By Jennifer Peltz
DELRAY BEACH — While the Dalai Lama speaks around South Florida, a handful of free-Tibet activists also are bringing their message to the area, one block at a time.
Though the exiled Tibetan leader advocates for more cultural freedom for Tibet within China, the half-dozen demonstrators want Tibetan independence, and they can’t be accused of merely talking the talk. They started Monday on a three-day, 55-mile walk to call attention to their cause.
“We need to do what we can do on the outside, and then the people inside Tibet will not give up hope … We just keep the spirit going,” said Jigme Norbu, a nephew of the Dalai Lama. Norbu’s father, Thubten Norbu, founded the Indiana-based International Tibet Independence Movement, which arranged the Delray Beach-to-Miami walk.
They and other advocates say China has held Tibet in a ruthless chokehold since the 1950s, encouraging millions of people from other regions to settle in Tibet while leveling more than 6,000 of its Buddhist monasteries, killing more than 1 million Tibetans and imprisoning many more.
One is Ani Kelsang Palmo, a Buddhist nun who joined Monday’s walk. She said she fled Tibet for Nepal in 1990 after being arrested for shouting “Free Tibet!” in public.
“There were no rights or independence for Tibet,” she said through a translator.
The Chinese government, however, says it freed Tibet from a repressive theocracy and has since spent hundreds of millions of dollars on houses, roads, water and electrical systems, and jobs programs. Tibetans’ life expectancy has increased from 36 years in 1955 to 67 today, according to Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington.
“Great improvements have been made in Tibet,” he said.
The United States recognizes China’s authority over Tibet, but often expresses concern about Tibetans’ rights. President Bush met last year with the Dalai Lama, whom the United States casts as a religious leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner but China paints as a political separatist.
Tibet has become a hot topic in popular as well as political culture. Actor Richard Gere has testified on the issue in Congress. Hip-hop hitmakers the Beastie Boys have spearheaded a series of “Tibetan Freedom Concerts” since 1996, and Kundun and Seven Years in Tibet put the region’s struggles in a big-screen spotlight.
The South Florida activists set off past a row of beachfront mansions, in a downpour that soaked their tie-dyed “Free Tibet” shirts. They were to walk 15 miles to Pompano Beach before stopping for the night.
“But that’s nothing compared to what Tibetans have to do to escape from Tibet,” Norbu said.
Jennifer Peltz can be reached at jpeltz@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6636.
