Some making march to Chicago experienced harder journey when they fled occupied homeland
By Michael Schroeder
INDIANAPOLIS – Shouts of “free Tibet now” and “Tibet for Tibetans” reverberated down Meridian Street in downtown Indianapolis Tuesday morning. About 20 demonstrators – exiles from the Chinese-occupied country and a few other supporters of the cause – held signs and raised their voices. A demonstration at Indianapolis’ Monument Circle kicked off a 220-plus-mile interstate protest that will wind up at the Chinese Consulate in Chicago on Dec. 10.
Some rain and temperatures from the mid-20s to mid-40s are expected this week for walkers. Tuesday morning, demonstrators took the finger-numbing cold and drizzling rain in stride.
“I lost my father, my mother and many, many people,” said Thupten Anyetsang, speaking of China’s occupation of Tibet. This followed China’s invasion of the then-independent country in 1950. A few years after the occupation, at age 7, Anyetsang followed his 11-year-old brother, Kalsang, to freedom. Now the owner of Anyetsang’s Little Tibet restaurant on Fourth Street in Bloomington, Anyetsang and his brother were among hundreds of thousands exiled. “With him I crossed the mountains, rivers, all this … to India,” Anyetsang said.
The two were separated from their pregnant mother and unborn brother, Dhuko, whom Anyetsang met 31 years later in a 1993 visit to Tibet. His father – a freedom fighter – died around 1967, as did his mother. His relatives from Tibet say she was found frozen to death after being tortured, he said. “Every day I think of them,” said Anyetsang, now a parent himself of a teenage son and a grown son.
Tuesday, Anyetsang was among a Bloomington contingent that made up about half the demonstrators. Bloomington’s Jigme Norbu – nephew of the Dalai Lama and son of March for Tibet’s Independence founder Thubten J. Norbu (known also by his spiritual name, Taktser Rinpoche) – is leading the March for Tibet’s Independence to Chicago.
It’s the eighth walk or ride coordinated by the International Tibet Independence Movement. Others included an April bike ride from Washington, D.C., to Toronto and a 55-mile walk September in Florida.
Aside from independence for Tibet, demonstrators called for the release of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche – who is scheduled to be executed by the Chinese government Thursday – and the “world’s youngest political prisoner,” Gendhu Choekyi Nyima. Nyima was arrested in 1995, three days after he was recognized by the Dalai Lama as the 11th Panchen Lama – the second-highest figure in the Tibetan religious hierarchy.
Tenzin Delek was arrested on charges he was connected with a bombing on April 3, 2002. The charges are “absolutely wrong,” especially given the monk’s peaceful nature, Norbu said.
While Anyetsang and his wife, Lhamo, will not be able to make the entire walk, Jigme Norbu and others, like Ngawang Norbu – no relation – of Boston were in it for the long haul. “We are ready to face it … we are ready to face any kind of situation ahead,” Ngawang Norbu said.
Bundled-up walkers will use roads that parallel I-65 en route to Chicago. Longer stretches include Ind. 52 through Lafayette and then Ind. 41 “through corn country,” according to walk logistics coordinator Charlie Roach of Anderson.
Walkers will stay overnight at churches along the way.
Ngawang Norbu said he believes the whole world should support “the peace lovers.” He fears that the next generation of Tibetans is more restless, frustrated and aggressive. He sees this in his four children, he said. “Terrorists are never born … they become when they are frustrated,” he said.
While he doesn’t condone attacks on civilians, he did not rule out targeting governmental officials ruling and supporting the Chinese regime if peaceful means don’t prevail. “You never know,” he said.
Census figures from Tibet’s exiled government attribute up to 1.2 million deaths so far to China’s occupation of the country. That includes about 428,000 who have died in prison or labor camps or from torture or execution.
Still, for now, the international weapons of choice for Tibetans outside Tibet and for their supporters are peaceful protest and education. To that end, a Tibetan independence group presented a program at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Indianapolis on Sunday. Demonstrators also stopped to give a presentation at Indiana University-Purdue University Tuesday. Educational presentations will be made all along the walk route.
Reporter Michael Schroeder can be reached at 331-4371 or by e-mail at mschroeder@heraldt.com.
