A SNAPSHOT AT KATHMANDU'S TIBETAN RECEPTION CENTER

C O N F I D E N T I A L KATHMANDU 000014 DEPT FOR G, PRM, DRL; GENEVA FOR RMA E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/28/2018 TAGS: PREL PREF PHUM NP CH IN SUBJECT: A SNAPSHOT AT KATHMANDU'S TIBETAN RECEPTION CENTER Classified By: Ambassador Nancy J. Powell, Reasons 1.5 b,d Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) For months following the virtual closure of the Tibet/Nepal border after the March 2008 protests in Lhasa, almost no new arrivals came from Tibet to Kathmandu's Tibetan Reception Center (TRC). By fall 2008 a small but steady number of Tibetans began to arrive at the TRC. To gain a picture of those who made the journey, post interviewed forty Tibetans in late November at the TRC. Most stated that their motivation for making the difficult journey was to practice their religion freely. Almost everyone spoke of their devotion to the Dalai Lama. Many also hoped to obtain a better education for themselves or their children. The refugees spoke of harassment by police and Chinese military, of constraints on religious practice and other aspects of daily life. For everyone, the journey was difficult, costly, and dangerous. A strong Chinese presence on the border continues to make it impossible for more than a few to leave. End summary. Overview -------------- ¶2. (C) As a result of China's effective closure of the Tibet/Nepal border following the March 2008 protests in Lhasa and the ensuing six months of near-constant protests in Kathmandu, the TRC in Kathmandu saw only a handful of new arrivals between March and September, 2008. Although in no way approaching the numbers expected during a "normal" year, summer's trickle of refugee arrivals at the TRC became a small stream during the fall. In November 2007 the TRC saw 280 arrivals, in November 2008 there were 89. According to reports from TRC officials and UNHCR, the fall arrivals looked very much like those in previous years. In order to gain a firsthand overview of the arrivals, however, Refcoord, together with post's Tibetan-speaking Conoff and Tibetan Visa Assistant, interviewed 40 of the 72 Tibetans present at the TRC on November 26, 2008. In addition to the 40 interviewed, 10 adults declined to be interviewed and 22 children under the age of 16 were not interviewed by mutual consent of the TRC's management and Refcoord. The refugees were questioned about their motives for leaving Tibet, methods of travel, problems encountered during the journey, intentions and hopes for the future, and about their backgrounds. All of those interviewed had arrived in November, most in the two weeks prior to the interview date. Demographics -------------- ¶3. (C) In many ways, the arrivals interviewed did look very much like the traditional pre-March arrivals, i.e., a majority were under thirty (26) and male (27),almost half were from Kham province, thirteen were monks, ten were farmers and seven each identified themselves either as nomads or as business people, three were students. When first asked about their motives for leaving Tibet, virtually everyone cited one or both of the two traditional motives: to seek an audience with the Dalai Lama and to further their education. Not Going Back -------------- ¶4. (C) Once past the initial, almost rote answers, virtually all of those interviewed revealed more complex motives, most stemming from heightened tensions in Tibet following the March protests and increased pressures and restrictions from the Chinese authorities. Significantly, all but two of those interviewed said that they had no intention of ever returning to China -- and the remaining two said they were uncertain whether to stay in India and would reassess their options later. This is in contrast to those who departed Tibet prior to March, who often declared their intention to return after they had obtained an education or achieved other goals in India. Almost everyone - monks and laity - cited restrictions on religious practice as a principal factor in their decision to leave Tibet. Also mentioned, although less often, were difficulties with ordinary business activities and lack of opportunity to pursue higher education. The Journey -------------- ¶5. (C) Another variance from pre-March arrivals was the method of travel to Nepal. In previous, "normal" years, many walked the majority of the way, making long and often perilous journeys through mountain passes in fall and winter, when the border was more lightly patrolled. By contrast, virtually everyone interviewed said that the border was still too heavily patrolled to permit that method of crossing. With the exception of a few who did the journey to Nepal on foot, all arranged their transport through a combination of paying "guides" and/or Chinese officials quite substantial sums of money -- ranging from about 4,000 to 10,000 yuan, with most paying about 6,000 yuan (about $878) -- to effect their passage. Hidden in Trucks -------------- ¶6. (C) Individuals from the provinces reported generally making their way to Lhasa via commercial transport. (The monks, without exception, said that they felt compelled to leave their robes and other indicators of monastic affiliation behind, as they feared they would encounter difficulties at the checkpoints, if not outright arrest if they attempted