Once upon a time there was a mystical kingdom called Shambala, fringed with the bewitching Everest and magical Kailas, home of the Hindu gods. Wise people also knew this land by the name Tibet. This land was then ravaged, captured by the forces of evil and turned into a nightmare world of genocide, electric shock torture and starvation. Palden Gyatso, a diminutive and elfin faced Tibetan monk only just escaped with his life.
Palden Gyatso once resembled a enchanted sprite, who could have skipped off the pages of a fairy tale, but he is now a broken man. His glorious Tibetan spirit has been crushed by half a lifetime of systematic terrorisation and torture at the hands of the Chinese. He is the only Tibetan I know that doesn't laugh, who has literally had the smile wiped off his face. A 70,000 volt cattle prod thrust down his throat knocking his teeth out saw to that.
This gentle Buddhist monk suffered 30 years incarceration for peacefully protesting to the illegal Chinese occupation of Tibet. His story is a mixture of fearlessness and terrifying naivete. On his first release from a Dachau style prison he covered Lhasa, Tibet's capital city, with posters demanding the liberation of Tibet. He put his name at the bottom of every notice.
For this the Chinese imprisoned and tortured him for twenty years. He said `the only drive to stay alive was to tell the world what is happening in Tibet'.
He finally escaped from Tibet, walking over the Himalayas to India. He took with him instruments of torture he'd obtained by bribery from corrupt prison guards. He reached London this year to tell his tale.
He told me that since Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, one sixth of the population have perished. Some died of starvation in the terrible famine that followed the invasion, many expired in Chinese prisons and labour camps, others simply disappeared. Every family has lost at least one member.
I saw the torture devices that had been used on him, electric cattle prods and more sinister still, thumb screws, which resembled nothing more than toy hand cuffs. So innocent looking, but so cruel. You could try this yourself: scratch your back just between your shoulder blades by stretching one hand over your shoulder, if that doesn't reach use the other hand from underneath. Get someone to pull your thumbs together in this position and place sharpened wire, that slices your flesh every time you move, round them. This is just one of a myriad of disgusting tortures devised by the Chinese. Palden Gyatso experienced them all.
Gyatso, in his quest to tell the world that is happening in Tibet, suffers from bouts of insecurity and feels helpless. `I am just an old man what can I do, there are millions of Chinese and I am just one old man with only a short life to live'. He then reminds himself that it only took one man to write `Das Kapital'. No wonder he says `Individuals are very powerful'. Palden Gyatso's life has been a horrific testament to the strength of the words of one man- Mao Tse Tung.
Palden Gyatso has the qualities of a great fairy tale hero, he has overcome and escaped from terrible danger and remained brave and honest throughout. Every child could tell us that what has to happen now : China's evil doings should be exposed and some nasty punishment needs to be dished out. Yet the West is bending over backwards to keep the big bad wolf happy and evil prevails. Has the world become so corrupt that we're going to let China destroy the most magical kingdom on earth and get away with murder? We should refuse to buy goods from companies that invest in, or export goods from, China. All the labels of our bargain basement goodies need to be checked and dirty weekends in theHoliday Inn are completely out. And we should force our government to realise that since UN admonishment has no effect, economic sanctions must be imposed.
Palden Gyatso has suffered enough. As he says `Individuals are very powerful'. You can do something to insure that he lives happily ever after.
Copyright © 1995 The International Communique Ltd