready to take that on,” he said.
He added that many Western nations would most likely be willing to help out a newly independent Tibet.
Samdup said he believed that Americans, especially, were becoming more sympathetic to the peaceful Tibetan freedom movement. This is because of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, he said.
“Americans felt, for the first time, very vulnerable,” he said. “They are not safe from all this madness in the world Š it strikes a chord when His Holiness (the Dalai Lama) says to find a solution other than means of violence. The only alternative we can see is having dialogue, respect and tolerance.”
Some younger Tibetans, Samdup said at Saturday’s presentation, are starting to feel that the peaceful movement isn’t getting enough done. What happens if Tibet does not succeed in its independence or does so, but by using force?
“The message we send to future generations is nonviolence does not work,” Samdup said.
Tingkhye said the Dalai Lama has a vision of Tibet as a tolerant refuge for religious and social mindsets for anyone who wants to come, “almost as a Central Park for peace.”
No return home
Gyatso cannot return to Tibet; he is still seen as a dangerous political exile by the Chinese, Tingkhye said. Chinese agents attempted to detain him on a visit to Portugal, and Tingkhye said he and other assistants feverishly called Amnesty International to get him out.
Gyatso said the thing he misses most about his homeland is his former inmates.
“They had a craving feel, more than their own families, for the cause of Tibet,” he said. “They feel very precious to (me).”
According to a Feb. 4 report from the Tibet Information Network, a news service based in England, there are about 130 to135 known political prisoners in Tibet. This figure represents a downward trend in prisoners held since 1997 when the number was around 800.
Because of their associations with Tibetan freedom, neither Samdup, Tingkhye nor Gonpo Dorjee, a friend of Duckworth’s and Samdup’s, can return to Tibet, either. They each spoke about why they want to go back.
“I would like to see the country that I’ve fought so hard for all my life,” Samdup said. “I would like to see and feel and touch the earth Š to see it once.”
Tingkhye: “It’s almost becoming a fantasy. I want to know what it’s like to say, ‘This is my country.’ I’d really like to taste the water of Tibet Š my brother always remarked, ‘It’s like a nectar.'”
Dorjee said he wanted his son to see the real thing.
“He asks me, ‘What is Tibet like?’ and I show him on maps. I can’t take him back.”
A struggle for generations, and lives, to come
There are many views of Tibetan independence. The Government in Exile has said it will accept nothing less than all of traditional Tibet being free, but Samdup said many people, including the Dalai Lama, would be happy with a truly autonomous region that remained part of China. He likened it to Quebec, which province maintains cultural independence but remains part of Canada.
“I would go for something like that,” Samdup said. “Pushing for something rather than nothing,” adding that China does not want to relinquish Tibet because of the region’s mineral wealth and fresh water supply.
Tingkhye agreed, saying that he wants full independence, but he called that option the middle road.
“I support (full independence), but when I literally vote, I vote for the middle path,” he said. “We know that nothing is forever.”
Tingkhye explained that Tibetans and Buddhists take a different philosophy than most people.
“We see beyond the ordinary view Š we see 10 to 15 generations down the line.”
Gyatso related a Tibetan proverb to illustrate the point, which went something like this: No matter how deep you bury gold, if you dig for even a billion years you will find gold.
“I strongly believe we will see a free Tibet in my lifetime and definitely in the next lifetime,” he said. “Truth will always prevail.”
And how, one may ask, did Gyatso say all this without any teeth? Amnesty International furnished him with a new pair after hearing that story, he explained to the crowd.
“I cherish these teeth a lot,” he said, “not because they make me look good or beautiful Š it’s because these fake teeth represent peace and compassion.”
Contact Kent Green via e-mail at kentg@montrosepress.com
