Tibetan Refugee Speaks on Campus

Gyatso, who spoke through interpreter Tenzin Wangchuk, addressed a crowd of more than 200 people in Hamilton Hall at the event sponsored by Students for a Free Tibet.

Tibet is a region located in the southwest corner of China. Although China considers it a part of the country, Gyatso and other Tibetan advocates consider it an autonomous region.

He said the Chinese government first deemed Tibet a part of the country in 1949, though Tibet had many nationalized services, like a postal service and national military, and had its own language and culture.

"The Chinese claim that Tibet is a part of China is totally baseless," Gyatso said.

Gyatso said he was arrested by Chinese authorities in 1959 and sentenced to seven years in prison without a trial. After attempting to escape, his sentence was extended 15 years. He was sent to a concentration camp, where he attempted to organize demonstrations against the Chinese, for which he was sentenced to nine more years.

Gyatso said his and others' imprisonment were tools of the Mao Zedong regime to reform the Tibetan people and rid them of their religion and culture.

He described the conditions in the prisons as unbearable, noting that the captives were given minimal amounts of food and were forced to work with little sleep. Gyatso said 70 percent of the Tibetan captives died in prison.

Gyatso showed the crowd tools he smuggled from the country that Chinese guards used to torture him and other prisoners, including whips and electrically charged rods.

Using these, the authorities would force the prisoners into admitting defiance of Chinese laws and disrespect for Communism, he said. Gyatso told of being scorched with boiling water until he lost consciousness and then being woken up with cold water to be questioned.

"These kind of interrogation sessions were endless," he said.

Gyatso said he was released in 1992 and fled to India. Since then, he has traveled the world to speak about his captivity. He has spoken before the U.S. Congress and the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva to address conditions in China. His autobiography has been published in 20 languages.

Gyatso urged the audience to write government officials and ask for the dissolving of U.S.-Chinese ties. But he added that the United States and other countries are too interested in trading with China for the economic benefits it brings. He also said people should avoid buying Chinese products that have been made by political prisoners.

But the most important thing is for people to spread awareness of the plight of the Tibetan people, Gyatso said.

"You should carry my story to the people of the free world," he said "You don't have to work day and night to do something."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.