On Saturday, March 15, Barrow residents will host a walk to show their support for the Tibetan People’s Uprising Movement in its March to Tibet.
The goal is to raise awareness of the Tibetan people’s quest for freedom after 50 years of Chinese rule.
Beginning March 10, Tibetan exiles and their supporters will march from Dharamsala, India, the capital of Tibetans in exile, through Delhi and then into Tibet.
Organizers hope to reach the Tibetan border by the start of the Beijing Olympics on Aug. 14.
As host of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, China is getting tremendous international attention, and organizers of the march hope to leverage this attention to force China to end its occupation of Tibet.
It is illegal for Tibetans to re-enter Tibet without Chinese permission, but the organizers insist that the march will remain a nonviolent expression of their call for freedom.
“Even if they did try to stop us, we are not stopping. For how many days can they jail us for just walking peacefully?” said Tenzin Tsundue, a Tibetan refugee living in Dharamsala who has long worked for an independent Tibet.
“The March to Tibet will be nonviolent; it is a sadhana, a spiritual tribute to the truth and justice that we are fighting for. This is our Long March to freedom,” Tsundue said.
The march was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent Dandi Salt March in 1930, when the Indian leader rallied his people to peacefully disobey the British salt tax, according to Tsundue.
In a 2003 interview for North Slope radio station KBRW, Barrow residents Cathy Rexford and Earl Finkler spoke with Tsundue about his efforts to end the Chinese occupation of Tibet.
During the interview, Tsundue said: “The real issue of Tibet is that the Tibetans lost their independence and they have to go back home. They have to regain that independence.”
When Tsundue contacted him about the 2008 march, Finkler recruited some friends to organize a support march in Barrow.
“I can’t imagine what it’s like to be forced from my home country. I felt it was the least I could do,” said Finkler.
The Barrow march will begin at 1 p.m. at Quick Stop and will go to the high school and back. There will be refreshments and information about the uprising movement available.