travel in their monastic robes.) Once in Lhasa, travelers either found someone to arrange their onward travel to Nepal through friends and relatives or just by asking around at Tibetan-run cafes. From Lhasa, the majority of those interviewed (specifically those who were unable to buy official or forged travel permits for the border region) were hidden in the back of trucks and concealed in the middle of the truck's cargo. At the border town of Dram or its outskirts, most were off-loaded and met by their pre-arranged guides. They then walked with the guides (a journey of 3 - 7 hours, depending on how far outside Dram they were deposited) to a pre-arranged crossing point at the river dividing Tibet and Nepal. They crossed the river via a rope and pulley suspended above the river handled by a guide on each side. They were generally then allowed to rest for several hours or overnight at the home of the guide on the Nepali side of the river before proceeding by car or truck to Kathmandu and the TRC. ¶7. (C) One woman reported that she traveled in the back of a truck from Shigatse to Dram for two and one/half days with her own three children and four others. (Two children had been entrusted to her care by other families in her village and two by the guide in Lhasa who arranged their transport.) The woman said that the group, which consisted of seven children ranging in age from six to fourteen, and herself, were not allowed out of the truck for the entire journey. The group was hidden in a hollowed out area of the cargo truck in a small space which she paced out during her interview and which looked to be about five feet by six feet. She said they designated one corner of the area as a toilet and were allowed to eat and drink only what they had brought with them. ¶8. (C) The few among those interviewed who managed to acquire travel permits for the border area followed the same pattern as the others once they arrived in Dram; meeting a guide in Dram and then walking to the spot where they could proceed across the river via the rope-and-pulley bridge. One young man's aunt, a businesswoman in the border area and frequent traveler between Nepal and Tibet, arranged for the young man to accompany her through Chinese and Nepali border formalities at the Friendship Bridge. His aunt, who was known to Nepali and Chinese border authorities, simply paid substantial bribes on both sides of the bridge. On Foot -------------- ¶9. (C) Two of the people who walked from Tibet to Nepal were young women who came together. The two, from nomad families in Utsang, walked five and half days through the border area to Nepal's Solukhumbu region to the district headquarters at Lukla. They said that they intended to fly from Lukla to Kathmandu but were initially not permitted to board by Nepali police at the airport, who told them they would be deported to China if they did not go back on their own. Instead, one of the young women contacted a relative, who arranged for them to obtain a letter from a local Nepali monastery stating that they were nuns. They cut their hair, donned robes and, with the aid of a bribe the relative paid to the airport police, were permitted to fly to Kathmandu about 10 days after their initial attempt. Both of the young women stated during their interviews that their purpose for leaving was to obtain an education and become nuns. ¶10. (C) Another woman who came on foot likewise walked from Utsang to Nepal. The woman, who was 42 years old, walked by herself for seven days carrying her (very active) 19-month-old son on her back. She described herself as a farmer and said that she left to escape serious domestic abuse and to protect her son and find a better life for him. She stated that she came down through Thanchhemu in Nepal, where she stayed for two months recuperating and gathering resources for the rest of the journey. She said she was given food, shelter and a tent by local shepherds and that a distant relative paid for a ticket for her to fly from Lukla to Kathmandu. ¶11. (C) The third group who traveled on foot was a family of nomads consisting of a couple, their three children (aged 4, 6, and 7),and the wife's 17-year-old brother. The family traveled from Saga to Mustang in Nepal and then from Mustang to Pokhara, where they were helped by Tibetans there to reach Kathmandu. The wife said that it was principally her decision to leave Tibet. She said that she wanted her children to be educated and that in their region children from the age of eight were forced to attend a Chinese boarding school, where they would lose their Tibetan culture and the ability to practice their religion. She added that the whole family intended to stay in India. ¶12. (C) The last group to travel by foot was a young woman (18) from Namlingzho who was accompanied by her elder brother. Her brother originally left Tibet in 1996. He had attempted and failed four years previously to return to Tibet to bring her to India. The young woman said that she and her brother were escorted by a guide and that during the last part of the trip, just before reaching Dram, they were chased by police (or the army she wasn't sure which) with dogs. Protests and Consequences - the Laity -------------- ¶13. (C) Every person interviewed from Lhasa -- and most from other towns and rural areas -- reported a