Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
As preparations for the performance drew near, however, the Dalai Lama's security
chief was surprised to hear that the Dalai Lama was expected to attend in secrecy and
without his customary contingent of 25 bodyguards. Despite the Dalai Lama's agreement
to these conditions, news of them soon leaked, and in no time simmering frustration at
Chinese rule came to the boil among the crowds on the streets. It seemed obvious to the
Tibetans that the Chinese were about to kidnap the Dalai Lama. A huge crowd (witnesses
claim 30,000 people) gathered around the Norbulingka (the Dalai Lama's summer palace)
and swore to protect him with their lives.
The Dalai Lama had no choice but to cancel his appointment at the military base. In the
meantime, the crowds on the streets were swollen by Tibetan soldiers, who changed out of
their People's Liberation Army (PLA) uniforms and started to hand out weapons. A group
of government ministers announced that the 17-Point Agreement was null and void, and
that Tibet renounced the authority of China.
The Dalai Lama was powerless to intervene, managing only to pen some conciliatory
letters to the Chinese as his people prepared for battle on Lhasa's streets. In a last-ditch ef-
fort to prevent bloodshed, the Dalai Lama even offered himself to the Chinese. The reply
came in the sound of two mortar shells exploding in the gardens of the Norbulingka. The
attack made it obvious that the only option remaining to the Dalai Lama was flight (a
measure the Nechung oracle agreed with). On 17 March, he left the Norbulingka disguised
as a soldier and surrounded by Khampa bodyguards; 14 days later he was in India. The
Dalai Lama was 24 years old.
With both the Chinese and the Tibetans unaware of the Dalai Lama's departure, tensions
continued to mount in Lhasa. On 20 March, Chinese troops began to shell the Norbulingka
and the crowds surrounding it, killing hundreds of people. Artillery bombed the Potala,
Sera Monastery and the medical college on Chagpo Ri. Tibetans armed with petrol bombs
were picked off by Chinese snipers, and when a crowd of 10,000 Tibetans retreated into
the sacred precincts of the Jokhang, that too was bombed. It is thought that after three days
of violence, hundreds of Tibetans lay dead in Lhasa's streets. Some estimates put the num-
bers of those killed far higher.
Neither Mao Zedong nor Deng Xiaoping ever visited Tibet.