greatly heightened police and army presence and an increased number of police checkpoints in towns and on roads, with regular stops and searches of public transport vehicles. All said that there was a much more rigid adherence to the rules governing residence permits, border permits, and citizenship cards and that officials who in the past might be persuaded to look the other way either were intent on enforcing residence or rules or demanding (more than the usual) in bribes to look the other way. Among the stories we heard: ¶14. (C) The young woman who traveled with her brother on foot (para 11) said that she participated in protests in March in Namlingzho. She said the police had photographed her throwing a Chinese pressure cooker into a fire. She said that, after the protests, the police came to her house many times but that she usually managed to hide from them. She stated that when the police returned in civilian clothes they did talk to her, showing her the picture and demanding that she go with them. She denied that the photo was of her and said that she gave the police her phone number and that through her insistence and by volunteering to talk to them later, they went away. After that, she went into hiding for five months and was eventually aided by her brother and friends to leave. She also reported that during the same protest where she threw the pressure cooker into the fire, she saw two young men, fellow protesters, shot by the police. ¶15. (C) A woman who ran a guesthouse for foreign tourists in Lhasa reported that she left Tibet with her 16-year-old daughter after police came to take her away for interrogation but returned her to her home because the police station was overwhelmed with others being interrogated. When the police brought her back to the guesthouse, they informed her they would be back in a week. Unsurprisingly, the woman, a widow, took that window of opportunity to escape Tibet with her only child. The woman said that she had been questioned repeatedly following the March protests about her frequent phone calls to foreigners and that she had been told by the police that her phone was tapped and warned to stop speaking to foreigners. She said that the police who came to take her away for interrogation also cited the phone calls to foreigners as the reason for the detention. The woman added that, generally, things in Lhasa were very bad, that the police presence was very heavy with armed police posted on rooftops all over the city and especially on the monasteries. She said that a close friend had been shot and killed by police during the protests. ¶16. (C) One man in his mid-thirties left Lhasa after being caught at a police checkpoint in the city without a valid residence permit. A businessman from Kham, he said that he had tried and failed many times to obtain a residence permit for Lhasa but had managed to travel back and forth between Kham and Lhasa -- spending most of his time in Lhasa -- for many years with just temporary permits. He stated that he had been unsuccessful in obtaining a Lhasa permit despite the fact that his wife is from Lhasa and does have a permit. He was caught at the police checkpoint in October and reported that he and about 20 others were rounded up at the checkpoint, told they were being arrested, then marched on foot toward a police station. He said he was able to escape from the group before they reached the station and that he left immediately afterward for Nepal. He said that he had not participated in the protests because he had a broken leg in March. He reported that life in Lhasa after March was very difficult with Chinese police and armed soldiers everywhere. He said that very few monks were seen on the streets of Lhasa and that many had been arrested or were staying within their monasteries. He added that most of the monks arrested were visitors from Kham or Shigatse and that the only monks on the streets were those with Lhasa residence permits. Interestingly, this refugee's fifteen-year-old son was also resident at the TRC, one of the 92 protesters without status in Nepal handed over to UNHCR in September for disposition by the Nepali government. The man said that he hoped that his son, who ran away from school in Mussoorie, India to join the protests in Kathmandu, would be readmitted to school and that his pregnant wife, left behind in Lhasa, would be able to join him and his son in India as soon as the baby was born. Protests and Consequences -- Monks -------------- ¶17. (C) Twelve of the thirteen monks interviewed reported that life in their monasteries had become much more difficult following the March protests. Most reported that religious practices had been constrained within and outside the monasteries and that their monasteries were under constant surveillance. (The thirteenth monk, who was from the Shugden sect, unsurprisingly claimed no official harassment or interference at his monastery.) The other twelve all stated that their motive for leaving Tibet was that the Chinese intimidation and restrictions on religious life had become intolerable to them. They also reported that Chinese officials were uniformly keeping strict tabs on the number of monks in the monastery and that no deviations from the authorized limits were tolerated (whereas in the past local officials were often known to look the other way). ¶18. (C) A 35-year-old monk from Lhagzhang monastery in Kham reported that, after the March protests, the Chinese military built a temporary camp surrounding the monastery buildings. Monks with citizenship cards were allowed to go in and out of the monastery, those without them were not. He also said that the Chinese were forcing everyone to get new cards and that not all those who previously had them were getting new ones. He explained that the Chinese were making it very difficult to apply for the new cards; each person had to present his whole family history and a letter from the local government confirming the right to remain. He said that the Chinese had told monks in his monastery in September that since the Olympics were over, more restrictions would come. They had also been warned of this by a local government official in the spring. The monk reported that all of the monks had been told to sign statements against the Dalai Lama and that they should publicly denounce him. The monk said that, among themselves, the monks speak privately about those who have been killed and their anger and fear. They are also worried that the number of monks permitted at the monastery will be reduced (although he confirmed that had not yet happened). ¶19. (C) A 28-year-old monk from Amdo reported that this was his second attempt to reach India. He had first tried to transit Bhutan to India with five other Tibetans but that the Bhutanese had caught them at the border and pushed them back. They were then arrested by the Chinese. They were first kept in a district prison for thirty days. Four of the six were able to pay 5,000 yuan to be released. The guide was kept in the prison and the monk was sent on to a special prison in Shigatse for 80 days. He was then sent to an Amdo district police station where he spent 15 days. He was released after paying a 2,000 yuan fine. After his release, he tried to return to his monastery but said the monastery couldn't take him back because of Chinese surveillance. Although imprisoned for trying to leave Tibet, he said he was not beaten or otherwise abused while in prison. When he could not be readmitted to his monastery, he said he tried to go to Lhasa to study English but was stopped by the police, who sent him back to Amdo. Since he saw no options in Tibet and anxiety everywhere, he felt he had to try again to go to India. ¶20. (C) A 23-year-old monk from Kham briefly reported that he felt so restricted in his religious practices -- specifically, that he was not able to show due reverence to the Dalai Lama -- that he felt compelled to leave Tibet. Another young monk relayed similar feelings, saying that there was no actual police presence at his monastery in Darsedo, but that local officials had imposed so many restrictions that he, likewise, felt there was no other alternative but to leave Tibet. A monk from the Nyarong district in Kham had a very similar story. No one in his monastery was allowed out of the monastery from March until after the Olympics, even then they were restricted from travel. He said the police checked the monastery constantly and that religious practices were severely restricted. He said that there were three surveillance cameras in the monastery so that religious practices could be observed. A young man from Lithang, not himself a monk, said he participated in protests during March and witnessed the shooting of several nuns. He said the Chinese removed their bodies and washed the street. (He stated that he left because he created a logo for use by local business people using a snow lion design which caused him to be questioned by the police.) Two other monks reported that all the monks in their monastery were forced to attend political education meetings by the Chinese. Immediately after the March protests, the meetings were held daily but by the summer had decreased to twice weekly. Problems with Education in Tibet -------------- ¶21. (C) Education was a frequently mentioned aspiration during the interviews. The desire for an education that included Tibetan cultural and religious practices was strong and frequently mentioned. In addition, however, all of the adults with children and several young people discussed the poor quality of education available in Tibet. Several spoke with great bitterness about the supposedly "free" education that actually was only available after paying very steep fees. Others spoke of compulsory education in Chinese boarding schools. Several of the young people commented that their teachers in Tibet were incompetent, often playing games with each other, sleeping, gambling, and drinking during school hours and that little teaching occurred. Comment -------------- ¶22. (C) Among the forty people interviewed, almost everyone reported harassment by Chinese officials and a pervasive, intimidating police and military presence, particularly in urban areas. Interestingly, although many of those interviewed had heard of Tibetans being killed and imprisoned, only a few reported personally knowing anyone who had been imprisoned or killed. If this group at all reflects the larger Tibetan population, however, the Chinese government's actions since March seem to have been successful in creating a climate of fear sufficient to stifle public dissent -- at least for now. POWELL